Racial and ethnic inequities in school discipline are widespread and persistent, even in schools implementing PBIS [positive behavioral interventions and supports] with fidelity. Yet integrating components of a multicomponent equity-centered approach into existing tiered frameworks is showing promise for improving equity in student outcomes. This…

This paper addresses two major and potentially conflicting movements: the importance of diversity as both a conceptual and political issue and the rise of the evidence-based practice movement in education. This tension is particularly important when evaluating and reporting universal interventions because of their intended applicability across…

National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has expended considerable effort to ensure high quality in data collection by developing standardized materials and survey operation procedures and using well-trained professional administrators. However, schools are allowed to minimize the disruption associated with pulling students out of…

Most studies focus on the effects of charter attendance on short-term student achievement (test scores), using either data sets that follow students over time or random assignment via school admission lotteries to control for differences between students in charter and traditional public schools. Beyond measuring achievement effects, however,…

Programs that serve underrepresented minority students have long faced many challenges. Prior to the late 1970s, higher education institutions reserved academic program slots for underrepresented minority students because these students had limited access to opportunities that afforded them credentials that their white counterparts could more…

The vast amount of research conducted on student persistence over the past thirty years is indicative of the continuing and evolving interest in retention of students. Framed through multiple perspectives, this retention research is driven by the fact that more students leave institutions without graduating, year after year. Much more than an…

The goal of this study is to apply a conventional education cost-function approach for estimating the sensitivity of cost models and predicted education costs to the inclusion of school district level racial composition variables and further to test whether race neutral alternatives sufficiently capture the additional costs associated with school…

This substudy in the evaluation design of the Math and Science Partnership (MSP) Program Evaluation investigates changes in student mathematics and science achievement across three school years, 2002-03, 2003-04, and 2004-05, for MSP-related schools using Management Information System data with the Annual K-12 District Survey. First, changes in…

Rigorous research provides information that will allow other schools and districts to select interventions that have a scientifically based track record of effectiveness. All Striving Reader grants include the mandate to evaluate literacy intervention(s) targeted to adolescents who are reading significantly below grade level. Although all studies…

Rates of adolescent smoking appear to be on the increase, with a number of authors documenting increases in the 1990's. However, the issue of prevention rather than cessation has received greater attention in tobacco control programmes among youth. This review provides details of published school based and other tobacco cessation programmes for…

The Center on Education Policy (CEP) has been studying state high school exit examinations since 2002. This is the sixth annual report on our comprehensive study of exit exams. The information comes from several sources: our survey of states that have mandatory exit exams, interviews with state officials, media reports, state Web sites, and case…

New Jersey After 3 (NJ After 3) is a private, nonprofit organization whose mission is to expand and improve afterschool opportunities for New Jersey's youth. Using both public and private resources, it supports a network of youth-service providers that deliver afterschool services based on NJ After 3's program model. Under an agreement with NJ…

This report summarizes evaluation information on reading, writing, and mathematics achievement among elementary and secondary school students in 310 school districts in Massachusetts, after the second year of implementation of the Basic Skills Improvement Policy. The report describes data collection, analysis, and reporting procedures, summarizes…