Federal Resources

This blog post from the Department of Education discusses the issue of sexual assault on college campuses and the damaging effects of sexual assault for victims and communities. The post also describes key elements of sexual assault prevention campaigns and provides links to resources from the Department of Justice created to aid in campus sexual assault prevention efforts.

This guide is a companion piece to the Practical Information on Crisis Planning: A Guide for Schools and Communities (above). It emphasizes a valuable part of emergency management planning—ongoing vulnerability assessment—and is intended to assist schools with the selection and implementation of an effective vulnerability assessment tool.

This “road map” for civic learning outlines the steps that the Department of Education is taking to increase civic learning and engagement. It also outlines directions for advancing civic learning and democratic engagement in schools, with special attention to the federal role and civic learning in higher education.  

The Adolescent Literacy Research Network is a partnership of The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Vocational and Adult Education (OVAE), and Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS), designed to support each agency's effort to enhance literacy and employment skills of young American adults.

This fact sheet outlines President Obama’s new plan to increase college affordability. Facets of the plan include creating a new ratings system that measures college performance and value; eliminating barriers to competition and innovation, particularly in the use of new technology; and helping student borrowers struggling with their existing debt by capping loan payments at 10 percent of income and directing ED to reach out to students struggling with their loans to make sure they understand their options. 

When filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), borrowers who are considered “dependent students” must provide information about their parents, including information about their identity, living situation, and financial status.

Prepared by the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, “America’s Children in Brief: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2012” highlights 14 key indicators on important aspects of children’s lives across seven domains:

• Family and social environment
• Economic circumstances
• Health care
• Physical environment and safety
• Behavior
• Education
• Health

The Department of Education’s Office of Safe and Healthy Students’ Safe and Supportive Schools Technical Assistance Center held a webinar on December 14, 2011, “Using Data to Identify Programmatic Interventions.”  It covered the need to  use school climate data to identify needs, selecting evidence based programs to address these needs, and implementing these programs effectively within a school or district.

The #AskArnie video series features Secretary Arne Duncan discussing current hot topics in education today. The first episode, titled “Free from Fear,” focuses on gun violence, school safety, and the multiple factors that influence student achievement.

 “America’s Youth: Transitions to Adulthood,” a report from the Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), compares the current generation of youth in the United States to youth in 2000, 1990, and 1980.

The Safe and Supportive Schools Technical Assistance Center, supported by the Department of Education’s Office of Safe and Healthy Students, delves into the importance of fostering healthy student-to-student relationships in the webinar, “Enhancing Peer to Peer Relationships to Strengthen School Climate.” This resource is meant to help administrators, teachers, support staff and student support personnel in creating a nurturing learning environment. 

September 2015 marks the 25th anniversary of The White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics. In commemoration, Education Secretary Arne Duncan and the Initiative launched the “Anniversary Year of Action: Fulfilling America’s Future” from October 2014 through September 2015. Throughout the Anniversary Year of Action, the Initiative encourages the public and private sectors to invest in increasing educational outcomes and opportunities for Hispanic students across the country.

During this Twitter Town Hall, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan discussed a range of issues including respecting teachers, charter schools and choice, and student loan debt. 

This report presents initial findings about the labor market experiences and enrollment in additional postsecondary degree programs of bachelor's degree recipients approximately four years after they completed their 2007-08 degrees. These findings are based on data from the second follow-up of the Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study

This report published by The Department of Education addresses current (2011) anti-bullying laws and anti-bullying policies that have been created as models for schools.

Developed by the Department of Education, college applicants and their families can use this tool to access campus crime statistics for colleges and universities.

This blog post, written by the student Loan Ombudsman at Federal Student Aid, warns recent graduates to avoid student debt relief companies and, instead, reach out to their loan servicer and consult resources on the Department of Education’s websites. 

This publication from the Department of Education’s Higher Education Center highlights the prevalence of bullying within college-age youth and the policies and programs universities are putting in place to combat it.

Bookshelf is a resource page from the Department of Education that contains presentations, facts, charts, data, and other information related to improving education, as well as the Department’s programs and initiatives. 

Resources on how to foster collaboration and implement best practices in school and special education settings.

Roughly 10% of incarcerated mothers in state prison have a child in a foster home or other state care.  Some estimates indicate that as many as 1 in 8 children who are subjects of reports of maltreatment and investigated by child welfare agencies have parents who were recently arrested.   Though there is clearly overlap between the prison system and the child welfare system, it is often difficult for prison officials to know how to help incarcerated parents stay in touch with their children in foster care and work towards reunification.  Similarly, it is difficult for child welfare agencies to know how to engage parents in prison.  The purpose of this toolkit is to help facilitate communication and cooperation between child welfare agencies and federal prisons so that parents can stay engaged in their children's lives.  

The Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights has released new guidance confirming that federal civil rights laws that apply to traditional public schools apply equally to public charter schools (PDF, 7 pages). The guidance addresses civil rights subjects in the context of charter schools, including equal opportunity in admissions, provisions of a free appropriate public education to students with disabilities, provision of services to English language learners, and non-discriminatory discipline. 

College.gov is intended to be the go-to source for information and resources about planning, preparing and paying for postsecondary education.

Information for parents regarding Supplemental Educational Services including, service providers, state contacts, pilot programs, information regarding No Child Left Behind, technical assistance, and additional resource links.

The Connected Educators website is part of the Connected Online Communities of Practice Project launched by the Department of Education that aims to create communities outside of the classroom between educators in order to share information about best practices, curriculum, learning activities, resources and other materials that may inform their teaching practices. The site includes informative publications on online communities, access to those that already exist and a toolkit on how to get started.