In 1992, a collaboration of educational reform organizations, the New York City Board of Education, a teachers' union, and private funders created a model of urban high school reform that was practitioner-driven. Two failing high schools, one in Manhattan and one in the Bronx, were phased out while 11 new, small autonomous high schools were…

Colleges and universities can increase the number of students who graduate by making a number of small, strategic changes in institutional policies and practices. Some schools have done this by focusing on effective educational practices and empowering faculty, staff and students to work together in new, productive ways. Others have improved the…

Department chairs are in a position to help shape a culture where student learning is the central focus of faculty, staff, and students (Gmelch & Schuh, 2004). They hire, socialize, and evaluate faculty members' performance, guide curriculum development, and maintain the quality of academic programs. At the same time, department chairs typically…

The process of accreditation review in the U.S. serves two primary functions: quality assurance and continual improvement. The experienced educators who voluntarily serve on accreditation teams apply common standards of quality that serve students and meet public accountability expectations and offer suggestions and recommendations for…

A study compared graduation and licensure examination pass rates of Mexican American nursing students who spoke English as a second language and students who spoke English as a first language. Mexican American students were surveyed or interviewed concerning the effect on graduation and licensure examination pass rates of English as a second…

In the 50 years since "Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka" formally desegregated public schools, there has been enormous progress in the academic success of African Americans, particularly in high school completion, improved test scores, increased college enrollment, and attainment of advanced degrees, as well as full access to and…

The improvement of literacy rates, educational levels, and college-going rates are important goals for the betterment of West Virginia and its economy. The college going rate echoes the successes of the Governor, legislators, government agencies, students, and parents in contributing to the State's education system as a whole. This report makes an…

This study examines the retention of vocational education graduates in public higher education. Using 2,172 students who graduated vocational education programs in Area Vocational Technical Schools and enrolled as freshman (first-time young students) in public two-year and four-year colleges and universities in the 1996 fall semester, the author…

This publication provides a closer look at data reported annually by South Carolina's public institutions of higher education as part of institutional effectiveness reporting and as part of the process of performance funding. Prior to the January 2000 edition, this document was entitled "Minding Our P's and Q's: Indications of Productivity…

The purpose of the study was to explore the academic careers of students who took AP Exams and to compare their careers with those who did not take AP Exams. For most AP Exams, students with AP grades of 3 or better had higher grade averages in intermediate college courses than did non-AP students who first took an introductory course. Two…

The Biology Intensive Orientation for Students (BIOS) Program was designed to assess the impact of a 5-d intensive prefreshman program on success and retention of biological science majors at Louisiana State University. The 2005 pilot program combined content lectures and examinations for BIOL 1201, Introductory Biology for Science Majors, as well…

This paper is organized around three central questions: (1) What should be the primary goals of high school reform and what is the critical set of outcomes that matter for students? (2)Shat do we know about the strategies schools could use to pursue those goals? and (3) What are the implications of these strategies for the development of high…

This report is prepared annually by the Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE) to provide an overview of: (1) the enrollment of members of racial/ethnic groups as students at NSHE institutions; (2) graduation rates for each institution broken down by each racial/ethnic group; and (3) the number of women and members of racial/ethnic groups…

The growth of multi-institutional attendance and discontinuous enrollment poses a challenge to linear approaches to college retention and subsequent graduation rates. Linear methodologies have a level of failure built in and cannot fully measure community college institutional effectiveness. This article analyzes student entry and subsequent…

This document, from the Arizona Minority Education Policy Analysis Center (AMEPAC), reports the educational achievement of minority students in Arizona, from kindergarten through college. As a snapshot it is simply a description of what is, and the data are, thus, open to interpretation. How the numbers look and what they mean may be two different…