Drawing on ethnographic research from a small urban high school serving predominantly low-income students in a large northeastern city, this case explores how a school leader seeks to improve the school's graduation rates by analyzing student data. It asks readers to consider the overall organization of the meeting, the role of the principal, the…

People are regularly confronted with environmental and science-related issues presented to them in newspapers, on television, or even in their own doctor's office. Often the information they use to inform their decisions on matters of science may be ambiguous and contradictory. This article presents an activity that investigates how students deal…

The College and Career Readiness Expansion project was a five-year, federally funded effort to implement early college strategies in comprehensive high schools. This report presents the results from a quasi-experimental impact study of the project and a mixed methods examination of its implementation. Results showed that the program increased the…

This study was conducted to explore the effects of an event history calendar (EHC) approach on adolescent sexual risk communication and sexual activity. Adolescent school-linked health clinic patients (n = 30) who reported sexual activity self-administered the EHC that was used by nurse practitioners (NPs; n = 2) during a clinic visit. Immediately…

Many school districts are putting data to good use, although much of the data used in administrative decision making ultimately derives from standardized test scores, which raises a host of other related concerns. The author's purpose in this article is not to critique the types or sources of data that administrators use, but to suggest that there…

Purpose: Much of the recent research on data-driven decision making in US schools has focused on standardized test scores while other forms of data in schools have gone largely unexamined as useful data, such as teacher-assigned grades. Based on the literature, the theory outlined in this paper is that grades, as data historically overlooked in…

"Straight A's: Public Education Policy and Progress" is a biweekly newsletter that focuses on education news and events both in Washington, DC and around the country. The following articles are included in this issue: (1) House Passes Budget Resolution: Prospects of a Compromise with the Senate Appear Dim; (2) Older Students' Science…