Moreno Valley College, a two-year community college in Southern California, experiences an annual migration of cliff swallows. The presence of these birds inspired the development of the undergraduate research program Flying with Swallows. The assessment of the project indicated significant increases in qualitative student outcomes such as…

Although a growing body of work addresses the current role of neoliberalism in displacing democratic equality as a goal of public education, attempts to parse such impacts rarely draw from historical accounts. At least one tenet of neoliberalism--the application of business models to public institutions--was also pervasive at the turn of the 20th…

The University of California, Berkeley sends more undergraduate students to economics PhD programs than any other public university. While this fact is surely a function of its size, there may be lessons from the Berkeley experience that others could adopt. To investigate why Berkeley generates so many economics PhD students, the author convened…

This report presents the results of a thorough study conducted by American Institutes for Research (AIR) to investigate the cost of providing an "adequate" education to California students attending public elementary, middle, and high schools. The study addresses the following question: "What is the cost of providing all California…

Background: Inclusive STEM (traditionally known to stand for "Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math") high schools are emerging across the country as a mechanism for improving STEM education and getting more and diverse students into STEM majors and careers. However, there is no consensus on what these schools are or should be,…

Implementing violence prevention programs has become a priority for schools; however, most programs used for this purpose are limited in the skills they teach. In this study, two different resiliency building/violence prevention models were evaluated to assess their effectiveness at preventing violent and maladaptive behaviors in youth. Data from…

This document contains the following nine appendixes of the main report, "What Does It Cost to Educate California's Students? A Professional Judgment Approach. Technical Report. Getting Down to Facts II": (1) Professional Judgement Panel General Instructions; (2) Professional Judgement Panel. Task Instructions; (3) School Resource…

This report constructs a model public agenda to address the mounting challenges facing California higher education. It is intended to inspire broad discussion potentially leading to an official public agenda for California higher education. The report describes some of the structural barriers that are preventing more dramatic progress in meeting…

Beyond for-credit offerings, some library and information science (LIS) schools are exploring MOOCs as a means to promote lifelong learning and professional development. Using web surveys and descriptive content analysis methods, this paper empirically addresses if, in LIS programs, MOOCs can fill a role and serve new populations of learners…

The nation is in an era of policy reform aimed at improving the productivity and effectiveness of higher education. Major philanthropies and policy groups have converged around variations of the ambitious college completion goals announced by President Obama at the beginning of his administration. But at the same time, many state governments,…

Federal education policy will soon undergo a major revision, with significant consequences for the state's own policy and practices. This report seeks to help federal and state policymakers consider this restructuring and one of its core questions: How should schools and school districts be held accountable for the academic progress of their…

When a recent accreditation review report and an assessment consultant report both identified issues with assessment and shared governance, the three faculty governing bodies of National University met with the Provost and President to brainstorm and discuss a shared governance action plan to address these issues. As a result of this meeting, the…

Research centers in schools of social work are growing in number and scope. In this article the authors argue that this increase is in line with the growing recognition that research and science are critical components of the mission of the social work profession. The authors examine the purposes and various models for establishing research…

The purpose of this pilot study was to explore another way to boost degree completion and transfer rates through helping students develop informed decision-making power; specifically, counseling methods in Los Angeles Community Colleges using the Relationship-Based model was examined. As part of this study, students would develop their research…

The educational achievement and attainment of young people in the United States has been a long-standing issue of concern. While analyses of long-term trend data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) show that students in the United States have made gains in reading and mathematics over the past few decades, a sizeable…