In 2004 and 2005, the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education (Pell Institute), sponsored by the Council for Opportunity in Education (COE), published two editions of "Indicators of Opportunity in Higher Education." In 2015, the commitment to documenting trends in higher education equity was renewed by publishing…

This report, the seventh in this series, brings together again in partnership the Pell Institute with the Alliance for Higher Education and Democracy of the University of Pennsylvania (PennAHEAD). These reports draw from multiple sources of existing data to provide, in one place, indicators that describe trends in equity in postsecondary…

For any school closing policy to minimize adverse effects on student achievement, students from closed buildings should be placed in higher performing ones. To provide a more in-depth analysis of the potential academic impacts of the School District of Philadelphia's proposed school closure plan, Research for Action (RFA) compared 32 schools…

Alternate assessments based on alternate achievement standards are designed to measure the academic achievement of students with the most significant cognitive disabilities. Because this population has not previously been included in large-scale testing programs, these assessments present unique measurement challenges. Probably the most…

Like other states across the country, the seven states in the Midwest Region (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin) have been striving to meet the performance targets established under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001, the latest reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. The…

This report presents descriptive findings on school practices in 12 states for schools explicitly held accountable for the performance of the students with disabilities (SWD) subgroup. The study found that, when surveyed in 2011, elementary schools accountable for the SWD subgroup were 15.8 percentage-points more likely than never-accountable…

"Science and Engineering Indicators" (SEI) is first and foremost a volume of record comprising high-quality quantitative data on the U.S. and international science and engineering enterprise. SEI includes an overview and seven chapters that follow a generally consistent pattern. The chapter titles are as follows: (1) Elementary and…

In 2009-10, 92% of WCPSS schools met Expected or High Growth as measured by the North Carolina ABCs program, a 3.5 percentage point increase from 2008-09. Fifty-four percent of the schools made High Growth and 38% made Expected Growth. All subgroups saw their percentages of students meeting growth increase to above 55% in 2009-10; with the…

Formerly excluded from measures of educational performance, students with disabilities (SWDs) are now explicitly recognized in federal and state accountability systems. At the national level, the 1997 amendments to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) laid the foundation for accountability for SWDs by requiring states to include…

In 2009-10, the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction was approved to include a five-year graduation rate as well as a four-year rate in determining if schools, districts, and the state made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) under the NCLB Act. This rate was based on the incoming 9th grade students of 2005-06. The denominator of the cohort…

The USC School Performance Dashboard, now in its seventh year, draws on California school data from 2003-2012 to rate charter schools on academic and financial measures of performance. It also provides an accompanying interactive site at www.uscrossier.org/ceg/. Unlike other school databases, this one assigns values--high, medium, low--to the…

This paper presents some facts about Pennsylvania's student achievement for 2010. These facts are: (1) Eighty two percent of Pennsylvania schools are meeting all of their Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) targets--up from 78% of schools last year; (2) Pennsylvania students exceed state academic goals and achieve double digit gains since 2002; (3)…

Formerly excluded from measures of educational performance, students with disabilities (SWDs) are now explicitly recognized in federal and state accountability systems. At the national level, the 1997 amendments to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) laid the foundation for accountability of SWDs by requiring states to include…

The Growth Model Pilot Project (GMPP) was initiated to allow states to experiment with adjustments to the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) status accountability system in order to improve the validity of AYP determinations by giving schools credit for students who are making significant growth. The pilot allowed states, districts, and schools to…

K12 Inc. enrolls more public school students than any other private education management organization in the U.S. Much has been written about K12 Inc. (referred to in this report simply as "K12") by financial analysts and investigative journalists because it is a large, publicly traded company and is the dominant player in the operation…