With the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act, states have increased latitude over school improvement and accountability policies. At the same time, school takeover via state-run turnaround districts has emerged as a prominent education reform. Although policies takeover influence how teachers are prepared, supported, and evaluated, little is…

College students who are parents or caregivers of dependent children make up more than one in five U.S. undergraduates. Colleges need basic information about the experiences and outcomes of the student parents they serve, since these students face distinct challenges, including high rates of economic insecurity and significant time and caregiving…

By combining an overall vision for the use of data, a commitment to protecting student privacy and data integrity, and supportive legislation, Georgia emerged as a leader in the effective use of student data. But it easily could have gone another way. None of the three elements could be taken for granted when Georgia set out to develop its state…

The May 2012 State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA) report, "The Broadband Imperative: Recommendations to Address K-12 Education Infrastructure Needs," pushed educators and policy makers nationwide to increase high-speed broadband access in schools, with specific recommendations regarding access, funding, and policies…

"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) Senate Committee Passes Education Appropriations Bill; (2) Upside Down: New Alliance Brief Says Federal Education…

Reports on rationales that states have used to support recent early childhood education (ECE) initiatives and describes how reform policies were made in 1971-73 in West Virginia, California, Georgia, New Mexico, and Ohio. Outlines background and initiation of reform, building of support for ECE, opposition, and resulting legislation. (Author/GC)

The results of a one-year project to determine the status of provisions for consumer education throughout the country are reported in this document. A section on the observations and recommendations of the advisory committee of the consumer's education project serves as the document's introduction. Part I, background and overview, analyzes the…

While current early education and care funding still reaches only a fraction of preschool children, some states now have considerable experience in coordinating subsidized child care, Head Start, and state prekindergarten initiatives to enhance early education and learning opportunities for young children. Drawing on the experiences of Georgia,…

This report examines efforts by 12 formerly segregated states (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia) to desegregate their higher education systems and increase educational opportunities for black and other minority students. It found that none of the…

The "State Teacher Policy Yearbook" examines what is arguably the single most powerful authority over the teaching profession: state government. This Georgia edition of the National Council on Teacher Quality's (NCTQ's) "State Teacher Policy Yearbook" is the first of what will be an annual look at the status of state policies…

Addressing often neglected broad issues, rather than the pragmatics of test development and administration, this Conference on Minimum Competency Achievement Testing was organized around six topics: (1) social and philosophical roots, uniqueness among testing movements, and policy issues; (2) legal, curricular, and social-demographic consequences;…