As the most recent reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) provides to public and private school students and schools wide-ranging academic and educational supports. This paper provides a historical review of: (1) the federal government's role in education; (2) the creation and…

Today's education landscape, including how students experience school, can reflect pervasive educational inequities. Past federal administrations and congresses, recognizing their critical role in addressing inequality, often acted to address disparities and violations of students' civil rights that had been left unresolved by states and…

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…

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…

This report calls upon Michigan's state leaders to quickly develop and implement solution-based approaches to both support the long-term recovery of student learning, as well as address the longstanding inequities and underperformance that have plagued Michigan's education system for decades. Building upon last year's recommendations, which called…

In "Durant v. State of Michigan," resulting in a $212 million settlement to 83 districts, the Michigan Supreme Court addressed state deficiencies in funding special education. This article examines implications of "Durant" for other educational programs. Michigan is still trying to shun responsibility for educating disabled…

This study examines whether there is disproportionate discipline of minority students in Michigan's public schools and assesses the enforcement efforts of State and Federal agencies to ensure equal educational opportunity in this regard. The extent to which minority students were being disproportionately suspended and expelled was studied, as were…

Drastic reform of the nation's public education system is called for in this paper. It is argued that technological advances and social changes in the past quarter century have given schools a new role and purpose, particularly with regard to the education of blacks. Specific changes which have been implemented in the Michigan Public Schools are…

This report on school desegregation consists of two parts. Part one is made up of two case studies designed to explore the manner in which Federal and State compensatory education policies affect educational equity at the local level in two Michigan districts that have been desegregated for several years. The degree of educational equity in the…