Twenty-one states offer merit scholarships that require students to maintain a minimum grade point average (GPA). Using a comprehensive administrative database from Clemson University, this study estimates the relationship between the incentives created by a South Carolina merit scholarship...

Michigan radically altered its school finance system in 1994. The new plan, called Proposal A, significantly increased state aid to the lowest-spending school districts and limited future increases in spending in the highest-spending ones, abolishing local discretion over school spending. I...

Public schools across the United States are educating an increasing number and diversity of immigrant students. Unfortunately, little is known about their performance relative to native-born students and the extent to which the “nativity gap” might be explained by school and demographic...

Several national and international assessments have demonstrated that there has been little improvement in the performance of American high school students in recent decades. High school students are increasingly underprepared for transition into college-level course-work. One new approach to...