Authors Casey Reason and Brandon J. Larson advocate for the strategic design and development of impactful activities and athletics to enhance school culture. Their Rally model provides strategies for aligning extracurricular programs with academic goals, fostering leadership, and boosting participation and engagement. The Rally approach improves…

National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE) studies education systems with strong student performance across the globe to understand what they do, how they do it, and the context and challenges that they face. This brief shares what has been learned about how global leaders think about high school and how they organize time in school…

This article describes a learning therapy structure used at the Hill Top Preparatory School that enables learning disabled young people to compensate for their deficiencies and to cope with physical, social, and emotional problems. The goal is to help them achieve academically, remain accepted and contributing members of their families, and…

The understanding of two principles is important if school districts are to develop comprehensive plans responsive to the Lau v. Nichols remedies specified by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) in ways that both adhere to the spirit of the Lau decision and allow the school district to develop coherent educational programs for…

A study was conducted to analyze the cognitive and affective effects of hard sell and soft sell career education programs. (The infusion of career education into the traditional content areas is termed as soft sell while the hard sell approach establishes career education as a separate, formal content area.) Hard sell and soft sell approaches were…

There is an urgent need for the development of learning environments that are especially suited to disadvantaged minority youth. Much of that which needs altering is the climate or atmosphere within existing schools. Determining the nature of this learning environment is a continuing problem in educational research. This document reports a study…

Extracurricular activities have enhanced the lives of students through the years and continue to provide students with additional skills they need to succeed in school and life. This paper offers an extensive literature review of the effect of extracurricular activities on student development and offers a plan for extending successful…

Describes efforts of the Spring Independent School District (Texas) to help teenage mothers remain in school, develop job skills, and improve parenting skills. The initiation of the teen parenting program and a typical program day are described. The involvement of the National Coalition for Equality in Learning and scholarships awarded to teen…

Existing data are reviewed and synthesized that speak to the extent to which Consumer and Homemaking Education (C&HE) programs at secondary and postsecondary levels contribute to student knowledge, attitudes, and behavior. Differences in program design that were found in the research literature are described before findings about effectiveness…

This article describes a pilot program, initiated in 1999 by Smoky Hill High School in Colorado, to help gifted students overcome barriers to their success. The program addresses issues in all components or subsystems of a person's life: emotional/psychological, mental/intellectual, physical, spiritual, social, and family. Tips for parents are…

This report presents a description and the results of evaluation of Project Adelante at William H. Taft High School in New York City during 1980-81. The project, which was funded under Title VII of the Elementary Secondary Education Act, provided instruction in English as a Second Language, Spanish language skills, and bilingual instruction in…

The Research Institute on Secondary Education Reform for Youth with Disabilities (RISER) has identified Schools of Authentic and Inclusive Learning (SAIL) to explore whether and how secondary students with disabilities are included in secondary education reform. In this brief, the literature describing the intersection of reform, inclusion, and…

This book describes the characteristics of secondary schools in the United States that make it difficult for immigrant students to succeed. These include the following: fragmented school days and instructional programs in which English-as-a-Second-Language and content area teachers work in separate departments and rarely interact; the complex…

This document presents five winning entries in the second annual competition for papers reporting research and policy studies on the topic of youth employability. In their paper entitled "The Impact of Employment and Training Programs on the Work Attitudes of Disadvantaged Youth," Michael Forcier and Andrew Hahn review and synthesize the…

The Project TALENT Data Base described in this paper provides a source of information on the personal characteristics, educational experiences, and subsequent career outcomes of a representative sample of 400,000 individuals who were in high school in 1960. (These data provide a basis for analysis and development of policies relating to the…