Ensuring that students graduate high school prepared for college and careers has become a national priority in the last decade. To support this goal, states have adopted rigorous college and career readiness (CCR) standards in English language arts (ELA) and mathematics. Additionally, states have begun to require students to pass assessments, in…

Applying for financial aid can be a complicated, time-consuming endeavor for students and their families. Fortunately, many state aid programs have taken strides to align aid applications to the form used for federal aid programs, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), making state aid more readily accessible. New conversations…

Nationwide, students in the middle grades and high school are failing to develop the reading and writing skills they need in order to meet higher academic standards. This report discusses the urgency of the problem and recommends that each Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) state develop a comprehensive set of policies that establishes…

Maine and Vermont have been national leaders in state-level coordination of high school reform. Both recently developed almost interchangeable, new, voluntary, statewide frameworks that describe multiple ways high schools should change. Both frameworks--Promising Futures (Maine Commission on Secondary Education 1998) and High Schools on the Move…