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The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted schools across the country, negatively impacting student learning, especially for students of color and students experiencing poverty. These students need our support; in the absence of successful COVID catch-up activities, the likelihood is that they will face future obstacles to success in college and the workforce. Enter Elementary & Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds, the unprecedented support. Over the course of one year -- from March 2020 to March 2021 -- the United States Congress enacted three laws providing $190 billion in federal education funding to states and school districts. The largest of these Acts, the American Rescue Plan (ARP), provides $122 billion to states, $110 billion of which must go to districts. Of that $110 billion, 20 percent (or $22 billion) is specifically designated for addressing "learning loss" due to pandemic-related schooling impacts, using "evidence-based interventions." The opportunity is "to learn" from the unprecedented federal investment. Many ARP ESSER investments seem conceptually sound, but here's the problem: a long history of education research shows that often, conceptually sound ways of investing in youth do not pan out as intended. In this brief, the authors review aspects of the ARP and argue that the Act strongly implies or even requires that districts invest smartly. And further, that smart investments require some data collection, not only so we know how ARP funds were spent, but also so we can learn about their efficacy. The authors also issue a warning that their analysis of state ARP ESSER plans shows ambiguity about what districts will be required to do, which could lead to inconsistent views by districts about what is required, and their approaches to monitoring impact.

The Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) designed the portfolio model based on the idea that we should move away from a "school system" to, instead, "a system of schools." In essence: school boards should focus on overseeing a "portfolio" of distinctive schools rather than directly running a set of one-size-fits-all schools. With real power over their curriculum and budget, educators would be able to do what was right for their students as long as they met their performance agreements. Now, after researching and observing more than two decades of strife and progress in portfolio implementation, the Center has some advice for both advocates and skeptics. Is a portfolio approach necessary? Yes. The Center believes now more than ever that 1) choice is not magic and can exacerbate inequality, and 2) strategies that concentrate money and authority in the central office are unlikely to work in large, diverse, and chronically failing school systems. Skeptics need to own up to these two very real problems that the portfolio strategy attempts to solve.

Many states are looking at effective ways to use financial incentives to encourage students to complete a postsecondary credential. JFF's new report, "Statewide Aid Policies to Improve College Access and Success", originally commissioned by the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education's Vision Project, has provided valuable background for that project's Working Group on Graduation and Student Success Rates. In February 2012, Diane Ward, director of state education policy at JFF, interviewed Richard M. Freeland, Commissioner of Higher Education for Massachusetts, on the context of the report in this era of increasingly constrained financial resources as the state pursues a dual goal: increasing the number of low-income students completing a credential, while also closing the racial achievement gap in postsecondary attainment. Working with the Board of Higher Education, Dr. Freeland provides overall direction to public higher education and helps shape state-level policies that maximize the benefits of higher education to the Commonwealth and its citizens. Previously, he was president of Northeastern University for ten years. Under his leadership, Northeastern pursued excellence as a national research university that is student centered, practice oriented, and urban.

In February 2011, the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) convened a conference to help districts implementing school choice under the U.S. Department of Education's Voluntary Public School Choice program. The conference, sponsored by the Department of Education, provided grantees access to the most current knowledge from district and charter leaders and school choice researchers on how to effectively implement public school choice. The conference focused on the most pressing issues faced by localities committed to public school choice. Panelists addressed how choice districts can: (1) actively manage the supply of schools in the district; (2) make careful decisions about the allocation of resources across these now independent schools; (3) build fair and transparent enrollment systems; (4) effectively communicate to all parents about their choices; and (5) invoke creative solutions to ensure that students with special needs are well served in these diverse schools. This paper summarizes the two-day conversation and lessons participants took away from the discussion. Essays by some of the panelists examine each of these five issue areas in greater detail.

In early 2009, Congress passed and President Barack Obama signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the federal government's nearly $800 billion stimulus legislation. According to key members of Congress and the Obama administration, the education portions of the law, totaling about $100 billion, were designed both to preserve jobs and programs and to reform primary and secondary schooling. The AEI Education Stimulus Watch (ESW) series examines whether this unprecedented federal investment in schooling is yielding innovation and improvement or merely subsidizing the status quo. The first report in the series, described and analyzed the key education components of the stimulus legislation and explained why they were unlikely to deliver the benefits promised by some of the law's proponents. Now, more than half a year after ARRA's passage, as U.S. students head back to school, voters and taxpayers have the opportunity to take stock. This second ESW reports on the key education portions of the ARRA by tracking their contributions to the legislation's three points of leverage for reform. The first is the approximately $75 billion in formula-based programs intended to fill the state and district budget holes caused by plunging revenues. The U.S. Department of Education has exhorted states and districts to use these programs, collectively referred to as "Recovery-First Funds" in the previous report, to reform schools and school systems. Unfortunately, there is little or no evidence they have done so. Second, offering more cause for optimism is the $4.35 billion Race to the Top program, a pot of funds that the U.S. secretary of education can direct to states he deems most committed to education reform. While these funds have not yet been distributed, preliminary documents issued by the Department of Education indicate an encouraging commitment to reform. Finally, there is the issue of whether the ARRA has prompted improvements in state education policies. Though this was not an explicit purpose of the legislation, the administration has sought to use the lure of the competitive Race to the Top fund to coax states into passing reform-oriented legislation. This strategy has already achieved some measure of success, and there is the potential for more on the horizon, but like the Race to the Top fund itself, it must guard against assuming that changes in state policy necessarily lead to real improvement--or even that changes in statute necessarily lead to meaningful changes in practice. (Contains 76 endnotes.) [For "Education Stimulus Watch. Special Report 1," see ED509613. For "The Full Story on Race to the Top. Education Stimulus Watch. Special Report 3," see ED509615.]

Ohio Governor Ted Strickland's education plan calls for modernizing Ohio's K-12 education system, including the state's school-funding system, but the plan's so-called "evidence-based" approach would actually scuttle any modernizing efforts, argues this study issued by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. The governor's funding plan, says the author, "would prop up an outdated system of school finance that establishes funding levels based on convention rather than need, sustains institutions whether they work or not, spends money with little regard for results and holds adults accountable for compliance not results," and runs counter to what the Gates-funded report "Facing the Future: Financing Productive Schools" proposed in December 2008. This report provides four recommendations for improving the Governor's school funding plan: (1) Drive funds to schools based on student numbers and needs through weighted student funding; (2) Encourage experimentation with the uses of funds and imaginative new instructional programs; (3) Hold all schools and school districts accountable for student performance and continuous improvement; and (4) Gather and use data on the uses of funds and the results produced, so that alternative methods of delivering instruction can be compared on cost and effectiveness. (Contains 1 footnote, 2 figures and 1 table.)

This article compares and contrasts the theories of three major writers on societal change: Chirot discusses the economic power struggles within and among core, peripheral, and semiperipheral societies, Toffler exposes a future in which major power shifts could have cataclysmic results, and Bruner emphasizes the importance of education to temper technological progress with wisdom and ethical behavior.

Despite nearly two decades of commissions, analyses, op-eds and speeches, a series of court rulings, legislative changes, and the expenditure of billions of dollars, Ohio still does not have a school funding system that delivers the results the Buckeye State needs. Student achievement still remains low for the globalizing world that young Ohioans will enter and achievement gaps continue to undermine the promise of educational opportunity for all. To address these issues, this report recommends that state policymakers move toward a system of weighted system funding (WSF), in which: (1) Dollars follow students to the public schools they choose to attend; (2) Funding is weighted according to each student's educational needs; and (3) Schools have flexibility to spend the funds in ways that maximize results for their pupils. Because of the political and technical challenges of implementation, it is recognized that WSF cannot be implemented overnight. By setting weights for different students and planning transition to a new system, the report advocates that state policymakers can take initial steps to provide Ohio schoolchildren and taxpayers the education finance system they need and deserve. Two appendices are included: (1) How WSF Might Play Out in Ohio Schools and Districts; and (2) Per Pupil Allocations--Columbus Elementary School Sample. (Contains 29 endnotes and 14 figures.)

Since its inception in 1965, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, now known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB), has directed billions of federal dollars toward low-income students. Title I, Part A of NCLB is designed to equalize educational opportunities and resources for disadvantaged children. This analysis examines whether the current mechanisms for providing federal education funding to disadvantaged children are effective and whether the system works as originally intended. The evidence yields the following major findings: (1) Formulas have become increasingly complex and obscure; (2) Distribution of funds is characterized by seemingly unintended variability; (3) Amounts reserved for administration significantly dilute what reaches the classroom; (4) Title I's Education Finance Incentive Grant encourages states to equalize spending across school districts, despite the fact that this is an unproven education reform strategy; and (5) Rather than delivering effectively on good intentions for helping poor children, congressional action over eight reauthorizations has led to a convoluted, bureaucratic system that is less student-centered, less transparent, and therefore less accountable to the public. The author advocates for three Congressional actions: (1) reformation of the Title I program to return to the intended student-centered goal of compensatory education; (2) streamlining of the funding formula to use a simple per-pupil allocation; and (3) allow state to implement student-centered funding, allowing greater portability and school choice. (Contains 22 footnotes, 3 tables, and 2 charts.)

This paper assesses the impact on economic growth of increased efficiency of public spending in primary and lower-secondary education. Higher efficiency in public spending in schools can bolster growth through two main channels. On the one hand, it can allow a transfer of labour from the public sector to the business sector at unchanged educational output. On the other, it can enhance educational output and productivity of the future labour force at unchanged public employment and expenditures. The paper argues that, in most cases, efficiency gains might have larger effects on GDP in the long run if they are used to increase educational outputs rather than to reduce inputs. A 10% increase on educational output might raise GDP by, on average, 3% to 6% in the long run in most OECD countries, whereas using efficiency gains to transfer resources to the business sector might have an impact of less than 1% on GDP. However, some trade-off can appear in the short run because input-decreasing efficiency gains materialise more rapidly on growth than improvements in output-increasing efficiency. (A bibliography is included. Contains 12 footnotes, 3 figures and 2 tables.)

The author, a Boston-based attorney and the co-director of the Center for Law and Education, presents testimony about students with disabilities, shares some thoughts generally about whether the requirements of NCLB are working for these particular students, and identifies areas of concern and areas in need of improvement. Specifically, she presents the following issues and concerns: (1) All students with disabilities are still not being taught to high level and sufficiently comprehensive standards; (2) Multiple measures in assessment need to be used for the testing of students with disabilities; (3) Parent communities are not adequately involved in school improvement efforts as required by NCLB making schools less accountable to parents; (4) Schools and school districts are not providing the necessary resources to be accountable for delivering high quality instruction and services; and (5) Supplemental educational services and remedial or compensatory education often deny students with disabilities the specialized instruction they need to benefit from the course of instruction.

In terms of the economic bottom line, effective school leaders are now supposed to pay close attention to two central tasks which involve managing resources and devising operational strategies in their action plans. Taking a postmodern viewpoint, the first part of this paper aims to discuss the significance of resource allocation in education and the necessity for competing priorities over what needs to be reviewed and done appropriately in the new organization. This part establishes a solid background for a further discussion on the evolving process of business techniques in resource allocation, which begins with strategic planning and then moves onto strategic thinking, values-based approach, metastrategic management and appreciative inquiry. A critical portion of this paper which is concerned with practical strategic management techniques examines the uses of the Balanced Scorecard and the Triple Bottom Line in school management with an investigation into the complementary relationship between the two terms in educational settings. It is mainly argued throughout this analysis that there needs to be a better understanding of the members' values and beliefs in educational leadership.

This paper discusses the policy dimensions to increase the nation's educational capital by providing at least two years of education beyond high school for almost every young and working-age adult who is motivated and able to benefit. It focuses on creating multiple pathways resulting from collaborative efforts across educational sectors or redesigned structures. Section 1 describes the economic and social imperatives for significantly increasing higher education access and attainment in the population. Section 2 addresses public policy challenges to achieving this goal. Section 3 identifies the elements of the public policy infrastructure needed for large-scale educational reform, with particular attention to accountability systems and finance and governance changes. It suggests these three characteristics to make state-level accountability more effective: provide a diagnosis, monitor progress, and use information for improvement. Examples are provided of successful governance and decision making initiatives and of allocation and reallocation of resources. The final section makes observations on the political challenges that must be addressed to extend access to postsecondary education to all. (Contains 16 references.) (YLB)

The U.S. Department of Education's (DOE's) request from Congress for vocational and adult education funding for fiscal year 2004 was based on the department's belief that current and future U.S. workers must be challenged to master academic knowledge and practical skills at levels that are at least comparable to those mastered by workers in other advanced or industrialized countries. One billion dollars was requested to support the Bush Administration's proposed secondary and technical education program. The requested funds were to be targeted toward helping states and communities improve student outcomes, particularly academic achievement, and ensuring that students are taught the academic knowledge and practical skills needed for successful transitions from high school to college and from college to the workforce. The request for secondary and technical education did not include requests for most current vocational education programs, including occupational and employment information, tech prep state grants, and tech prep demonstration. DOE requested $591 million for adult education, including $584.3 million for formula grants to states and $6.7 million for the National Institute for Literacy. This request did not include a request for funds for state grants for incarcerated youth offenders or literacy programs for prisoners. (MN)

Recent research has identified trends in the training systems of 13 countries in Africa (Egypt, Mauritius, South Africa); the Arab States (Bahrain, Jordan); Asia (Australia, Fiji, Malaysia); Eastern Europe (Albania, Slovenia); Western Europe (Ireland, Portugal); and the Mediterranean region (Malta). The trends identified are legislation; councils/boards and authorities; national qualifications frameworks; skill standards and certification; workplace learning; and governments overtly promoting training quality assurance. Research suggests that human resource management practices are changing in response to the forces creating the new business environment. The forces include changes in the structure of production; turbulent business environment; and greater customer awareness. Three key and mutually reinforcing requirements for connecting business challenges and management development are clarification of the twin purposes of developing managers to deliver the current business model and develop future business models; development of effective strategic management and business, organization, and management review processes to connect business strategies with organization and management requirements; and management of the learning. (Four examples illustrate the integration of the trends into "bundles" of other activities to facilitate maximum effect. They involve high performance working; linking economic and human resource development; knowledge management; and skills recognition.) (YLB)

The New Economy Work (NEW) Scholarship is a proposed scholarship designed to reform federal training programs and to make them universally accessible to dislocated or disadvantaged workers. NEW Scholarships would accomplish the following things: (1) make access to training for dislocated workers as universally available as access to college; (2) provide dislocated workers with scholarships worth up to $4,000; (3) reduce red tape by allowing workers seeking retraining to apply for aid directly from certified training providers rather than government agencies; and require national standards for all certified training providers and an annual report card to help workers identify the best lifelong learning programs. According to the proposal calling for establishment of NEW Scholarships, Department of Labor one-stop centers would continue to serve as centers of information; however, the management of those sites would be contracted out to unions, associations, and for-profit and nonprofit organizations. It estimated that Congress and the administration could fund NEW Scholarships by redirecting $1.5 billion already allocated for the Dislocated Worker Employment Training Program and the Trade Adjustment Assistance and North American Free Trade Transitional Adjustment Assistance Programs. Assuming that 25% of dislocated workers utilize NEW Scholarships at an average of $1,500 per individual, the program's cost would fit easily within existing budgetary resources. (MN)

To address the skills shortages stemming from the transition to a more technological and skills-intensive economy, Congress established a program whereby funds from H-1B visa fees would provide seed funds for private companies, labor, and government to join together in creating training alliances focused on skills in short supply. Unfortunately, the program has failed to live up to expectations. It has therefore been recommended that Congress create a National Skills Corporation (NSC) and fund it in part by transferring the Department of Labor's (DOL's) H-1B training funds to the corporation. Modeled after the Universal Service Administrative Company, which administers universal telephone service funds, the NSC would serve as a nonprofit corporation governed by a board consisting of leaders from business, organized labor, higher education, and government. The NSC's mission and operation could be modeled by the United Kingdom's new Sectoral Skills Development Agency, which is a non-departmental public body designed to fund the new United Kingdom-wide network of employer-led sectoral skills councils. The NSC would make grants to support industry- and/or union-led skills alliances. Alliances would need to provide at least one-to-one matching funds. The corporation would be funded with the funds currently allocated for DOL's H-1B program and additional Congressional allocations. (MN)

Recent empirical and theoretical literature was reviewed to examine how the dynamics of class, gender, and race affect adult learning in nonformal and informal settings. The following were among the key findings: (1) social dynamics such as class, gender, and race influence individuals' development of their self or subjectivity, which in turn affects their ability and decisions to participate in learning; (2) class, gender, and race also affect teachers and their pedagogies and curricular decisions; (3) another way social dynamics affect learning is through allocating resources, including economic, political, and sociocultural resources, unequally within society in general and within specific learning situations; (3) class, gender, and race affect learning through curricular materials and the tools that are used in teaching-learning interactions; (4) the dynamics of class, gender, and race affect learning by affecting the dynamics within nonformal and informal organizations and the interactions of those organizations with other social actors; (5) because class, gender, and race influence have significant effects on individuals and the learning context, using a theoretical framework that includes consideration of class, gender, and race influence may provide a way for researchers and practitioners to connect individual and contextual factors when studying their effect on learning. (27 references) (MN)

This document is the fifth in a series of biennial reports on appropriations for developmental education in Texas. Overall general revenue appropriations for developmental education increased from $182.8 million in the 2000-2001 biennium to $184.8 million in the 2002-2003 biennium. Appropriations in the 1998-1999 biennium were $38.5 million. From the 2000-2001 to the 2002-2003 biennium, the amount of developmental instruction provided increased by 1.8% in community colleges, by 3.9% in universities, 4.3% in the Texas State Technical College System, and 4.6% in the Lamar State Colleges, for an overall statewide increase of 1.5%. More than 88% of developmental instruction takes place in 2-year colleges, and 65% of developmental instruction costs are for mathematics, with the balance split about equally between reading and writing. The percentage of appropriations for developmental education as a percentage of appropriations for lower-level instruction varies significantly throughout the state, from 3.3% in Central Texas to nearly 14% in the Upper Rio Grande Valley. An appendix contains a table of developmental education appropriations as a percentage of lower-division instruction for individual institutions in the Texas system. (SLD)

School policymakers are beginning to understand that a considerable amount of resources are expended on student support services and various education support programs. These resources are allocated because of the widespread awareness that more is needed than the typical teacher can provide if some students are to succeed at school. At the same time, however, there is a growing concern that current efforts are not well-conceived and implemented. As a result, leaders for school improvement are beginning to look for new directions. This report contains two examples of concept papers that can be used as a foundation for different groups to develop a concise presentation to highlight the need and vision for developing comprehensive, multifaceted, and integrated approaches to addressing barriers to learning and promoting healthy development. One paper was developed in working with an urban school district director of support services as the basis for proposing a major restructuring initiative to the superintendent and the school board. The second example was prepared in work with a superintendent of a suburban school district who wanted a document to focus his initiative to restructure district efforts for addressing barriers to learning and enhance school-community collaboration. (GCP)

A task force studied adult education services in Maryland. The task force heard presentations from a wide range of stakeholders, including adult learners, professional associations, administrators, practitioners, and educational researchers. The presentations confirmed that the need for adult education services in Maryland is extensive and the impact of adult education on the state's workforce and economy is substantial. Existing client groups include workers in need of retraining, those without high school diplomas, nonnative speakers of English, adults needing literacy and/or basic skills instruction, and inmates and probationers. Although federal funding for adult education services has increased substantially since 1998, state funding has decreased, creating additional burden on local funding sources. Among East Coast states, only New Hampshire and Rhode Island had lower state appropriations for adult education in fiscal 2001. The task force issued the following recommendations to Maryland policymakers: (1) significantly increase public and private investment in the adult education system; (2) target new resources to improving adult education outcomes by increasing access to services, removing learner barriers, ensuring a professional workforce, and connecting students to careers, further education, or the workplace; (3) enhance accountability to increase the return on present and future investments; and (4) improve services for incarcerated individuals and probationers. (Contains 29 tables.) (MN)

Structural change in the economy has seen the emergence of human resource skills as an important intangible input to the value-adding process. The fastest growing sectors of the economy employ workers with high levels of skill. This has led to the development of a lifelong learning policy agenda that argues lifelong learning is the key to economic prosperity in the future. The lifelong learning policy agenda assumes that because education is important to worker productivity, industries and employees will be willing to finance the cost of workers' participation in education and training. The lifelong learning policy agenda emphasizes the need to motivate people and their employers to invest more in education and training. But there is a significant difference between the amount of training undertaken by high- and low-skilled workers and a disparity in the extent to which these groups of individuals attract employer support. People in highly skilled jobs are more likely to participate in continuing education and training than people in low-skilled occupations. People in low-skilled occupations are less likely to receive employer support for their participation in continuing education and training. The policy goal of "lifelong learning for all" is unlikely to be achieved unless governments actively support education and training participation among people with lower levels of skill. (Contains 16 references.) (YLB)

This document outlines a vision for adult and community education (ACE) in Victoria for the next 3 years and provides a broad map of how to reach that vision. A description of the context is followed by the ACE vision statement: ACE delivers accessible, quality, and timely learning in autonomous, community settings as a valued and essential partner in Victoria's post-compulsory education and training system. Ace values and learning goals are then listed. Future challenges and opportunities are highlighted in these areas: globalization, localization, knowledge economy, enterprising education, educational values, learning partnerships, and imaginative learning. A final section focuses on strategic directions that address both potential futures for ACE and more immediate and emerging challenges and opportunities for the ACE sector. The following are strategic directions: build communities through ACE; build ACE resources and learning infrastructure; strengthen strategic relationships within and beyond ACE; and build knowledge and promote recognition of ACE. Information provided for each strategic direction includes purpose, strategic approaches summary, list and description of strategic approaches, and related themes. (YLB)