This topic paper details how dual and concurrent enrollment programs can help states overcome workforce readiness and postsecondary access and completion challenges and how governors can strengthen these programs by using their bully pulpit, agenda setting authority and budgetary authority to do so. It concludes with a number of examples of how…

Rural America is rapidly becoming more diverse, yet rural communities remain different from their urban and suburban counterparts. Despite several decades of economic hardship in rural areas, rural schools are under researched by scholars and under prioritized by policymakers. Therefore, this study was designed to better understand how school and…

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…

The "Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965" ("ESEA") is the nation's key policy driver for elementary and secondary education, shaping federal, state and district efforts to promote effective school systems and improve educational outcomes, particularly for students in high-poverty schools. The most recent…

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,…

Throughout the United States, administrators and teachers in American high schools face mounting pressure to increase the academic rigor of their curriculum in an effort to prepare students for postsecondary education and workforce success. Career and technical education (CTE) courses have often been overlooked in the public debate about making…

Response to intervention (RTI) can be both a system for providing early interventions to struggling students and a special education diagnostic tool for evaluating and identifying students with specific learning disabilities. Contributing to the very limited literature on state-level approaches, this report describes how nine states define and…

Response to intervention (RTI) is a framework for providing interventions and services at increasing levels of intensity until students succeed. The framework helps teachers and schools provide instruction and interventions matched to student needs, monitor progress frequently to guide decisions about changes in instruction or goals, and apply…

Discussed are early childhood policy issues and options for Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. Section I explores federal and state directions in terms of levels of policy making, federal and state issues, and interested parties. Section II focuses on policy issues in its discussions of the political climate, long-term…

The Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory's depiction study of early childhood education and care programs in the Northwest and Hawaii documents the extent of program development in the region. In four sections, this report of the study: (1) describes the emerging structure of early childhood services, reviewing key findings and projecting…

The "State Teacher Policy Yearbook" examines what is arguably the single most powerful authority over the teaching profession: state government. This Washington 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…

Detailed are early childhood education and care services in six Pacific and Northwestern States: Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. Section I discusses the need for early childhood education and care in terms of the prevention of educational and social failure and the changing composition of the work force. Section II, which…

The Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (WIA) was the first significant attempt to retool the nation's workforce development programs since the early 1980s. Titles I-V of the WIA do the following things: (1) establish the purposes, goals and operational framework of a workforce development system designed to increase participants' employment,…