Every student at Wheeling High School takes a full academic courseload. Many of the graduates of this 2,000-student school in Wheeling, Illinois, however, also emerge with significant experience in a career field. Those interested in health careers, for example, can work with student-athletes in the school's athletic training facility, earn a…

President Barack Obama applauded high school redesign efforts in his State of the Union address and encouraged districts to look to successful models for inspiration. Last week, he followed up with a request in his fiscal 2014 budget proposal for a new, $300 million competitive-grant program. Recognition is widespread that high schools need to…

The General Educational Development program, or GED, is undergoing the biggest revamping in its 69-year history, driven by mounting recognition that young adults' future success depends on getting more than a high-school-level education. Potent forces have converged to stoke the GED's redesign. A labor market that increasingly seeks some…

Until the past decade, college wasn't much of an option for students who have significant intellectual impairments. Vanderbilt University's Next Steps program is one of many created for students with severe cognitive disabilities in the last 10 years. The programs have grown in number from about 15 in 2002 to almost 170 now, as tracked by Think…

Educators and policymakers increasingly recognize that in middle school, a combination of strong academic preparation, close monitoring, and good support is pivotal to success in high school. But few middle schools have structured themselves so explicitly to deliver the double wallop of academic and counseling attention needed to get their…

If it's the squeaky wheel that gets the grease, middle-class children are more likely than their lower-income peers to grow up learning how to make the gears of the education system turn smoothly. Working-class parents, meanwhile, tend to raise their children to avoid conflict and be self-sufficient in problem-solving, an Indiana University…

This article discusses College Summit, a nonprofit effort centered around the premise that there is a sizable number of students who are more capable of college academics than their test scores and grade point averages suggest. Its four-day summer sessions are focused not on ramping up students' academic performance but in mining students'…

President Obama is the most prominent of a growing number of American policymakers to embrace the idea that some form of postsecondary education is crucial to students' success after high school. This year's edition of "Diplomas Count", a report by "Education Week" and the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center,…