Studies have demonstrated the significance of afterschool staff development and have attempted to show the impacts of staff training on program quality and youth outcomes. Professional development, though necessary, wasn't always a priority for the author, especially if training hours conflicted with the author's afterschool program schedule.…

There is a strong national movement to improve the quality in child care programs nationwide and an important part of this movement includes professional preparation standards. Stakeholders in New York State (NYS) have developed the NYS Children's Program Administrator Credential (CPAC), designed to meet the need for increased knowledge in child…

New York State, in all of its regions, has a growing number of diverse public-school students, including many immigrant groups, accounting for a significant change in the ethnic and racial demographics of the state's student population. Despite the rapidly changing student population, the teaching force nonetheless remains disproportionately White…

This report examines the structural divide between for-credit and noncredit postsecondary education and the problems it presents for people seeking better jobs with higher pay. It highlights innovative ways that some community colleges are trying to bridge the gap nationally--creating more seamless pathways between credit and noncredit…

Early college schools are succeeding at our nation's most daunting educational challenge--propelling students from underserved backgrounds to graduate high school and earn postsecondary degrees. These schools combine high school and college in rigorous, yet supportive environments that embrace acceleration over remediation. Their "college for…

This article examines the current literature and state legislation of statewide "free tuition" promise programs. The purpose of this paper was to analyze state free community college programs, legislation, scholarly literature, and state websites to understand program structures, funding sources, and student-eligibility requirements. The…

This article illuminates major features of high-quality leadership programmes across different education systems. We do so by focusing on capturing commonalities and variations in high-quality pre-service programmes from five differing societies, all of which are high-performing education systems. To this end, we first delineate key profiles of…

This study finds that schools are poorly prepared to counsel students about community college certificate or associate degree programs. Instead the mantra of college for all continues to encourage youth to spend time and money on bachelor's degrees, for which many students are not prepared to do well. Teachers desire more information on college…

Almost 7 million young Americans (age 16-24) are insufficiently attached to school or work. Based on conservative estimates, we can generate over $1 billion just by helping a mere 0.1 percent earn a high school credential and complete their first year of college through Back on Track Designs. This brief lays out the cost of setting up these GED-…

There is currently more focus than ever on the importance of earning a college degree. At the same time, many students and parents are dubious that America's expensive, one-size-fits-all higher education system can adequately educate students for an ever more diverse and sophisticated world of work. There are other educational options that are…

There are many benefits for emerging adults, both financial and personal, in obtaining a General Education Development (GED®) credential (Ou, 2008). However, little is known about the correlates of GED® credential attainment in "disconnected" emerging adults attending GED® programs. Our goal was to examine whether externalizing…

Charter schools frequently receive public as well as federal attention, and there is a growing body of research becoming available examining charter schools. With all this research there is still a need for further studies which deal specifically with antecedents of charter school success. This study examined factors contributing toward the…

This article discusses competing perspectives on the value of the General Educational Development (GED) credential. Although scholars and journalists debate the worth of the credential, urban youth continue to pursue the GED, especially as proxy for inadequate schooling. Using qualitative data from a participatory action research project, the…

This review of research is part of a larger project which identified exemplary community college programs that employ innovative curriculum and instructional practices in order to help low-skilled adults attain a family sustainable wage. The project goal was to identify best practices that are replicable at other community colleges. These programs…

This project explores a number of external degree models that could be offered to non-credentialed persons who are providing (or who want to provide) human services to older persons in New York State. Although the project was carried out in New York, the models could be applied in other settings as well. The initial motivation for the project had…