This article reports on the mission of the Office for Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Education to ensure equal access to education through compliance reviews. The Office hopes to use these reviews to provide technical assistance to help districts improve their performance. In late March, the Los Angeles Unified School District became the…

States and school districts receive funding through ESEA, IDEA, and national school meals programs. Some requirements for these programs are intended to help ensure program integrity and transparency, among other purposes, but questions have been raised about whether some federal requirements place an undue burden on states and school districts.…

Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, a federal program to provide additional assistance to academically struggling students in high-poverty areas, has long contained a provision called the "supplement-not-supplant" requirement. This provision was designed to ensure Title I funds were spent on extra educational services…

Objective: To determine whether differences in nutrition knowledge affected how women (a high-involvement group) interpreted intrinsic cues (ingredient list) and extrinsic cues ("all natural" label) on food labels. Methods: A 2 (intrinsic cue) x 2 (extrinsic cue) x 2 (nutrition knowledge expert vs novice) within-subject factorial design…

The Race to the Top (RTTT) program, announced by the Obama Administration in 2009, represented the largest competitive grant in the history of U.S. education. Despite the amount of money available and the dire condition of most state budgets in that year, however, some states chose not to apply for funding and the remainder submitted applications…

Cross-sectional data reveal alarming financial situations among 2009 MSW graduates from 25 states and their loan decisions (N=260). More than a quarter of the participants owe at least $40,000 in educational loans from their MSW degree, and 30% borrowed at least $30,000 of their total college education debt. Expensive credit cards are used more…

Tobacco has been an agricultural staple from the time of the first recorded European encounter with the plant in the fifteenth century. The pervasive nature of its cultivation and consumption has made tobacco one of the most profitable crops in world agricultural history. This case study examines the role of tobacco in the global marketplace with…

On February 17, 2009, President Obama signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). The Act commits $100 billion to education, with $8.5 billion allocated to California. Education programs to receive funding through ARRA include Local Education Agency Title I Grants, Educational Technology Grants, IDEA Grants, Federal…

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said that he plans to demand radical steps--such as firing most of a school's staff or converting it to a charter school--as the price of admission in directing $3.5 billion in new school improvement aid to the nation's 5,000 worst-performing schools. In sharp contrast to the current free-flowing nature of…

The goal of this paper is to verify up to what point ELT textbooks used in Spanish educational settings comply with the official regulations prescribed, which fully advocate the Communicative Language Teaching Method (CLT). For that purpose, seven representative coursebooks of different educational levels and modalities in Spain--secondary, upper…

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) is the primary federal legislation establishing national wage and hour standards. The purpose of the Act is to protect the working class from overwork and underpay by providing non-waivable rights to a minimum wage and a premium pay rate at time and one-half the regular rate of pay for all hours worked over 40…

We provide the first empirical assessment of commenter influence during the rule development stage of administrative rulemaking. We argue that public commenters play a critical agenda-setting role during rule development. To test this proposition, we analyze data from 36 Department of Transportation rules and almost 500 comments. Each of these…

New regulations for the Family Rights and Privacy Act (Ferpa), which governs the privacy of student records, become effective this month. Announced by the Department of Education in December 2008, the regulations empower colleges to act appropriately and decisively to protect the health and safety of students and others. They also signify a new…

This paper presents the Committee on Education and the Workforce's hearing examining the adverse impact extensive federal regulations and reporting requirements have on teachers, administrators and students in elementary and secondary schools. Too many schools and school districts are overwhelmed by unnecessary paperwork requirements. Currently,…

This paper presents the rules and guidelines of the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair 2011 to be held in Los Angeles, California in May 8-13, 2011. In addition to providing the rules of competition, these rules and guidelines for conducting research were developed to facilitate the following: (1) protect the rights and welfare of…