Policy Archive--Education

PolicyArchive is digital archive of global, non-partisan public policy research. Through the PolicyArchive, you can access summaries and full texts, videos, reports, briefs, and multimedia material of think tank, university, government, and foundation-funded policy research. PolicyArchive is supported by the non-profit Center for Governmental Studies (CGS) in partnership with the Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) University Library and major U.S. charitable foundations.

NCES Report Released: Characteristics of the 100 Largest Public Elementary and Secondary School Districts in the U.S. 2005-06

The National Center for Education Statistics within the Institute of Education Sciences has released the report "Characteristics of the 100 Largest Public Elementary and Secondary School Districts in the United States: 2005-06 (NCES 2008-339)."

"This annual report provides basic information from the Common Core of Data about the nation's largest public school districts in the 2005-06 school year. The data include such characteristics as the numbers of students and teachers, number of high school completers and the averaged freshman graduation rate, and revenues and expenditures. Findings include: In 2005-06, these 100 largest districts enrolled 23 percent of all public school students and employed 22 percent of all public school teachers. The districts produced 20 percent of all high school completers (both diploma and other completion credential recipients) in 2004-05. Across the districts, the averaged freshman graduation rate was 69.5 percent. Three states -- California, Florida, and Texas -- accounted for almost half of the 100 largest public school districts. Current per-pupil expenditures in fiscal year 2003 ranged from a low of $5,104 in the Puerto Rico School District to a high of $18,878 in the District of Columbia Public School District." IES Newsflash

Encyclopedia of Language and Education (2nd Edition) available online

The 10 volume Encyclopedia of Language and Education, 2nd Edition, is available online through the WSU libraries.

"In this second, fully revised edition, the 10 volume Encyclopedia of Language and Education offers the newest developments including two new volumes of research and scholarly content essential to the field of language teaching and learning in the age of globalization. In the selection of topics and contributors, the Encyclopedia reflects the depth of disciplinary knowledge, breadth of interdisciplinary perspective, and diversity of sociogeographic experience in the field." (Springer.com, About This Book)

avorite Children's Authors and Illustrators available online

The 8 volume Favorite Children's Authors and Illustrators (edited by Primm) is now available online.

You can link to it directly through the following (you can also put this link in your Blackboard site if you like. Students will be able to link directly to the resource)

http://elibrary.wayne.edu/record=b3327537~S1

After you link to the record, click on Connect to online resource-WSU on-site and authorized users

When you get to the online book, click eTable of Contents OR eBook Index to get to the contents of the books

A new task force addresses shortcomings in education reform

"A new task force of national policy experts with diverse religious and political affiliations, in public policy fields including education, social welfare, health, housing, and civil rights today launched a campaign calling for a “Broader, Bolder Approach to Education” to break a decades-long cycle of reform efforts that promised much and have achieved far too little.

Co-chaired by Helen Ladd, a Duke University professor of public policy studies, Pedro Noguera, a sociologist at New York University and an expert on educational policy, and Tom Payzant, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, a former Boston schools superintendent and U.S. assistant secretary of education, the Task Force’s framework points to the many flaws in the approach of the current No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law and charges that the nation's education and youth development policy has erred by relying on school improvement alone to raise achievement levels of disadvantaged children. Task Force News Release, June 10, 2008

Cultural Attitudes Affect Girls' Math Performance

The article Culture, Gender and Math in the May 2008 issue of Science, reports on research which compared the results of more than 276,000 15-year-olds in 40 countries who took a test in 2003 run by the OECD. On average, girls scored 2 percent lower than boys in mathematics. When they compared the gaps in mathematics scores to various measures of gender inequality, they found a possible reason for those national variations. In the countries that had the greatest gender inequality, such as Turkey and Korea, girls tended to fare worse compared to boys. In countries with more equality, such as Norway, Sweden, and Iceland, the gender gap in mathematics test scores disappears. (As reported in the Choronicle of Higher Education, 5/30/2008).