In an era of high-stakes accountability, school leaders often face contradictory pressures as they strive to improve student performance. They must meet the federal mandate of NCLB for student achievement; at the same time, many believe that NCLB constrains their professional judgment about how to best teach and assess students in the context of…

The federal government has had a long-standing commitment to ensuring access of English Learner (EL) students to a meaningful education. As early as 1968, the "Elementary and Secondary Education Act" ("ESEA") contained provisions for supporting the education of EL students and in its 1974 landmark decision, "Lau v.…

For the past two decades, lawmakers from both parties in Ohio have invested heavily in the public education sector. As a consequence, total K-12 education funding, measured in constant dollars, has grown by over 60 percent since 1997, even as Ohio's K-12 student enrollment has shrunk by more than 24,000 students (1.4 percent) during that same…