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Founded in 1983, Augenblick, Palaich and Associates, Inc (APA) is a privately owned company with extensive experience analyzing public education systems and policies. Our mission is to help clients solve problems so they can meet student performance goals and improve the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of our nation's public schools. We also help our clients understand the fiscal, legal, and policy implications of implementing education reforms, including both short and long-term impacts. Our staff accomplish this mission using a variety of research techniques, including education data analysis, literature reviews, interviews, surveys, panel or focus group discussions, and statistical analyses.

Just a few examples of the types of education issues we address include: the resources and funding schools need to reach student performance expectations; the costs of implementing the No Child Left Behind Act; the types of education practices that our nation's most successful schools use to raise at-risk student achievement; understanding the impacts of school choice; developing innovative ways to compensate teachers and to attract and retain teachers in hard to staff schools; and analyzing the efficiency of district and school resource use.

For a more complete listing of issues we address, please see our services page.  You can also click here for a brief summary of the types of expertise and services APA provides.

 News

Posted on: 04/14/2009

The Superior Court of New Jersey has issued recommendations to that state's supreme court regarding the validity of New Jersey's new school finance formula passed into law last year.  The formula was based in part on recommendations and analysis from an APA costing-out study.  Plaintiffs in the case attempted to attack the validity of the professional judgement analysis (which draws upon the input of panels of experienced educators) used in the costing out work.  However, in supporting the analysis the court held that while no one methodology can precisely predict the amount of funds needed to meet a specific academic performance standard, "the court is satisfied the Professional Judgement Panel process established fairly and equitably the first step in constructing a constitutionally mandated equitable funding formula for all districts."