Rural community colleges serve as engines of economic opportunity and equity, offering students place-based programs and pathways that lead to good jobs. They also develop dynamic and responsive industry partnerships, to ensure their workforce education and training curriculum, programs, and transfer pathways meet the needs of local employers and…

California is prioritizing equity in education post-COVID-19 by investing in community schools. Districts have an important leadership responsibility to develop the conditions, capacities, and resources for effective, sustainable community schools. Specifically, districts must strengthen system-level supports and infrastructure to ensure…

Pamela Eddy and Kim VanDerLinden offer discerning guidance for advancing social justice and addressing persistent opportunity gaps in US higher education in "A Blueprint for Equity-Driven Community College Leadership." Eddy and VanDerLinden argue that, given the diverse population of students that community colleges serve, these…

Since the implementation of the Post-9/11 GI Bill, the largest student veteran enrollments have taken place at community colleges. Student veterans are considered "at-risk students" due to their high attrition rates in higher education. There is a lack of literature regarding the experiences of staff responsible for providing support…

This report is the result of the participation of hundreds of students, families, school educators, and researchers who dedicated their time and energy to investigating the critical role that families and communities play in ensuring students and schools can flourish. It is a culmination of over two years of collaborative research and hundreds of…

In this report, the authors use Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) data to classify the 1.425 million degrees and certificates that community colleges awarded in academic year 2022-23 by intent (i.e., whether the program is designed to enable students to enter the workforce, transfer to a bachelor's degree program, or explore…

Latin@ undocumented students confront unique and significant barriers in accessing and obtaining postsecondary certificates and degrees within community colleges. This study explored 4 current and 1 former community college part-time (6-8 credits) undocumented students, specifically how they described their help-seeking experiences within a…

For some time now, the arts education community has designed for broader outcomes for youth. These programs intentionally foster not only youth achievements within the arts or academics, but also youth and community thriving--through outcomes such as youth civic engagement, occupational identities, and wellness. In this report, the authors seek to…

In this provocative and timely book, Luis Eladio Torres challenges a common assumption: that education is the "first priority" for families, including those who are raising their children in low-income, high-need communities. Instead, he argues that these families must confront daunting challenges in five other areas--food, shelter,…

Research shows that the at-risk population entering college dropout or land on probation within their first year in college. Through a longitudinal comparative research design, this study examines at-risk students' academic standing, retention, graduation, and tutoring usage within a cohort program compared to a non-cohort initiative at a…

"Transformative Critical Service-Learning" offers hands-on tools for implementing, reflecting on, and assessing critical service-learning in classrooms and community spaces. Answering a need from practitioners for a practical tool for making sense of critical service-learning, the authors introduce the Critical Service-Learning…

In "Navigating Social Justice," Martin Scanlan introduces a comprehensive social justice schema that melds organizational learning with leading for equity. Scanlan distills wisdom gleaned from the experiences of a variety of educational professionals as well as from his own more than three decades of work in equity-focused partnership…

Set in 2023, this study was deployed at the lowest point of enrollment in the California Community College (CCC) system since 2008, which was the highest point of enrollment in the system's history. The purpose of this qualitative, grounded theory study was twofold: (a) to understand the phenomenon of California community colleges (CCCs)…

Though part of the larger public school system, charter schools typically do not operate in school buildings and are not always mandated to follow the same rules and regulations for school districts, which can make planning efforts for funding, facilities, and emergency management difficult to navigate. Charter schools typically receive per pupil…

This playbook provides ways in which city and county leaders and their teams can blur the lines between high school, postsecondary education, and the workforce. City and county leaders can play a significant role to raise the bar for student success by developing an "education-to-workforce system" that focuses on unlocking career…