Apprenticeship programs in North Carolina act as a crucial talent pipeline and economic development solution. These registered apprenticeships have also been proven to address many workforce challenges directly by matching well-trained, highly skilled, invested jobseekers to organizations choosing apprenticeship as an economic solution. Despite…

In 2013, the North Carolina General Assembly (NCGA) passed its first private school voucher legislation with the introduction of the Opportunity Scholarship Program. The program was designed to provide private school tuition assistance to income-eligible families who chose to withdraw their child from public school and it represents a significant…

Although School based agricultural education (SBAE) teachers have a variety of responsibilities within a comprehensive program, supervised agricultural experience (SAE) programs are considered an intracurricular component. Unfortunately, the ability for teachers to plan for and facilitate SAEs has been reported as lacking. The purpose of this…

The key to success for many programs depends on effective partnership and collaboration. Indeed, in work-based learning (WBL) partnerships are not only encouraged -- they're mandatory. WBL by definition involves a partnership between business and education, with these two entities comprising the "work" and "learning." However,…

This qualitative study described the lived experiences of 17 educators. These educators were 10 teachers and 7 principals. The study was conducted using an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) methodology to explore the lived experiences of teachers and principals. The population included those teachers and principals with 5 or more…

Embedding Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) into chemistry curricula has become a best practice due to the overwhelming evidence that these experiences deepen students' content comprehension, improve students' problem-solving skills, and increase retention within the major. For these reasons, faculty are often encouraged to…

The Association of Public & Land-grant Universities (APLU) launched the "Powered by Publics: Scaling Student Success" initiative in the fall of 2018. The South Eastern Cluster brought together a diverse set of institutions from this region of the country that included several of the larger universities, the North Carolina System…

As the sector's gatekeepers, charter school authorizers are responsible for ensuring that schools in their purview set students up for success. To that end, they provide various forms of scrutiny and technical assistance, decide whether existing schools' charters should be renewed, and--perhaps most important--set the bar for the approval of new…

The Independent Transfer Pathways in North Carolina Project served as a catalyst in forging a culture of cooperation between community colleges and independent colleges and universities in North Carolina by creating a unique opportunity to bridge the gap between the two systems. The project focused on developing discipline-specific articulation…

In the United States, our traditional educational model is outdated, with subpar academic achievement and a high dropout rate. Alternative education provides non-traditional settings designed to help prevent students from falling through the cracks, but the atypical format and at-risk population can make it difficult to assess how effective…

To support and enhance educational attainment in the United States, the Lumina Foundation established a national goal of 60% of adults earning a high-quality credential by 2025. To achieve this goal, the Lumina Foundation expanded its funding to the adult learner population in 2017 by establishing the Adult Promise Initiative. The organization…

In response to national and state emphasis implementing digital technologies in the K-12 classroom, the North Carolina (NC) state board of education approved the integration of the Digital Learning Competencies for Teachers (DLCT) and the Digital Learning Competencies for School Administrators (DLCSA) for schools statewide. DLCSA support school…

This article describes the curriculum and program development process that was used to create the North Carolina Extension Master Food Volunteer program. We used a rigorous program development process, including conducting a needs assessment, piloting and evaluating the program, incorporating revisions based on feedback, and receiving external…

Research continues to stress the importance for college students to graduate with the skills to be successful as global-minded leaders in today's evolving workforce. Although the typical study abroad programs can address this, critics point to some limitations. First, most study abroad programs are short-term, limiting students' ability to…

Over the past several decades, writing center scholarship has evolved to include multiple theories and pedagogies that led to widely used best practices. As is the case in many disciplines, often writing centers at large, research PWIs are most often cited and highlighted within the scholarship. While many of those readings do offer helpful…