State need-based financial aid programs are a key driver of college access and completion for lower-income students and racially marginalized students in California, most of whom attend public two- and four-year colleges and universities and come from families with annual incomes of less than $40,000. As the state's largest need-based financial…

The COVID-19 health crisis has laid bare the structural inequity in the financial aid system. The pandemic has hit the lowest-income students hardest, with many struggling to afford the basic technology for online learning on top of new or exacerbated food and housing insecurity. Federal and state dollars predicated on Pell Grant eligibility, time…

This article analyses the challenges facing secondary education in the context of Ethiopia's Growth and transformation Plan (GtP) for 2010/11-2014/15 and its stated goal of becoming a middle-income country by 2025. It does not aim to provide a definitive set of recommendations for universalising general secondary education to meet the demands of a…

"Incomplete: How Middle Class Schools Aren't Making the Grade" is a new report from Third Way, a Washington, D.C.-based policy think tank. The report aims to convince parents, taxpayers and policymakers that they should be as concerned about middle-class schools not making the grade as they are about the failures of the nation's large, poor, urban…

This project focuses on the policies and practices of school boards (or mayors or others who govern public schools), and how their priorities can make a tangible difference in the academic success of kids living in poor communities. Instead of focusing on deficits of poverty, the researchers wanted to stress school board action as an effective…

"The Hope for Audacity: Public Identity and Equity Action in Education" calls for audacious action from the president and his administration as they attempt to guide educators, policymakers, as well as the general public in thinking critically about education. This book also discusses the role of education faculties in becoming more active agents…

Across the nation, policymakers are paying increasing attention to the latest research on early childhood development--from brain development to cost-benefit analyses to longitudinal studies--and they are coming away with one conclusion: high-quality pre-kindergarten programs make the most of young children's immense learning potential and give…

For increasing numbers of Americans, a fundamental element of the American Dream appears to be at risk. A solid majority consider a college degree an indispensable ticket to the middle class, while even more people believe college is financially out-of-reach for many qualified students. The authors of this report advocate that findings have…

Family literacy is a form of intergenerational learning that is based on the fundamental connection and interaction between the education of children, young people and adults. The family--in its broader sense--builds the foundation for lifelong learning. This book was published to help promote literacy by raising the understanding and awareness of…

"Civil defence pedagogies" normalise continuous emergency through educational channels such as school, community and adult education. Using critical whiteness studies, and critiques of white supremacy from critical race theory, as a conceptual base, the protection of whiteness, and particularly the white middle-class family, is considered to be…

The new call for a universal preschool system is prompting an important policy debate across California. How preschooling is expanded and improved with limited public resources depends on several key issues. The hopeful ideals of "preschool for all"--with children beginning school ready to learn--spark enthusiasm and broaden public will.…

Social class influences parent involvement in schooling. This book uses the case study method to compare family-school relationships in a working-class elementary school with those in an upper middle-class school, focusing on one first grade class in each school, and within the two schools, on 12 families, over the course of their children's first…

The background papers contained in this document present preliminary recommendations intended to stimulate discussion of issues to be addressed in the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, which since 1965 has delineated federal policies and programs governing student aid and categorical assistance to colleges and universities. The papers…

Explores the dilemmas posed by the analysis of working class issues in education by professional sociologists. Questions whether the inequalities experienced in the educational system by working class people have been "colonized" by middle class academics for their own professional purposes. (CFR)

As part of a series of field hearings across the nation on the reauthorization of the Higher Education of 1965, the Subcommittee on Postsecondary Education met in Pleasant Hill, California, to hear testimony specifically on access to education for children of lower and middle class families in California. Discussed were the rising cost of higher…