NEWS FROM THE ACCESS NETWORK

A recent report written by Bruce Baker and published by the Albert Shanker Institute entitled “Revisiting the Age-Old Question: Does Money Matter in Education?” reviews the available research on this persistent issue and seeks to definitively answer three basic questions: a)      Does money matter? b)      Do schooling resources that cost money matter? c)      Do state [...]

Although the Texas Supreme Court denied an adequacy challenge to the state’s education finance system in 2005, it said at the time in Neely v. West Orange-Cove Consolidated ISD that “it remains to be seen whether the system’s predicted drift toward constitutional inadequacy will be avoided by legislative reaction to widespread calls for changes.” According [...]

Helen Ladd’s recent paper: “Education and Poverty: Confronting the Evidence” and her Sunday New York Times op-ed “Class Matters. Why Don’t We Admit It?” that she co-authored with Edward Fiske argue that national educational policy initiatives, including No Child Left Behind, disregard the correlation between family background and student achievement. Because policymakers have not taken [...]

By a close, 8-7 majority, the First District Court of Appeal in Tallahasee, Florida refused last week to grant the defendants’ motion for a “writ of Prohibition” that would stop the lower court from proceeding with a trial in the pending adequacy case, Citizens for Strong Schools, Inc. v. Florida State Board of Education.  Relying [...]