Despite the myriad of challenges that families, students, teachers and policymakers faced in 2021, the momentum to transform education did not waver. New opportunities for students unfolded in more than a dozen states through expanded private and public school choice. An additional 1.7 million students gained eligibility for private choice alone,…

In "Redefining the School District in America," Nelson Smith reexamines existing recovery school districts (RSDs)--entities in Louisiana, Tennessee, and Michigan charged with running and turning around their state's worst schools--and assembles the most comprehensive catalog of similar initiatives underway and under consideration…

Our elected officials have some big math problems to solve this year, from an unsustainable $3.7 billion deficit to zero job growth. Education is the most important investment we make in our state's future, but it's where we're getting the worst return on our money. Low-income students are further behind in Connecticut than in every other state,…

"From the Courtroom to the Classroom" examines recent developments pertaining to school desegregation in the United States. As the editors note, it comes at a time marked by a "general downplaying of race and ethnicity as criteria for the allocation of public resources, as well as a weakening of the political forces that support…

Examines the literature on school choice and desegregation, reviewing the 1997 laws that constituted Connecticut's response to the 1996 state Supreme Court Sheff v. O'Neill desegregation ruling. Presents data on how the new policies have affected the attendance patterns of students belonging to different racial groups, concluding with a discussion…

Home schooling is one form of school choice that is on the increase. During the 1993-94 school year, Connecticut school officials estimated that there were 1,113 home-instructed students in the state, an increase of 305 students from the previous year and a 1,384 percent increase since 1983. This paper presents findings of a case study that…

This study analyzed data from year 1 of Project Choice, Connecticut's response to Sheff v. O'Neill, a 1989 school desegregation lawsuit. Project Choice is an interdistrict transfer program modeled on a program that began in Hartford in 1966. It allows suburban children to attend urban schools. For each child participating, the district where the…

The Workforce Investment Act (WIA) of 1998 requires that workforce investment areas establish individual training accounts (ITAs) that provide vouchers customers can use to pay for training. The United States Department of Labor is supporting the ITA experiment, during which new customers determined to be eligible for training will be randomly…