The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of School Improvement Grants (SIGs) in the state of California (CA) in increasing student achievement using the turnaround implementation model. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) included educational priorities focused on fixing America's lowest achieving schools.…

California State University, Bakersfield (CSUB) is continuing its five-year grant, "An Equitable Pathway to In-Demand STEM Careers," which began in Fall 2021 to facilitate Hispanic students' degree completion and career preparation in STEM fields. In its third year, the grant team followed the original proposal to: 1. Offer effective…

The National Governors Association Center for Best Practices has assisted 23 states and territories in their efforts to scale high-quality work-based learning programs since 2016. Rhode Island has been engaged with the Policy Academy on Scaling Work-Based Learning since 2017 -- the same year that state policymakers launched an initiative aimed at…

California State University, Bakersfield (CSUB) continues its five-year grant, "An Equitable Pathway to In-Demand STEM Careers," that began in Fall 2021 to facilitate Hispanic students' degree completion and career preparation in STEM fields. In the second year, the grant team has made satisfactory progress in offering summer and winter…

Since the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) era many program improvement schools were prescribed Professional Learning Communities (PLC) professional development as a corrective action by their respective Local Education Agency (LEA). Despite the adoption and implementation of many corrective action measures (including PLCs) recommended by LEA's, the…

U.S. employers are struggling to find qualified applicants across a range of career sectors. In 12 career areas--including healthcare, computers and mathematics--demand for workers exceeded available supply by a total of 4.4 million job openings in 2016. This gap threatens the economy, undermines the innovation and competitiveness in many of the…

Across the United States, student achievement is a concern. The local district under study is not meeting adequate yearly progress (AYP), a standard initiated by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), which schools are expected to attain to avoid sanctions. The district's students are performing lower than state average on the state's standardized…

Gender inequality is a persistent issue in secondary and postsecondary career and technical education programs in the United States. According to section 113(b)(2)(A)(III)(vi) of the Carl D. Perkins act, schools receiving federal funds in support of career and technical education are required to report "student participation in, and…

To prepare students for success in life, the twenty-first-century American high school needs to shift its focus from preparing for college "or" career to achieving college "and" career readiness for every student. In some areas of the country, progress is being made on this front. One of the most comprehensive efforts is the…

State and local educators encountered both opportunities and obstacles in their first year of implementing the School Improvement Grants (SIGs) funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). In 2009, the ARRA, better known as the economic stimulus package, provided $3 billion for SIGs to help reform persistently low-achieving…

Two schools in Michigan received ARRA SIG (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act School Improvement Grants) funds to enable them to implement their improvement efforts. This paper describes the outcomes of these two ARRA SIG recipient schools: (1) Phoenix Elementary-Middle School; and (2) Arthur Hill High School. The experiences of these…

Many schools placed under Program Improvement because they have not met the AYP requirements of the NCLB mandate are required to build in time during the school day for teachers' professional collaboration to improve their performance in the classrooms. A lack of research exists to explore how professional collaboration improves teaching and…

This study is a mixed-methods case study of Antelope Valley High School (AVHS). AVHS was one of the first six schools in California to receive academic sanctions since the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. It was also the first high school to receive a State Trustee who was embedded at the school every day for two school years. AVHS…

This paper presents Center for Law and Social Policy's (CLASP's) recommendations on how No Child Left Behind (NCLB) could better address the workforce challenges faced by this country. CLASP is a nonprofit organization engaged in research, analysis, technical assistance, and advocacy on a range of issues affecting low-income families. The…

The "Higher Education Reconciliation Act of 2005" created two new grant programs for undergraduates: the Academic Competitiveness Grant (ACG) program and National Science and Mathematics Access to Retain Talent (National SMART) Grant program. The ACG program is intended to encourage students to take challenging courses in high school and thus…