With a national high school graduation rate, hovering around 70 percent, far too many of the nation's students are falling through the cracks of the education system and leaving high school without the skills necessary for success in college, work, and life. By preventing students from falling through the cracks and ensuring that they receive the…

"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) "What Happened to Dropouts from the High School Class of 2004?": Brief Finds Over a Third Not Working and…

This publication summarizes the status of Maryland public education in 2008 and considers upcoming challenges. Highlights of the report include: (1) Maryland classrooms continue to be comprised of minority-majority enrollment; (2) High school graduation rate tops 85 percent; (3) Scores on the Maryland School Assessment continue to rise; (4)…

Increasing demand for at least some postsecondary education in today's labor market has met with stagnating college completion rates. As a result, states have a growing interest in better understanding the challenges to improving graduation rates and in tracking student progress and success. Six states in the "Achieving the Dream: Community…

Twenty-five years after the seminal report "A Nation at Risk," American education remains in a state of crisis. Millions of students continue to pass through the public schools without mastering basic skills and knowledge. Policymakers and the public must recognize both this persistent failure and the attendant need for systemic reform…

The authors conducted a formal research study to investigate the perceptions of faculty, staff, and community residents regarding town-gown relationships and the sustainability of African American communities as related to educational benefits, home ownership, employment and job training, earning potential, and graduation rates.

Librarians have led the way for information literacy skills and abilities to be more integrated throughout the curriculum, and students are expected to demonstrate competency in finding, evaluating, and using information at many colleges and universities as part of the institution's curricular requirements and student learning outcomes. As part of…

This "Report Card to the Public" is published in accordance with Alaska Statute 14.03.120 for the school year 2012-2013. Under state law, each school district is required to report information about its plans and performance to its community. This report includes a statewide summary of performance results. Public knowledge of the school…

An analysis of accountability for high school graduation rates under the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) reveals two major problems: (1) State goals for raising graduation rates are far too low to spur needed improvement and (2) Gaps between student groups are allowed to persist by an accountability system that looks only at average…

With a bachelor's degree fast becoming the standard requirement for achieving success in the modern economy, college enrollment is increasing rapidly nationwide. State funding for colleges and universities continues to subsidize the cost of educating state residents, but spiraling expenditures in other areas are straining the ability of states to…

Various studies show that interscholastic sport participants, and specifically female athletes, enjoy numerous educational benefits at the high school level. Because of the influx in the number of females engaging in high school sport that has occurred during the past 30 years, few studies have been able to adequately assess whether females'…

Riverside has long struggled to shake its reputation as a campus of last resort in the University of California system, taking in students who could not get accepted at more prestigious branches. But Riverside's position has also allowed it to draw large numbers of students from low-income backgrounds, who are likelier than their wealthier peers…

With the 1984 publication of "A Nation at Risk" the K-12 school reform movement was launched. The report predicted that, if the United States was to maintain its global economic leadership, a rigorous curriculum in primary and secondary schools would be necessary to prepare students for a productive college academic experience. Nearly 22…

This paper calculates the public savings (financial benefits) from greater public investments in the education of African-American males. Over one-fifth of each age cohort of black males in US is not a high school graduate. We identify five interventions that would--based on credible research--increase the graduation rate; we also report the…

The road to a college degree is often littered with potholes of self-doubt, and sometimes those are deep enough to discourage even the most ambitious students. If the transition from high school to college were easy, the average six-year graduation rate at four-year institutions in the U.S. would probably be higher than 63%. To improve those…