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…

On an Election Day filled with dozens of state races and ballot measures with big implications for the nation's public schools, state teachers' unions and charter school champions had plenty to cheer in the aftermath, even as tax measures that would help pay for schools suffered setbacks in some places. Union efforts were instrumental in…

When it comes to public-sector pensions, writes lead author Michael B. Lafferty in this report, "A major public-policy (and public-finance) problem has been defined and measured, debated and deliberated, but not yet solved. Except where it has been." As recounted in "Halting a Runaway Train: Reforming Teacher Pensions for the 21st…

America's K-12 education system faces three significant challenges: (1) increased global demands for skilled workers, (2) significant financial shortfalls, and (3) a looming teacher shortage. Independently, these factors present significant challenges for U.S. schools. In combination, they create a national imperative for swift action to create a…

"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…

Discusses recent cases involving the immunity doctrines, analyzes those in light of competing policies involved when an immunity issue is raised, and explains balance between the policy of providing adequate redress and that of shielding public servants. Available from Wayne Law Review, Wayne State University Law School, 468 West Ferry Street,…

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…

In 1988, the Michigan Community Coordinated Child Care (4C) Association was established to help develop a statewide child care policy and to provide support to a network of 13 local and regional 4C agencies. One of the association's first major tasks was to describe the state of child care and related services in Michigan and to make…

A clear and effective relationship between the State and Federal governments is needed in pursuing school desegregation. The lack of State and Federal government congruence results in a desegregation policy that emanates from judicial decrees on a district by district basis. In Michigan, inconsistencies among districts and between Federal and…