Through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) the federal government is pumping nearly $790 billion dollars into state and local coffers to strengthen the United States economy. In order to stimulate the economy as quickly as possible, states are being asked to invest much of this funding into regions within 30 days, and to have the…

When airline employees try to cart her wheelchair off to the cargo hold, disability advocate Jill Hindman becomes even more assertive than usual. Like Hindman, many people with disabilities are frustrated with air travel, especially in smaller planes. Complaints range from lavatories that are too cramped to move around in to armrests that won't…

The University of Louisville's former dean of education, Robert D. Felner, faces a criminal trial on charges that he and an associate diverted most of a $694,000 earmarked federal grant into their own bank accounts. Louisville officials have announced an administrative overhaul that will, they say, help prevent any future misbehavior with grants.…

In the "Higher Education Opportunity Act" of 2008, Congress charged the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance with conducting a review and analysis of regulations affecting higher education, to determine the extent to which regulations are overly burdensome and need to be streamlined, improved, or eliminated. Specifically,…

This study is a contribution from the Eurydice Network to the debate on school failure and early school leaving within the framework of the European Commission's policy on education and training. In all education systems, in one form or another, pupil progress is assessed throughout the school year and various measures are put in place to support…

This article discusses the implementation this year of the Department of Education's Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 (HEOA), which requires accreditors to ensure that an institution that offers distance or correspondence education has a process in place to establish that a student who registers in a course or program is also the same…

Leadership in education is much like leadership in business and government. Three problems in particular make education seem different, including the almost constant pressure, the politics of the job, and state and federal regulations. But these are similar to problems faced by leaders in other organizations. However, education leaders must take…

Those who teach employment discrimination law, particularly as a separate course or part of a course on employment law, are used to covering a broad range of legal models and issues pertaining to the protected classes under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The disparate treatment, disparate impact, and hostile environment models of…

Distance educators won't have to become FBI-style investigators, installing cameras in the homes of online students and scanning fingerprints to ensure that people are who they say they are. At least not yet. The recently reauthorized Higher Education Opportunity Act requires accreditors to monitor steps colleges take to verify that an enrolled…

The federal government could take a cue from its regulation of charitable organizations in monitoring the freewheeling fiscal habits of big-time college athletics, a leading tax lawyer says. The author reports on the ideas offered by John D. Colombo, a professor at the University of Illinois College of Law, for monitoring big spending on college…

A young, inexperienced Food and Drug Administration (FDA) chemist is asked to distinguish between authentic fresh orange juice and suspected reconstituted orange juice falsely labeled as fresh. In an advanced instrumental analytical chemistry application of this case, inductively coupled plasma (ICP) spectroscopy is used to distinguish between the…

The Obama administration will waive cornerstone requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act, including the 2014 deadline for all students to be proficient in math and reading/language arts, and will give states the freedom to set their own student-achievement goals and design their own interventions for failing schools. In exchange for that…

The author reports on some $800 million in money set aside for Supplemental Education Services which is being freed up under the Obama administration's NCLB waiver plan. The U.S. Department of Education's plan to grant states broad flexibility under the No Child Left Behind Act will free up as much as $800 million in money school districts now…

Innovation is often driven by crisis, and Rutter (2011) began her chapter by reminding everyone of the crisis confronting the United States in the early 1980s and how that provided impetus for the development of professional development schools (PDSs). In a complementary companion chapter, Neapolitan and Levine (2011) take the reader through…

With educational outcomes inadequate, resources tight, and students' academic needs growing more complex, America's education system is certainly ready for technological innovation. And technology itself is ripe to be exploited. Devices harnessing cheap computing power have become smart and connected. Voice recognition, artificial intelligence,…