In 2021-22, the Running Start program experienced its first enrollment decline in over a decade. This was due, in large part, to pandemic-related school and college closures and the impact of these interruptions on students' advanced course-taking. Additionally, some students whose early high school years were disrupted chose to stay in high…

Indiana has been a leader in pursuing short-term credentialing initiatives to expand the education and training opportunities available to individuals through high schools, colleges, and other workforce training providers. To provide evidence on the short-term credentialing landscape in Indiana and potentially inform future decisions around policy…

In the PISA 2022 creative thinking test, students provide a response to a prompt, which is then coded by human raters as no credit, partial credit, or full credit. Like many large-scale educational testing frameworks, PISA uses the generalized partial credit model (GPCM) as a response model for these ordinal ratings. In this paper, we show that…

Since 2019, the Washington State Board of Education has engaged stakeholders in creating a vision for mastery-based learning (MBL) that sparked pilot programs, outcome evaluations, and a push for legislative action. By decoupling how students earn high school credits from the amount of time spent in classroom seats, the board also sought to boost…

Early college high schools (ECHSs), which combine high school with the first two years of college, have grown in popularity nationwide. Research suggests ECHS participation has positive impacts on college enrollment and completion, but little is known about how ECHS graduates experience university life. Using a framework of college belonging and…

This study examined the cost effectiveness of three early college programs in Rhode Island: dual enrollment, concurrent enrollment, and Advanced Placement (AP). Each program had a positive effect on participants' enrolling in college within one year of high school graduation, persisting to a second year of college, and starting at a four year…

These are the appendixes for the report, "The Cost-Effectiveness of Providing Early College Programs in Rhode Island." Many states now offer high school students the opportunity to earn credit toward a high school diploma and a postsecondary degree simultaneously, with the aim of improving their college readiness and on-time college…

Dual enrollment, also known as dual credit, allows students to take college courses during high school. Studies have shown that dual enrollment has a positive impact on students' educational attainment. However, dual enrollment is complicated to implement given that it requires a partnership between a high school or district and a postsecondary…

Personalization for academic and social-emotional learning (PASL) is a systemic approach to high school reform that works to strengthen and bridge preexisting academic and social-emotional systems within schools and classrooms. Analyzing student administrative records from 12 schools in a large Florida urban district, we found that, on average,…

Over the last decade, landmark legislation, multi-million-dollar investments, and the research, policy, and advocacy communities have helped inform and support the growth of dual enrollment in California. Dual enrollment, or taking college courses while in high school, can also give students greater access to math--a core subject that has long…

Getting a head start on college coursework in high school has become an even more important goal for high school students in recent years, due in part to the rising costs of obtaining traditional four-year college degrees coupled with the disruptions in learning for high school and college students due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now more than ever,…