This report examines the relationship between students' participation in high-impact practices (HIP) and their perceived learning gains, with special attention paid to the nature of these relationships among Black and Hispanic students and among students 25 years or older. In 2018, with support from Lumina Foundation, the National Association of…

Students placed in special education programs for emotional and behavioral disorders with emotional disturbance (ED) identification have academic outcomes that lag both students in regular and special education. This issue is especially important for youth attending urban schools. Although prior research has examined students identified as ED,…

Each year, post-secondary institutions across the nation enroll thousands of students into developmental mathematics courses. Success rates are low for students placed in developmental mathematics courses employing traditional teaching practices. Secondary institutions utilizing more engaging pedagogies and high impact practices, such as…

Internships are widely promoted extra-curricular experiences that can have positive impacts on student outcomes, yet how specific elements of internships contribute to these outcomes and facilitate learning is understudied. In this sequential mixed-methods study, we use sociocultural learning theory to interpret data from surveys (n = 435) and…

Opponents of educational choice recycle the same false prophesies of doom without regard to the evidence or the size and scope of the proposals. Part I of this report assesses the validity of choice opponents' predictions that choice policies will lead to significant losses of district school funding and declining academic performance. Part II of…

Using data from the 2015 "Dane County Youth Assessment" (n = 12,886 students, 22 high schools), we identified disparities between students with Individualized Education Programs (IEP) and without IEPs across multiple post-high school aspirations. We identified significant IEP status × grades earned interactions in predicting students'…

Examining the role of college mental health services in promoting student personal and academic success is essential to demonstrating their utility to university communities and administrations. Student learning outcomes following counseling and satisfaction with mental health services were assessed across 16 counseling centers in one university…

The six statewide research studies presented in this special issue use a variety of designs, instrumentation, and measures. Nevertheless, they can be integrated at the level of results to shed light on some important questions related to effective practice in the field of school counseling. In fact, one can argue that, when separate studies that…

The data from this study details the challenges to implementing comprehensive school counseling programs in Wisconsin high schools. Results suggest that current professional development training practices may be ineffective in assisting high school counselors to implement key components of the ASCA National Model in their schools. This article…

During high school, developing competence in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is critically important as preparation to pursue STEM careers, yet students in the United States lag behind other countries, ranking 35th in mathematics and 27th in science achievement internationally. Given the importance of STEM careers as…

Initiatives to increase leadership accountability coupled with efforts to promote data-driven leadership have led to widespread adoption of instruments to assess school leaders. In this paper we present a decision matrix that practitioners and researchers can use to facilitate instrument selection. Our decision matrix focuses on the psychometric…

Post-recession Federal policy initiatives, such as secondary/postsecondary career pathways and gainful employment higher education accountability standards, prioritize the alignment of education practices with market-driven outcomes. Using longitudinal student record data merged from college and state K-12 data systems with the Unemployment…

Student enrollment in online courses has increased in the past 15 years and continues to grow. However, little is known about students' education experiences or online course outcomes. These are areas of particular interest to the Midwest Virtual Education Research Alliance, whose goal is to understand how to support student success in online…

In the report entitled "Educating School Leaders," Arthur Levine (2005) criticizes leadership preparation programs as "inadequate to appalling," citing, among other issues, the proliferation of off campus programming, the weakening of standards, and an unwillingness to engage in any measure of "systematic…

Using data on housing voucher recipients with school-aged children residing across the state of Wisconsin, we perform a three-stage analysis of the relationship between voucher receipt and the educational opportunities of children in recipient households. First, we examine the extent to which voucher receipt results in households relocating to a…