All of the states in this study have recently been involved in school accountability system reform. Since 2011, the states have taken advantage of a federal program to give them flexibility around certain requirements of the "No Child Left Behind Act" of 2001 (NCLB), the most recent reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary…

This paper presents the appendices included in the "Good Discipline: Legislation for Education Reform" report. Appended are: (1) Federal Data Requirements; (2) Maryland State Law Requiring Positive Behavioral Interventions and Support Program when suspension rates exceed a certain level; (3) The Act's provisions focused on training and…

In this article, the author provides legal explanations to the following concerns: (1) case law on specific learning disability (SLD) eligibility; (2) recent developments on response to intervention (RTI); (3) Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) rules; and (4) the Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) regulation. The author's…

Four months after President Barack Obama made education a centerpiece of his State of the Union address, lawmakers charged with reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act are beginning to sketch out their own visions for aspects of the law's renewal. The prospects that Congress will meet the president's goal--a comprehensive,…

Online learning is rapidly becoming one of the most prevalent delivery methods of learning in institutions of higher education. It provides college students, especially adult students, an alternative, convenient, and cost-efficient method to earn their credentials, upgrade their skills and knowledge, and keep or upgrade their employment. But at…

Despite the extensive testing for federal accountability mandates, college students' understanding of federal accountability testing (e.g., No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, Spellings) has not been examined, resulting in a lack of knowledge regarding how such understanding (or lack thereof) impacts college students' behavior on accountability…

In this response to Spaulding et al.'s examination of state education agency (SEA) guidance on severity ratings, these authors contend that Spaulding et al. provided an incomplete view of current practices in public schools. These authors state that, ultimately, school speech-language pathologists (SLPs) must follow all state regulations and local…

For-profit, or proprietary, colleges are the fastest growing postsecondary schools in the nation, enrolling a disproportionately high share of disadvantaged and minority students and those ill-prepared for college. Because these schools--many of them big national chains--derive most of their revenue from taxpayer-funded student financial aid, they…

This article discusses the implementation this year of the Department of Education's Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 (HEOA), which requires accreditors to ensure that an institution that offers distance or correspondence education has a process in place to establish that a student who registers in a course or program is also the same…

There is no evidence that physically restraining or putting children in unsupervised seclusion in the K-12 school system provides any educational or therapeutic benefit to a child. In fact, use of either seclusion or restraints in non-emergency situations poses significant physical and psychological danger to students. Yet the first round of data…

As the poor performance of U.S. high schools has been acknowledged and come to the forefront of education policy debates over the past several years, so too has a recognition of the need to improve graduation rate calculations and accountability for increasing those rates. A range of state, national, and federal efforts have been launched toward…

The purpose of this document is to determine whether revocation of parental consent is currently posing a challenge for states and to describe how states are responding to this new provision. Although parental consent has always played a central role in Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the new provision allowing revocation of parental…

The No Child Left Behind law fundamentally changed the expectations and data that schools should have for their English language learner students. The landmark 1974 Lau v. Nichols Supreme Court case concluded that students who speak English as a second language have a right to a "meaningful education." But No Child Left Behind--a…

"Straight A's: Public Education Policy and Progress" is a biweekly newsletter that focuses on education news and events both in Washington, DC and around the country. The following articles are included in this issue: (1) Obama Outlines Education Agenda: President Calls for "World-Class Standards" and an End to the High School…

The purpose of this paper is to promote clearer understanding of the graduation-rate debate by distilling the policy developments and controversy surrounding the measurement of these rates over the last decade. The paper concludes with a discussion of the move toward a federally mandated common metric for graduation rates. The No Child Left Behind…