Postsecondary education is awash in data. Postsecondary institutions track data on students' demographics, academic performance, course-taking, and financial aid, and have put these data to use, applying data analytics and data science to issues in college completion. Meanwhile, an extensive amount of higher education data are being collected…

After schools closed in March of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, students, families and teachers had to shift learning from in-class to online. But the switch to remote learning was hasty and disorganized in many school districts. Families struggled with the technology and coordinating schedules at home, while teachers tried to shift the…

In mid-March 2020, the emergence of COVID-19 throughout the United States led to programmatic changes at most higher education institutions, including those involved in implementing model demonstration projects known as Transition and Postsecondary Programs for Students with Intellectual Disability (TPSID) projects. This Insight Brief describes…

The American dream--the belief that anyone is capable of upward mobility and a better life than the one in which they were born--is in jeopardy. According to Harvard economist Raj Chetty, American families are experiencing reduced upward mobility across generations. Education is the key to reversing the trajectory of upward mobility, imparting…

Despite all of the celebratory rhetoric around our nation's declining dropout rates, during a given year, nearly 20 percent of students expected to graduate do not. Furthermore, according to Johns Hopkins University and Civic Enterprises, "unacceptably low levels of minority, low-income, English Language Learners, and special education…

This Executive Summary provides a brief overview of the entire Annual Report of the Cohort 3 TPSID Model Demonstration Projects (Year 1, 2020-2021). Information is provided about the TPSID projects about program characteristics, students characteristics, academics, academic supports, employment, vocational rehabilitation, residential services, and…

Between 2010 and 2020, the Office of Postsecondary Education in the U.S. Department of Education funded 52 model demonstration projects called Transition and Postsecondary Programs for Students with Intellectual Disabilities (TPSIDs). These grantees created or expanded inclusive higher education programs, enrolling 4,279 students with intellectual…

Many children and their families in rural America need better and more equitable educational opportunities. "Leveling the Playing Field" highlights the many and varied opportunities for Congress to act to ensure rural students receive the education they need and are given an equitable chance to succeed. The following policy initiatives…

There is much discussion today about the need to transform higher education for the benefit of students, employers, and society at large. Experts and researchers list the numerous challenges: low student retention and graduation rates, the increasing cost of higher education, and concerns that graduates don't possess the skills required to compete…

Quality Matters (QM) has been transforming established best practices and online education-based research into an applicable, scalable course level improvement process for the last decade. In this article, the authors describe QM as an ongoing design-based research project and an educational input for improving online education.

For students with disabilities who are at risk of leaving high school without graduating, virtual schools have become a popular alternative to traditional schools. One promising approach to increasing graduation rates is to design learning environments that serve students with disabilities through the 5 Cs framework designed to increase school…

"Straight A's: Public Education Policy and Progress" is a biweekly newsletter that focuses on education news and events both in Washington, DC and around the country. The following articles are included in this issue: (1) Let's Get Digital: First-Ever National Digital Learning Day Attracts Participation from Thirty-Nine States, 19,000…

When in 2002 Maine launched its pioneering Maine Learning Technology Initiative (MLTI) that equipped every one of the state's 30,000 seventh- and eighth-grade public school students and teachers with their own Apple iBook, all eyes were on the endeavor. As the first statewide one-to-one deployment, MLTI's $37 million education experiment…

This report outlines how digital learning can connect middle and high school students with better teaching and learning experiences while also addressing three major challenges facing the nation's education system--access to good teaching, tight budgets, and boosting student achievement. But simply slapping a netbook on top of a textbook will not…

People who deal with at-risk teens say dropping out is not an event; it's a process. Youngsters miss school and get "backed up" in class, so they miss more school because they're bewildered or embarrassed, and fall further behind. In the three years the 75-seat Hampton Performance Learning Center (PLC) has been open, it claims to have…