An account of a persistently failing New York City high school's rapid transformation. Urban Assembly School for Green Careers had a 39% graduation rate in 2013 and ranked in the bottom 1% of high schools citywide. As a transformation strategy, the school employed an innovative educational design known as Learning Cultures, which distributes…

Guided pathways, a program that aims to improve college completion and student success through remodeling of the student journey, supports learners in choosing a program of study, ideally resulting in transfer to a four-year school or the start of a lucrative career with a two-year degree. Colleges that employ a guided pathways model are seeing…

This article highlights the College Level Examination Program -- or CLEP -- from the College Board, as another pathway for students to earn college credits toward degree completion. The renewal of interest in alternative pathways to degree attainment has come about in response to yet another round of national studies reporting declining rates of…

Regional comprehensive universities with access-oriented missions provide critical pathways for increasing the number and diversity of STEM graduates. The BOND program at California State University, Fresno supports the transition to college for first-time, full-time freshmen in selected STEM majors. BOND incorporates a learning community, active…

Objective: Although most community college students intend to transfer to a 4-year college, few ultimately do. We sought to assess how student experiences of the Exploring Transfer (ET) program influenced transfer rates. The ET program was offered by a private, 4-year liberal arts college. Methods: We used data from a cross-sectional survey of…

When San Francisco implemented a new policy to improve graduation rates and college enrollment, district officials realized their work was only beginning. San Francisco Unified School District revamped its college-ready graduation policy in 2009, hoping to increase the likelihood that students would graduate with the necessary courses to go to a…

Most community college students are referred to developmental education courses to build basic skills. These students often struggle in these courses and college more broadly. CUNY Start is a prematriculation program for students assessed as having significant remedial needs. CUNY Start students delay matriculation for one semester and receive…

This study aims to identify the influence of the implementation of the Specific Purpose Grant (SPG) policy in achieving the national priorities in Banten Province. This study was conducted on the basis of a descriptive qualitative design by using interviews and observations for data collection. Findings indicate that the implementation of the SPG…

This case was developed for use with future school and district leaders in an educational setting. There are several topics of discussion that can be developed, including but not limited to decentralization as a large-scale reform, policy implementation, the superintendency, and urban schools. The setting is a fictional southwestern urban school…

Studies have documented widespread academic disengagement in middle and high school students. This disengagement has been tied to a myriad of negative outcomes, including failure to graduate from high school and transition into college and meaningful vocations. Supporting adolescents in cultivating a sense of beyond-the-self purpose is one factor…

Classroom success and academic integration are essential indicators of academic success (Tinto, 2012). Since students with disabilities, compared to students without disabilities, often face additional transitional academic issues when entering college, Ball State University developed a Faculty Mentorship Program (FMP) for students with…

This policy brief summarizes and critiques the findings of the US Department of Education's Section 5005 Report on Rural Education. In September of 2018, the Department of Education released the "Section 5005 Report on Rural Education: Final Report." The report was written in response to a provision of the Every Student Succeeds Act of…

In 2012, Cleveland State University implemented a comprehensive program, called Operation STEM (OpSTEM), funded by two National Science Foundation grants, federal work study, and Cleveland State University. Its goal is to increase retention and graduation rates among Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) students by helping them…

Church-related small private liberal arts baccalaureate minority-serving institutions like Wesley College have modest endowments, are heavily tuition-dependent, and have large numbers of financially-challenged students. In order to sustain the level of academic excellence and to continue to build student demographic diversity in its accessible…

Planning for policy implementation is as important as the implementation itself. A policy's intent can be subverted by the way the policy is implemented, or when unanticipated outcomes take precedence over the true intent. This article presents three cases of specific instances of unintended outcomes from policy implementation and presents a…