Our country has been trying to address the graduation crisis in many ways. We are seeing the impact of the efforts to improve graduation rates over the past twenty years including agreement among states to implement a common cohort-based graduation rate, research-based efforts to improve the transition to 9th grade, increased academic and social…

"Perspective" is a monthly e-newsletter presenting news and views from Achieve. This month's issue commences with a report stating how over the past five years, since the National Governors Association (NGA) and Achieve co-sponsored the National Education Summit on High Schools, states have made impressive progress in aligning their high…

This Fiscal Year 2011-2014 Strategic Plan (this Plan) addresses the key outcome-oriented goals below, focusing on reaching the President's 2020 goal. These goals focus on improving student achievement to increase high school graduation, college completion, and educational attainment--all measures of how the country is performing and how far it has…

ED"Facts" is a U.S. Department of Education (ED) initiative to govern, acquire, validate, and use high-quality, kindergarten through grade 12 (K-12) performance data for education planning, policymaking, and management and budget decision making to improve outcomes for students. ED"Facts" centralizes data provided by state…

If the nation is to truly meet the goal of every child a graduate, everybody must hold schools responsible for graduating every student with a regular diploma, particularly poor and minority students. Unfortunately, current education accountability systems virtually ignore high school graduation rates. This brief summarizes such shortcomings in…

This issue brief explores effective educational models for serving English Language Learners (ELLs) in ways that build upon these students' assets and prepare them for college and careers. The brief derives from an AYPF field trip to Texas's Rio Grande Valley region. On May 6-8, 2009 AYPF led a group of national policy leaders on a fact-finding…

Given the severity of the high school crisis, the national imperative to graduate all students ready for college and careers, and the current momentum to achieve significant changes in education policy, federal policy-makers should make it a priority to reauthorize Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) now. It is critically important that…

This study examined the postsecondary outcomes of students with and without disabilities in the four major outcomes areas of post-secondary education, employment, independent living, and recreation and leisure. The target population included students graduating from one mid-sized school district from a southern state. A stratified random sample of…