Stateline Midwest ~ June 2013

Improved state budget conditions and continuing concerns about the cost of higher education have resulted in plans across the Midwest to freeze tuition.

Stateline Midwest ~ June 2013

Ever since he joined the legislature more than a decade ago, North Dakota Sen. Tim Flakoll says, lawmakers have been looking to change how the state funds its higher-education system.

This year, he says, “We were finally able to crack the code.”

The Council of State Governments’ National Center for Interstate Compacts is working with several stakeholder groups on issues ranging from electric transmission lines, distance learning, and licensing of EMS and other medical services personnel. Find out more about compacts relating to these issues, all of which are in various stages of development.

Arkansas is about to give some of its college students “credit when it’s due.” The state’s higher education leadership announced on Wednesday a plan that will make it easier for students who begin postsecondary studies in a community college but later transfer to a four-year institute to earn an associate degree.

Over the past week, three separate bills have been introduced in the House and Senate to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and replace some of the more infamous provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act, commonly called NCLB. While the three measures differ substantially in their vision for the role of the federal government in education policy, they all include proposals to substitute state flexibility in place of some of the more draconian elements of NCLB.

Rhode Island is set to entertain the idea of tying cash and medical assistance to school attendance, The House Committee on finance will discuss the bill today.

This week has seen a lot of activity varying from state to state on the implementation and execution of the new national standards. With major steps taken in several states in regard to Common Core, the future of Common Core remains unclear. Several major figures have voiced their opinions and states have reacted. 

For nearly 300 weeks, No Child Left Behind has been in a legislative slumber on Capitol Hill.  That’s how long it’s been since the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, better known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB), expired. Now, in the span of just two days, Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. Senate have unveiled competing plans to revamp NCLB. It marks the first significant signs that NCLB might be awakening from its deep sleep.