Our 31st annual report analyzing data from southeast Wisconsin's public school districts finds that while 68 of the 92 school districts are exceeding or significantly exceeding expectations on our new state report cards, there are large achievement gaps across the region on state assessments for low-income students and students of color. Key…

Our 32nd annual report analyzing data from southeast Wisconsin's public school districts finds progress on some college readiness indicators and largely positive showings on district report cards. Those results are offset, however, by discouraging results on standardized tests and continued substantial achievement gaps between students of…

To improve student access and success in North Dakota University System institutions, the State Board of Higher Education has implemented enrollment policies that better reflect the differentiated missions of research universities, regional universities, and community colleges. This report addresses the transition in policy by grouping data by…

"Education for All" (EFA) identifies goals and targets and translates these into indicators which are used to evaluate progress and influence flows of external financing. The search for evidence based policy depends on measures of performance that can link cause and effect and that represent real gains in progress towards desired…

To improve student access and success in North Dakota University System (NDUS) institutions, the State Board of Higher Education has implemented enrollment policies that better reflect the differentiated missions of research universities, regional universities, and community colleges. This report addresses the transition in policy by grouping data…

This article is an update of a previous study by the author which examined the growth of elementary and public school revenues for school years 1982-1983 through 1991-1992 (Alexander 1997). Using the same framework, this study provides an analysis of the factors accounting for changes in real per-pupil revenues across the 50 states and the…

For the last 30 years, the Public Policy Forum has collected and analyzed education data to produce an annual report on the demographics, academic performance, and finances of public school districts in southeast Wisconsin. In the three decades of producing this report, few years have exhibited as much change and transformation as this one. The…

In the early twentieth century, education legislation was often passed based on arguments that new laws were needed to force immigrants to learn English and "Americanize." We provide the first estimates of the effect of statutes requiring English as the language of instruction and compulsory schooling laws on the school enrollment, work, literacy…

After a brief review of the achievements and the problems in compulsory education enrollment in the thirty years since the reform and opening up, this study analyzes the current compulsory education enrollment and dropout rates in China's least-developed regions and the factors affecting school enrollment based on survey data from a small sample…

This dissertation comprises three essays that empirically examine the educational outcomes of for-profit college students, military enlistees and immigrant youth. All of these are groups of "non-average" students that, in different contexts, pose challenges to the traditional provision of education. Therefore, their outcomes need to be…

California legislature made a policy change with Senate Bill (SB) 1644 (2000), shifting Cal Grant Programs to focus on entitlement; counter to the national trend of merit based grant programs. This article describes a study examining effectiveness and extent to which SB 1644 is meeting its legislative objectives: increase in higher education…

While access to higher education has reached gender parity in Taiwan, the phenomenon of gender segregation and stratification by fields of study and by division of labor persist. In this article, we trace the historical evolution of Taiwan's education system and data using large-scale educational databases to analyze the association of…

Responding to concerns that charter schools do not provide equal access to students with disabilities, advocates in districts, states, and courts across the country have sought to improve such access. Adding to these concerns, the U.S. Government Accountability Office recently released a report showing that charter schools, on average, serve a…

One of the original purposes of student financial aid was to ensure fairer access to post-secondary education to those least able to afford it and to those traditionally underrepresented. Various federal and state programs were put in place to achieve this goal, including the federal Pell Grant and state aid programs. Yet policymakers and…

This brief report offers analysis of ACT and SAT results from 2008 to 2013 in the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) region. The brief focuses on the increase in test participation rates and points to policies that SREB states initiated that affected these rates. Five SREB states currently require 100 percent student participation on the…