This study sought to better understand present-day relationships between institutional and programmatic characteristics and their impact on student outcomes at postsecondary career and technical schools. This is critical given: (a) the existence of a significant middle-skills gap impacting the U.S. economy; (b) a lack of research and guidance for…

As higher education institutions in the United States strive to maximize their use of resources to better support students, it is critical for professionals to make data-informed decisions. Most institutions are currently gathering an abundance of data from multiple sources, which provides a good opportunity for functional units, divisions, and…

Instructional technologists and faculty in post-secondary institutions have increasingly adopted learning analytics interventions such as dashboards that provide real-time feedback to students to support student' ability to regulate their learning. But analyses of the effectiveness of such interventions can be confounded by measures of students'…

Science instructors are increasingly incorporating teaching techniques that help students develop core competencies such as critical-thinking and communication skills. These core competencies are pillars of career readiness that prepare undergraduate students to successfully transition to continuing education or the workplace, whatever the field.…

Advanced mathematics and science course taking is critical in building the foundation for students to advance through the STEM pathway-from high school to college to career. To invigorate students' persistence in STEM fields, high schools have been introducing applied STEM courses into the curriculum as a way to reinforce concepts learned in…

Using a nationally representative longitudinal data-set, we examine the influence of precollege access programs on high school achievement, college preparation, postsecondary enrollment, and postsecondary persistence. Results do not show much difference in the level of academic preparation between participants and non-participants. However,…

The Pittsburgh Promise is a scholarship program that provides $5,000 per year toward college tuition for public high school graduates in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania who earned a 2.5 GPA and a 90% attendance record. This study used a difference-in-difference design to assess whether the introduction of the Promise scholarship program directly…

The purpose of this systematic literature review was to summarize outcomes of the Check-in Check-out (CICO) intervention across elementary and secondary settings. Twenty-eight studies utilizing both single subject and group (experimental and quasi-experimental) designs were included in this review. Median effect sizes across the eight group…

As policymakers contemplate expanding preschool opportunities for low-income children, one possibility is to fund 2, rather than 1 year of Head Start for children at ages 3 and 4. Another option is to offer 1 year of Head Start followed by 1 year of pre-K. We ask which of these options is more effective. We use data from the Oklahoma pre-K study…

The ACES program is a collaboration between MCPS, Montgomery College (MC), and the Universities at Shady Grove (USG) to create a seamless pathway from high school to college completion. ACES focuses on identifying and supporting students who are underrepresented in higher education, the first in their family to attend college, or both. In…

California legislature made a policy change with Senate Bill (SB) 1644 (2000), shifting Cal Grant Programs to focus on entitlement; counter to the national trend of merit based grant programs. This article describes a study examining effectiveness and extent to which SB 1644 is meeting its legislative objectives: increase in higher education…

This study exploits a randomized trial of two light-touch elementary school interventions to estimate long-run impacts on postsecondary attendance and attainment. The first is a classroom management technique for developing behavioral skills in children. The second is a curricular intervention aimed at improving students' core reading skills. We…

Urban Alliance serves at-risk youth through its high school internship program, which provides training, mentoring, and work experience to high school seniors from distressed communities. The program aims to help youth move on to higher education or employment after graduation. The Urban Institute is conducting a six-year, randomized controlled…

In this report the authors analyze the movement of students to and from the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) and Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS). They also analyze student mobility between schools within each sector. The analysis rests on two separate sets of data: the administrative records the authors have collected as part of their…

In order to assess how completely a Small Learning Community (SLC) and/or Career Academy is implemented in any given site, and to connect the degree of implementation with the amount of improvement in student performance, two kinds of information are needed. The first is information on the quality of implementation, which can be collected by…