This article reviews history, models, and benefits of credit-based transition programs between high schools and institutions of higher education. The goal of these programs is to enable high school students to take college courses and earn college credit while still in high school, thereby easing the transition to college through a variety of…

In 1989, microeconomics and macroeconomics examinations debuted on the Advanced Placement (AP) scene. At that time, many professors of economics were skeptical that college freshmen had the skills and maturity to understand the concepts in principles of economics courses. They thought teaching these concepts to high school students was even more…

While Advanced Placement (AP) programs have been traditionally targeted toward academically prepared students, some secondary administrators make AP courses accessible to all students in order to support college readiness. The purpose of the present study is to explore how the AP program is being implemented in an urban school where many students…

Our nation, if it is going to keep a competitive edge versus the rest of the world, must reform the current system of educating children. The purpose of this study is to provide evidence that implementation of one increasingly popular reform effort, the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme (IBPYP), changes teachers' perceptions of…

This paper analyzes the influence of three different learning paradigms for learning literacy--formalist, cognitive-processing, and literacy practices--on the implementation of the Common Core State Standards. It argues that the Common Core State Standards are based largely on a formalist paradigm as evident in the emphasis on teaching text…

Maryland public high school students outperformed all others in the nation on the rigorous Advanced Placement (AP) exams, according to the College Board's fifth annual analysis of the AP program. Maryland ranked first nationwide in the percentage of public school students scoring 3 or higher on at least one AP exam. A score of 3 or higher on the…

This paper reports on a study of students choosing the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma over state-based curricula in Australian schools. The IB Diploma was initially designed as a matriculation certificate to facilitate international mobility. While first envisaged as a lifestyle agenda for cultural elites, such mobility is now widespread…

In Australia there is growing interest in a national curriculum to replace the variety of matriculation credentials managed by State Education departments, ostensibly to address increasing population mobility. Meanwhile, the International Baccalaureate (IB) is attracting increasing interest and enrolments in State and private schools in Australia,…

Presented at the quarterly meeting of the New York Area SAS Users-Group in December 2008. In virtually any research context, there is likely to be opportunity to apply mixed-models--of which repeated-measures, multilevel, hierarchical and random- and fixed-effect models are specific types-- that improve upon their traditional linear or generalized…

The International Baccalaureate may sound like it involves some sort of foreign exchange and a college graduation ceremony, but the IB is actually a comprehensive, demanding, and increasingly popular diploma program for high school juniors and seniors, with a strong academic focus on the world around them. While the IB was created 40 years ago by…

Too often students perceive history as boring with no relevance to their lives. Although students describe history as boring, this does not seem to be the case with one aspect of social studies education--Holocaust studies. Courses about the Holocaust have grown in number in recent years; and classes are routinely full. Why do students choose to…

The nation's goal of achieving educational equity has been both elusive and complex. U.S. schools are becoming more, not less, segregated, and the racial isolation of Black and Latino students from White students is a national trend. For two decades, the Rockville Centre School District in New York has engaged in reforms that were designed to…

This report presents selected findings from the Public School and Private School Data Files of the 2011-12 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS). SASS is a nationally representative sample survey of public and private K-12 schools, principals, and teachers in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. School districts associated with public schools…

The "International Society for the Social Studies (ISSS) Annual Conference Proceedings" is a peer-reviewed professional publication published once a year following the annual conference. The following papers are included in the 2015 proceedings: (1) Local History and Local Culture at the Core of Elementary Social Studies Curriculum (C.…

The Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) states lead the nation in student participation in Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) programs. The region also continued to match the nation in the success rates of high school students on AP exams in 2008. SREB's "Challenge to Lead" Goals for Education recognize the…