Earning college credit in high school matters to students and parents. Students who earn college credits by taking a college-level course while in high school are more likely to enter college and succeed. Through these experiences, students become familiar with college expectations, academic behaviors, and habits of mind; get a head start on…

This Research Brief summarizes the performance of M-DCPS students participating in the International Baccalaureate (IB) and Cambridge Advanced International Certificate of Education (AICE) programs. Outcome data are provided for the eight M-DCPS schools offering the two programs and corresponding examinations. Participation in international…

This special report, the final installment of a three-part series on e-learning, examines how schools are working to create high-quality digital curricula and online courses. It covers the influence the common-core standards are likely to have on building the online curricula of the future, the growing emphasis on teaching social skills to virtual…

This article reports on a school's effort to open Advanced Placement (AP) to all by challenging its students to take the leap into AP courses. Samuel W. Wolfson High School, on the south side of Jacksonville, Florida, is one of 27 schools in five cities across the country that chose to participate in a College Board initiative called EXCELerator.…

Nearly 7,000 students drop out of the nation's public high schools each school day, and 3,000 of them are in the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) states. Altogether, an estimated 1.3 million teenagers in the United States abandon high school each year without earning a diploma. In 1,700 of the nation's high schools, less than 60 percent of…

Dr. Paul Dosal of the University of South Florida is not impressed with the way most high school students learn about Latin American history. Dosal believes an advanced placement course in the subject will change that. He's the executive director of ENLACE Florida, a statewide network funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, designed to increase the…

Teaching from a global perspective is important because the lives of people around the world are increasingly interconnected through politics, economics, technology, and the environment. Global education teaches students to understand and appreciate people from different cultural backgrounds; view events from a variety of perspectives; recognize…

For teaching gifted and other high-ability learners, the idea that understanding is more significant than knowing is nearly a no-brainer. Teachers are continuously looking for ways to raise the intellectual bar through classroom challenges that push these learners to extend beyond the factual knowledge base that is often the measuring stick of…

"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) Teacher Excellence for All Children: Senior Democrat Offers Legislation Featuring Teacher Incentives and Induction…