Questions arise about the constitutionality of including some form of prayer, usually an invocation or benediction, in public school graduation ceremonies, and whether such prayer can appropriately be delivered by a minister or other religious leader. The U. S. Supreme Court has not addressed this precise issue, but an analysis of other courts'…

This publication presents information on the outcomes of high school. It begins with an overview, "Youth at the Crossroads: Facing High School and Beyond," which suggests there are fundamental educational gaps among African American and Latino high school students and White students. The main article, "Are Today's Graduates Ready?" (Kati Haycock…

This journal issue presents examples of progress in urban education. It shows preliminary data on system-wide improvement in student achievement, dropout and graduation rates, student attendance, and more. Progress in urban schools is the result of a growing national consensus on what needs to be done, and an increasing emphasis by urban educators…

Although there is no single measure of the degree of integration of the children of immigrants, individual trends and indicators can be interpreted to depict the status and opportunities of young foreigners residing in Germany. Although the standard of school-leaving certificates rose, the number of young foreigners is still disproportionately…

A study was undertaken in the winter and spring quarters of 1980, addressing aspects of the baccalaureate application, admission, advising, and graduation processes at the General College of the University of Minnesota, a nontraditional postsecondary education program. Among the issues addressed were these: the distribution and trends of…

This brief paper considers planning for the transition of students with disabilities from the school setting to adult life. First, "transition services" are defined according to requirements of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The relationship of transition services to the student's Individualized Education Program is…

This paper discusses the relationship between education and earnings, explaining that most states still consider college preparatory courses to be electives, and the skills and content needed for further education are not typically reflected in state high school assessments. It discusses the implications of this mismatch for young people, focusing…

A study was done to compare the success of undergraduate engineering schools in graduating minorities from their programs. The study developed the following three parameters that can be used to define the performance of engineering schools in graduating minorities: (1) graduation rates of minorities; (2) graduation rates of minorities relative to…

This research brief reviews trends in Asian-American population and higher education participation. It determines the status of Asian-American students and faculty compared with other ethnic groups and identifies issues and problems connected with Asian Americans in academe. Data specifically include: composition of the Asian American population,…

This research brief reviews and analyzes national data on college going, persistence, and graduation. It compares characteristics of students who enter college immediately after high school graduation with other types of postsecondary entrants, considers traditional versus nontraditional paths of college going, and examines college persisters and…

To identify central problems in vocational education in Alaska, a study focused on the three sectors at the postsecondary school level: public or independent nonprofit institutions, private schools, and apprenticeship programs. Public and nonprofit institutions consider job preparation their primary goal in addition to skill upgrading and teaching…

This document is a collection of 12 issues of a monthly publication on public policy and postsecondary education opportunity. Each issue contains one or two main articles providing an analysis of research on trends in postsecondary education. The major articles in these issues are: (1) "The Challenge of Educational Opportunity in Public…