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…

National reports have raised concerns about the physical accessibility of public school facilities for people with disabilities. These facilities serve important roles as schools, voting locations, and emergency shelters, among other things. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) was asked to examine the physical accessibility of public school…

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…

Prior research has classified strategies to facilitate adult learners' transitions to postsecondary opportunities into five broad categories: advising, General Educational Development-plus (GED-plus), English as a second language, career pathways, and college preparatory (Zafft, Kallenbach, & Spohn, 2006). This two-part study relied on…

"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) ESEA on the Way?: Harkin Eyes Next Month for Possible Committee Action on ESEA Reauthorization; (2)…

This report examines the problem of school facility disparities in Michigan and the prospects of litigation to address this problem. First, the authors briefly review evidence of the important impact of school facilities on students, teachers, and communities. They then provide an overview of litigation aimed at state school finance systems across…

"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) Bush Budget Proposes Spending Freeze for U.S. Department of Education: Title I, Striving Readers, Statewide Data…

Michigan's 9-member Task Force on Migrant Labor, established in 1969, was charged by the governor (1) to develop and provide for carrying out more effective ways to coordinate the functions of state government, to better utilize available resources, and to enforce existing laws; (2) to determine whether existing law in this field is adequate or…

Explores the public's misconception about lotteries' intended purpose and actual use. To avoid attacks on its legitimacy (and bloated bureaucratic structure), government is relying on lotteries as policy tools. Generating public funds through lotteries appears to meet education's needs while masking the relative drop in tax-based public finance.…

This report, last in a series describing employment and training needs of Hispanics in Michigan, synthesizes the information presented in preceding volumes in order to identify target group needs and make recommendations for policy formulation and program development. Chapter I describes the study's scope and method. Chapter II provides a…

The problem of mentally ill offenders is discussed in this report. Mentally ill offenders are described as generally not violent, with their behavior resulting in charges such as shoplifting, vagrancy, and trespassing. Factors increasing the number of mentally ill offenders are discussed, including the inability of families and communities to…

This paper and the accompanying data describe health-related expenditures made by Michigan state government agencies from fiscal year 1978 through fiscal year 1984. Expenditures represented in the data include resources received from the federal government. (The data exclude certain expenditures which might be considered health-related, such as:…

States vary considerably in how they choose to monitor home school families. Policies range from no involvement to requiring yearly portfolios detailing the student's achievement and academic progress. Respecting the right of parents to choose how they wish to educate their children while holding parents accountable for the education their…

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

The contents of this volume published by the Center for Law and Education, which was established to protect and advance the legal interests of the poor through research and action on the legal implications of educational policies, include the following articles: "Introduction" and "Sexism in Public Education: Litigation…