In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Congress has allocated just under $190 billion to support K-12 education. As Maria Ferguson explains, these much-needed funds will require states and districts to make plans for how best to use them, and the planning process is complicated in districts that are already stretched and facing…

In recent years, the federal government (under Republican and Democratic administrations alike) has encouraged the outsourcing of core parts of public education's work, including testing and test preparation, teaching and tutoring, data collection, and human resources management. However, researchers have found little evidence to support policy…

In 2016, the federal government proposed and adopted the Every Student Succeeds Act, which retracted the federal government's prior control over states' teacher evaluation systems, permitting more local control. Kevin Close, Audrey Amrein-Beardsley, and Clarin Collins collected information from states to determine the degree to which states were…

Over the last two decades, federal and state policy makers have launched a number of ambitious, large-scale education reform initiatives--No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, the Common Core State Standards, and others--only to see them sputter and fail. In 2017, the authors convened a number of leading scholars to explore why those initiatives…

Today we look to determine teaching quality through a combination of observation, surveys, and test scores. These measures fail to answer the most important question about quality teaching: How is it accomplished? How has this teacher used questioning today, and what drove their decision to do so? How has this teacher structured independent…

Under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), federal education mandates will be decreasing, which means states will have more flexibility and authority than they've had in decades. State education agency (SEA) leaders are confronting great change and great opportunity as many agencies move away from a focus on compliance with federal regulations,…

Describes Ohio's efforts (including supplemental state legislation) to implement the new federal legislation on handicapped children and points out implications this legislation may have for all education in the areas of parental involvement and individualization of instruction. (IRT)

Outlines the Elementary Secondary Education Act's positive effect on education in breaking the federal aid logjam, spotlighting the needs of children, fueling the equality movement, promoting parental and community involvement, promoting public/nonpublic cooperation, promoting the accountability movement, and strengthening the federal system.…

Discusses issues related to Congress's reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Act in 2002. (PKP)

Bilingual education can be a great force in fostering educational change in America by providing a child with a full understanding of his cultural heritage and a deep respect for all it implies. Such a program treats the child whose mother tongue is other than English as advantaged, and involves the parent and the community in the fabric of the…

Discusses congressional action on the various tuition tax credit bills proposed through July 1978. (IRT)

In the absence of any new Presidential initiatives, no new federal intervention looms for education. The congressional mood is concerned with fine-tuning programs already on the books--making them work better for schools and students. It is certainly not with dreaming up expansive (and expensive) new programs. (Author/IRT)

Outlines provisions of the National Energy Policy Conservation Act of 1978, which provides federal financing for energy conservation programs in the public schools. (IRT)

Advocates instituting steps to ensure fairness in peer reviews in the awarding of federal grants and creating new standards for awarding grants in those cases where competition is not appropriate. (IRT)