Rethinking the Federal Role in Elementary and Secondary Education

The Center on Education Policy has undertaken a project to rethink the federal role in elementary and secondary education. As a first step, CEP has commissioned a series of papers on key issues, requiring the authors to provide evidence of the effects of various programs and initiatives, and to provide recommendations. Each paper is peer-reviewed by individuals with diverse points of view on the issue. Also, CEP convened a series of public forums to discuss several of the papers. The result of these efforts will be a set of recommendations for President Obama and the new Congress for shaping the federal role in elementary and secondary education.

Rethinking the Federal Role in Elementary and Secondary Education: Summaries of Commissioned Papers

Below are the commissioned papers that have been completed as of April 2, 2009. Others will be posted when finalized.

Federal Aid to Elementary and Secondary Education: Premises, Effects, and Major Lessons Learned
By Paul Manna, College of William and Mary
Paper | Appendix

Standards-Based Reform in the United States: History, Research, and Future Directions
By Laura S. Hamilton, Brian M. Stecher, and Kun Yuan, RAND Corporation
Paper

The Role of Assessment in Federal Education Programs
By W. James Popham, University of California, Los Angeles
Paper

Demographic Trends and the Federal Role in Education
By Harold Hodgkinson, Hodgkinson Associates, Ltd.
Paper

The Federal Role in Education: Lessons from Australia, Germany, and Canada
By Chad R. Lykins and Stephen P. Heyneman, Vanderbilt University
Paper

Advancing ECE² Policy: Early Childhood Education (ECE) and its Quest for Excellence, Coherence, and Equity (ECE)
By Sharon L. Kagan and Jeanne L. Reid, Teachers College, Columbia University
Paper

The Federal Role in Out-of-School Learning: After-School, Summer Learning, and Family Involvement as Critical Learning Supports
By Heather B. Weiss, Priscilla M. D. Little, Suzanne M. Bouffard, Sarah N. Deschenes, and Helen Janc Malone, Harvard Family Research Project
Paper

From PLATO to Podcasts: Fifty Years of Federal Involvement in Educational Technology
By Mathew Cherian, Graduate Student, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Paper

National Efforts to Bring Reform to Scale in America’s High-Poverty Elementary and Secondary Schools: Outcomes and Implications
By Geoffrey D. Borman, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Paper

Fifty Years of Federal Teacher Policy: An Appraisal
By Gary Sykes and Kenne Dibner, Michigan State University
Paper

What the Federal Government Can Do to Improve High School Performance
By Russell W. Rumberger, University of California, Santa Barbara
Paper

Related Papers

Two other papers that are informing this project to rethink the federal role in elementary and secondary education were developed in 2004 for a CEP forum on the No Child Left Behind Act.

Ruminations Regarding NCLB'S Most Malignant Provision: Adequate Yearly Progress
By W. James Popham, University of California, Los Angeles
Paper | Figure

Rethinking the No Child Left Behind Accountability System
By Robert L. Linn, National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing, University of Colorado at Boulder
Paper

Compendium of Key Studies of the No Child Left Behind Act

As part of our project to rethink the federal role in elementary and secondary education, CEP has prepared this compendium, which summarizes the findings of major studies of the implementation and effects of NCLB conducted by various organizations and agencies.

View the Compendium