Minority students and students with disabilities are disciplined disproportionately from their peers. Discipline has led to many negative consequences in the lives of youth in the United States, including the school-to-prison pipeline. In 2014, the U.S. Department of Education issued guidance encouraging school districts to develop policies that…

While the majority of U.S students are children of color, only 20% of teachers are people of color. What's more, 40% of the nation's public schools do not have a single teacher of color on record. Research shows that all students, regardless of race or ethnicity, benefit socially, emotionally, and academically from a diverse teacher workforce.…

State and local officials who shuttered school buildings to stem the spread of COVID-19 in early 2020 are beginning to plan for the return of students and staff. They will need evidence-based strategies to know how best to create and maintain safe, healthy spaces. To inform their plans, federal health officials have provided guidance on cleaning…

To promote student "physical literacy," physical educators must teach and assess health-related fitness content knowledge (HRFK) and model healthy lifestyles. Individual HRFK is associated with lifetime physical activity (PA) and each may precede/predict both teaching and assessing of student HRFK. Purpose: The purpose of this study was…

Competency-based approaches to education are becoming increasingly common in higher education. One of the key principles of competency-based education is flexibility, which "allows students to progress as they demonstrate mastery of academic content, regardless of time, place, or pace of learning" (U.S. Department of Education). In some…

Interdistrict open enrollment is the most widely used form of school choice in the United States. Through the theoretical lens of a utility maximization framework, this article analyzes the determinants of interdistrict open enrollment flows in Minnesota and Colorado. The authors' empirical analysis employs an original data set that details open…

At least four large urban school districts plan to spend a significant amount of their federal economic-stimulus money to support or improve programs for English-language learners, a fast-growing group in U.S. schools. The districts--Boston, New York City, St. Paul, Minnesota, and Seattle--have had varying degrees of success serving such students.…

This Statistics in Brief describes the undergraduate experiences of students who immigrated to the United States or who had at least one immigrant parent (second-generation Americans). The analysis compares these two groups with all undergraduates (excluding foreign students) and with third-or higher generation American undergraduates whose…

More than half of all school-age children in the United States read below grade level (NCES, 2012a). Seventy-five percent of all special education referrals are due to poor reading skills (NCES, 2012b). The Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services reports that 50% or more of students with disabilities score at or below the 20th…

Like other states across the country, the seven states in the Midwest Region (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin) have been striving to meet the performance targets established under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001, the latest reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. The…

Wisconsin's stagnating state higher-education budget has forced the university to keep faculty salaries far below average. When professors get feelers from elsewhere, they learn that a move can easily mean a 100-percent salary increase--sometimes more. Budget problems have also depleted money for perks that keep faculty members on board--funds for…

What happens when an old farmstead, native tall-grass prairie, and middle school students are mixed together? Would one guess learning? That is exactly what is happening in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, where students from a rural middle school have joined with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to restore native tallgrass prairie. In the…

In March, 1965, seven hundred and seventy seven (i.e. almost two-thirds of the total) Minneapolis elementary school teachers completed a questionnaire expressing agreement or disagreement with each of 186 statements about disadvantaged children. The modal respondent was white, female, married, from the Midwest, of middle-class origins, of average…

The Minnesota Indian Education Program provided a "turning point" for the state's Indians during Fiscal Year 1972. There was a 31% increase in Indian high school graduates and over 3,800 adults were enrolled in Indian Adult Basic Education. The program received funding from over 15 outside agencies, including the U.S. Office of…

The Illinois Social and Emotional Health of Infants, Toddlers and Their Families Committee hosted the Early Childhood Mental Health Regional Summit 2000 in November of 2000. Building on the momentum of the U.S. Surgeon General's first report on mental health, which underscores the importance of early preventive mental health services, this summit…