While the United States has made strides in increasing college access among low-income students, college completion has remained low. Graduation rates are particularly low at the nation's community colleges, which enroll a disproportionate percentage of low-income and nontraditional college students. Seeking to address this problem, in 2014 three…

One of the original purposes of student financial aid was to ensure fairer access to post-secondary education to those least able to afford it and to those traditionally underrepresented. Various federal and state programs were put in place to achieve this goal, including the federal Pell Grant and state aid programs. Yet policymakers and…

The expense of attending college is one factor that may explain why low-income students often drop out of school. In California, despite generous state aid and relatively low fees at community colleges, many low-income students still have substantial college-related costs that they cannot cover. To compound matters, federal support for students…

The Learning Communities Demonstration is a national research project that is testing the effectiveness of learning communities in six community colleges across the United States: Merced College in California; The Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC) in Baltimore, Maryland; Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Florida; Houston…

This report focuses on the initial design, implementation and baseline results of the five-year Longitudinal Educational Growth Study (LEGS) of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) being conducted by the School Choice Demonstration Project (SCDP). The LEGS will be the first evaluation of the participant effects of the MPCP using…

"Strengthening School Transitions for Students K-13," conceived and sponsored by NASSP and other organizations, was a project helping seven demonstration school districts address student transition problems. This article summarizes program accomplishments, critical transition points, and keys to success and describes each demonstration…

This policy brief reviews the evolution of comprehensive school reform (CSR) and the development of CSR models, describes the AEL-CREP (Center for Research in Educational Policy) research project and its findings, and discusses policy implications. Over the past 2 decades, CSR has evolved from theory to pilot project to mandate to widespread…

The Pilot schools Experiential Education Demonstration (PSEED) project was intended to deepen and embed high-quality experiential education within each participating school's academic programs. A continuation of a multiyear set of initiatives by the Barr Foundation, PSEED was an effort to unify the foundation's content area foci on arts,…

Part of a series about research-based programs that show promise for raising student achievement (especially in low-performing schools), this paper describes seven promising reading and language arts programs. Each program shows evidence of high standards, effectiveness, replicability, and support structures. The paper opens with a brief…

This report draws on the first two years' experience, findings, and research of the seven strands of the Raising Quality and Achievement (RQA) Program to draw general conclusions about issues being addressed, progress made, and challenges remaining for colleges in the United Kingdom. It defines quality and achievement, describes the national…

The primary objective of the Stallings Classroom Management Staff Development Model is to help teachers change so that they can manage their classrooms more effectively. In this model, classroom observations and specific recommendations for teaching behaviors are made for each teacher, and a series of teacher training sessions helps them to change…

Sixteen underachieving gifted students at Oliver High School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, were identified for a pilot program called Project Inspire, which sought to improve student achievement and build self-esteem, especially for disadvantaged Afro-American students. Teachers were selected as mentors for the students, and the mentors were…

Implementation of nationally developed applied academics curriculum packages at 16 pilot sites in Indiana was evaluated. Settings were urban and rural and included comprehensive high schools and vocational centers. Data were compiled from 8 applied mathematics and 9 applied communication teachers and from 559 students. The primary goal was to…

This is the third report from the evaluation of the Multicultural Education Program in Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania), a major effort to address racial and ethnic diversity in a middle school. Section 1 of the report provides background on the multicultural education movement and the aims of the Pittsburgh program. Section 2 describes the status of the…

This report presents an evaluation of the Multicultural Education Demonstration Program in Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania), an effort to address racial and ethnic diversity in a middle school. The report covers the implementation of the program since its inception in May 1989 through the beginning of the 1991-92 school year. It describes the program's…