Federal Resources

This tip sheet (PDF, 3 pages) from NDTAC aims to assist state and local juvenile justice and education agency administrators, including State Part D coordinators and the practitioners. The tip sheet helps to create strong working relationships that facilitate the development of high-quality education programs within juvenile justice settings. 

The Department of Education has updated the lists featured on the College Affordability and Transparency Center that spotlight institutions with the highest and lowest tuitions, fees, and prices and the highest percentage increases in these areas. This information is also available by sector. 

The College Scorecard includes key information about the cost and value of colleges and universities to help students and their families make informed decisions about their education.

This program awards discretionary grants to establish comprehensive technical assistance centers to help low-performing schools and districts close achievement gaps and meet the goals of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Awards have been given to Fifteen (15) Regional Centers to provide technical assistance to States within defined geographic boundaries; and Five (5) content focused centers to provide expert assistance to benefit States and districts nationwide on key issues related to the goals of NCLB.

This report from the Department of Education provides national data on the condition of the nation’s public school facilities, information on building construction and renovation history, and the estimated cost of the repairs needed to put buildings in good condition. 

This resource can help students of all ages to prepare academically and financially for education beyond high school (PDF, 28 pages). It provides an overview of options for financial aid for college, and checklists for students and parents to reference at each stage of a student’s education. 

Guidance from OCR advises schools on how to offer single-sex classes (PDF, 36 pages) while complying with Title IX. Presented in a question-and-answer format, the guidance addresses common scenarios that schools may face when designing single-sex programs. 

Developed by the National Center on Safe Supportive Learning Environments, which is funded by the Department of Education's Office of Safe and Healthy Students and the Department of Health and Human Services' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the Compendium of School Discipline State Laws and Regulations provides information on school discipline laws and regulations for each of the 50 states, Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico. Users can search by state or category and can also download the full Compendium in PDF format. 

This report from the Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics presents findings from a congressionally mandated study on arts education in public elementary and secondary schools.

The Department of Education released a Dear Colleague Letter to provide information to states and agencies about the importance of Braille instruction, clarify when these services should be provided to students, help school teams understand the evaluation required to guide decisions about services, and highlight available resources that can help personnel meet the needs of students who are blind or visually impaired (PDF, 6 pages).

The 48th in a series, the Digest provides statistical information related to the field of education. Covering prekindergarten through graduate school, this report provides information on a variety of topics including numbers of schools, teachers, and students, federal funds for education, and international comparisons. 

A  Dear Colleagues letter, released by the Department of Education during a White House event on teen dating violence prevention, calls on state school chiefs to take immediate action to reduce gender-based violence in schools. Accompanying the letter was the “What Schools Can Do” toolkit, which outlines simple actions that communities can take to reduce gender-based violence, as well as available resources.

This report from the Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics examines three cohorts of recent graduates one year after they earned their bachelor’s degree, comparing their student loan debt and ability to pay back their loans one year after graduation and how debt affected their graduate school enrollment and living arrangements.

This study from the Department of Education's National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance analyzes whether raising the age of state compulsory school attendance has an impact on dropout, truancy, and disciplinary actions, as well as broader social outcomes. 

The Department of Education's model financial aid award letter, known as the “Shopping Sheet,” aims to promote transparency in student financial aid disclosures by outlining information—such as estimated annual costs, grant money students will receive, the amount of loan money they can expect to take out, and more—up front, before students have enrolled.   

The Correctional Education Guidance Package informs the efforts of states, school districts, and juvenile justice facilities that serve system-involved youth. It includes recommendations and federal requirements for ensuring youth in confinement receive an education comparable to those provided in traditional public school settings. 

The Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services within the Department of Education has released and updated its Disability Employment 101 guide. This guide provides information about hiring employees with disabilities, including information about how to find qualified workers with disabilities, how to put disability and employment research into practice, and how to model what other businesses have done to successfully integrate individuals with disabilities into the workforce.

Young people who are in or have been in foster care and need assistance paying for college, career school, or training may be eligible for the Educational and Training Vouchers (ETV) Program. Funded by the federal government and administered by the states, the program provides students with up to $5,000 per academic year, based on cost of attendance and available funds.

The Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights has released new information, based on a sample of school and district-level data from 2009-2010, that illustrates what the results could look like at the state and national level. The goals of sharing this information are both to reveal urgent concerns as well to highlight progress being made to close the opportunity gap. 

The U.S. Department of Education (ED)'s Office of Safe and Healthy Students' (OSHS) Center for School Preparedness provides support, resources, grants, and training to support emergency management efforts for local educational agencies and institutions of higher education.

This website houses a collection of research-based instructional practices on topics such as Early Childhood Education, English Language Learners, Math and Science, and Psychology of Learning, with an emphasis on using data for improvement, increasing teacher effectiveness, and turning around the lowest-performing schools.

ED's Office for Civil Rights OCR developed guidance for states, school districts, and schools to ensure that all students — regardless of race, color, or national origin — have equal access to education resources, like effective teaching, extracurricular and academic programs, technology, and safe school facilities. The guidance shares how OCR investigates resource disparities and what states, districts, and schools can do to meet their civil rights obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

ERIC provides ready access to education literature to support the use of educational research and information to improve practice in learning, teaching, educational decision-making, and research.

This report provides insight into the number of students enrolled in distance education courses and the impact of distance education courses on enrollment at the state level. 

The Department of Education's Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family-School Partnerships  is designed to help schools and the broader communities they serve to build parent and community engagement that will make schools the center of our communities. The framework can be used to teach schools and districts how to effectively engage parents and how to help parents work with schools to promote student achievement.