This document, created by the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE), provides guidance for newly opening charter schools. This guide can be used to keep track of MDE deadlines, access the reporting calendar and follow the steps necessary to ensure the utilization of all the resources and revenue available from the state. This guidance document…

College education is fundamental to students' upward mobility, states' economic growth, and the country's economic competitiveness. Researchers have forecast that 63 percent of future jobs will require a college degree, yet in the coming years the United States will likely produce 3 million fewer college graduates than are needed to fill workforce…

Many employers report difficulty finding qualified candidates for jobs, while millions of American workers are under- or unemployed. At the core of this issue is a startling perception gap involving the skills needed for workplace success. Postsecondary educators -- including those at community colleges -- who prepare workers live on one side of…

Ramp-Up to Readiness™ (Ramp-Up) is a program for middle and high school students that aims to provide greater depth and breadth of support for college readiness than do current supports. This study examined whether students' ACT Engage goal setting and commitment to college scale scores as well as the likelihood of key enrollment actions such as…

Spatial-Temporal Math (ST Math) is game-based, instructional software for K-12 students created by the MIND Research Institute (MIND). ST Math is integrated into classroom instruction, but can also be used in a computer lab or at home. The ST Math software games begin without language and symbol abstractions by posing math programs as purely…

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the implementation and impacts of the Building Assets, Reducing Risks (BARR) model in its first year of implementation in 66 schools across the U.S. and to document scale-up progress during the Investing in Innovation (i3) grant period (2017-2021). The impact evaluation included 21,529 9th grade students…

College enrollment has increased over the past 10 years and is projected to continue growing over the next 10 for both full- and part-time students. At the same time, institutions face low retention and graduation rates. One policy that shows promise in increasing completion rates, especially for adult learners and those who served in the…

This paper asks the question: Is now the right time to consider a statewide policy initiative to support increased access for Massachusetts community college students to paid internships that can help them improve their employment and earnings trajectory? Is this something that employers, colleges, and state leaders would see as a welcome…

This report presents findings from the annual evaluation of the MacPhail Intensive Strings Program, specifically at Ascension Catholic School in Minneapolis. It includes satisfaction and outcome data for the 2020-21 school year. [For the 2019-20 report, see ED619376.]

A request for support (RFS) is a tool that is used to strengthen network capacity by prioritizing needs and optimizing learning opportunities. Within University of Minnesota Extension, we implemented an RFS process through an online survey designed to help leaders of food networks identify and rank learning and capacity-building needs and indicate…

Background: Peer harassment can have serious implications for students' success and well-being, and prevention programs need to consider the school context. This study aimed to: (1) identify groups of similar schools based on their risk and protective factors and demographic characteristics and (2) examine associations between school profiles and…

Background: Long-term evaluation studies reveal that high-quality early care and education (ECE) programs that include a lifestyle component predict later adult health outcomes. The purpose of this article is to characterize the nutrition and physical activity (PA) practices, including implementation difficulty and barriers, of licensed center-…

With only four years of mandated state-standards in adult basic education (ABE), very little is known about the influence of state-standards implementation on the unique learning needs of its adult students. Two decades of research on standards-based education in the U.S. K12 system has yielded widely debated results regarding the impact of…

This is the third paper on the topic of outcomes-based funding written by Dennis Jones for Complete College America. The first paper, "Performance Funding: From Idea to Action" (ED535356), proposed a set of design and implementation principles to help states develop and implement their own outcomes-based funding models. The second paper,…

The National Association of Social Workers and the Council on Social Work Education identify social justice as a guiding principle of the social work profession, yet there is little consensus in the field of what the term actually means and how it can be achieved. Master of Social Work programs are likewise struggling with how to educate students…