This article reports on the eroding power of state school boards in the U.S. as lawmakers and governors are seeking to expand their authority over K-12 education and, in some cases, reverse education policy set in motion by elected or appointed panels. This year alone, state boards in Florida, Ohio, and Vermont are targets of legislation that…

Legislators are now drawing on information from online program assessment rating tools to determine funding allocations for government programs. Clearly, assessment is now a critical factor in education programs and the grants that support these programs. In this article, the author provides some key elements that an institution can implement to…

Skepticism among lawmakers in Congress that colleges are adequately trying to control costs may hinder legislation that would extend tax breaks for higher education, according to the chairman of the influential Senate Finance Committee. Senator Max S. Baucus said skepticism on Capitol Hill has been fueled by anger over multimillion-dollar coaches'…

Lobbying and lobbyists are integral components of federal and state public policymaking for higher education at the federal and state levels. While the actions and goals of lobbyists appear to be straightforward, the lobbying tactics selected by lobbyists vary for different situations and in different contexts (Browne, 1985; Cook, 1998; Gladieux &…

The spectacular recent success of state-funded preschool education is revealed and explained in this absorbing study. A quiet revolution has been underway in American education policy since 1995, with forty-one states and the District of Columbia creating some form of state-funded preschool learning. Brenda K. Bushouse tells why it became…

The American Federation of Teachers-West Virginia (AFT-WV) passed safe schools legislation in March 2008. To better understand how AFT-WV influenced the creation and eventual passage of safe schools legislation, several researchers conducted a case study examining the event and the circumstances surrounding it. In particular, they were interested…

This paper presents the Higher Education, Lifelong Learning, and Competitiveness Subcommittee's fourth hearing in preparation for the reauthorization of the Workforce Investment Act. As with its previous hearings, this paper focuses on new innovations and best practices that will improve the workforce development system. In this paper, attention…

This paper presents the Higher Education, Lifelong Learning, and Competitiveness Subcommittee's fifth hearing in preparation for the reauthorization of the Workforce Investment Act. The last time the Workforce Investment Act reauthorized was in 1998. The Workforce Investment Act was designed to streamline and coordinate job training programs. It…

Endowments of major universities such as Cornell have received much attention over the past few years. Last academic year, the U.S. Senate Finance Committee launched an investigation into the finances of universities with endowments that exceeded $500 million dollars and required all of these universities to file reports detailing their finances.…

The economic meltdown has hit U.S. college campuses, and higher education is on the chopping block in state budgets, with cuts totaling hundreds of millions of dollars already approved and hundreds of millions in more cuts on the way. As veteran legislators, the authors have seen this story play out before in previous recessions. The mindset on…

Rising juvenile crime rates during the 1970s and 1980s spurred state legislatures across the country to exclude or transfer a significant share of offenders under the age of eighteen to the jurisdiction of the criminal court, essentially redrawing the boundary between the juvenile and adult justice systems. Jeffrey Fagan examines the legal…

It is nearly a full decade into the 21st Century and unfortunately many schools are still using the term "21st Century teaching" as a far-off, futuristic idea. The fact of the matter is that the longer schools wait to use technology in their classrooms, the further behind their global peers students will become. With some research, creativity, and…

Supporters and critics of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) agree on only one thing and that the law should be fixed and quickly. However, it looks that Congress will not be able to make much progress in addressing the flaws of NCLB this year. This circumstance will endanger the prospects that the revision of the law might not be completed…

Many people in the early childhood education field are afraid of government relations work, intimidated by politicians, and believe the whole process is unseemly. The author asserts that they should not be afraid nor be intimidated because government relations is not rocket science and fundamentally officeholders are no different from the rest of…

Early-onset schizophrenia appears to be clinically more severe than the adult-onset form of the disease. In a previous study, we showed that anatomically related grey and white matter abnormalities found in adolescents patients were larger and more widespread than what had been reported in the literature on adult schizophrenia. Particularly, we…