At a national level, the supply of teachers has remained stable in recent years--however, at the state and local level, school districts have been wrestling with long-standing teacher shortages in a number of specific fields, including science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) subjects; career and technical education (CTE); bilingual…

The value of a college education, long held in the United States as a ticket to prosperity and a sound investment, is increasingly being called into question. Rising tuition, mounting student debt loads, and dim employment prospects--topped off by incessant news coverage and opinion pieces about the three--are causing many to ask whether college…

To learn more about district and school decision making for No Child Left Behind (NCLB) restructuring, the Center on Education Policy (CEP) turned to California, a state with a substantial number of schools in restructuring and several state and regional supports for making decisions about restructuring. In the summer and fall of 2005, CEP…

For at least four decades, the University of California has been the international gold standard in public higher education. The system's 10 campuses are magnets for top-notch faculty members and students. With an annual budget of $18-billion, the university includes five medical centers and three national laboratories. And one of every 10 members…

As governors and state legislators gear up for a new year of budget action and policymaking, the federal Race to the Top competition is helping drive a flurry of measures nationwide aimed, at least in part, at making states stronger candidates for a slice of the $4 billion in education grants. Those efforts emerge as a priority in the 2010…

Introduction: Medical students often describe the gross anatomy course as both stressful and a rite of passage. Research differs as to whether the stress it engenders is significant or transitory. This qualitative study of first year anatomy student reports on the use of optional creative projects to promote reflection and reduce stress. Methods:…

In spring of 1998, the Biology Department at Pomona College changed from a two-semester survey introductory biology sequence to a core set of three courses, none of which is a traditional survey course. They had been wrestling for several years with a number of issues regarding the survey courses, including (1) what topics to include and exclude;…