Many more teachers begin studying for masters' level awards than complete them. This situation is a concern to participants, providers and funders of courses. The research project reported here explores teachers' perceptions of factors affecting their success in completing assessed work. Questionnaire and interview responses from 46 students in…

Biracial students represent a growing number of students on many campuses and an increasingly significant segment of the population of the United States. Nevertheless, this group of students rarely has been studied with respect as to how their experiences affect persistence at colleges and universities. This case study reports on the experiences…

Grade inflation has occurred in postsecondary institutions and has been accompanied by a concomitant rise in grade-point average. Nursing educators are expected to prepare competent future nurses. Because many nursing programs use grade-point average as admission, retention, and progression criteria, it is imperative that grades accurately reflect…

Education policy discussions often assume that public school teachers are poorly paid. Typically absent in these discussions about teacher pay, however, is any reference to systematic data on how much public school teachers are actually paid, especially relative to other occupations. Because discussions about teacher pay rarely reference these…

"Straight A's: Public Education Policy and Progress" is a biweekly newsletter that focuses on education news and events both in Washington, DC and around the country. The following articles are included in this issue: (1) Bill Gates Testifies Before Senate Committee: Microsoft Chairman Pushes for High School Reform, Says Every Child…

The Council on Postsecondary Education is directed by statute to provide the Governor and the members of the General Assembly an annual accountability report on Kentucky's postsecondary education system. The report documents system-wide and institutional progress in advancing the Public Agenda and the mandates of the Kentucky Postsecondary…

This report identifies the number of students that transition to public post-secondary within four years after high school graduation. The report also considers the effect on transition rates of academic GPA, post-secondary programs of study, completion rates, attendance patterns and student retention and movement within the public post-secondary…

This report provides data and information relating to the Palmetto Fellows, LIFE, and SC HOPE Scholarships, and the Lottery Tuition Assistance and the SC Need-based Grant Programs. The primary purpose of the Palmetto Fellows Scholarship is to recognize the most academically talented high school seniors in South Carolina and to encourage them to…

The "No Child Left Behind Act", a sequel to "Goals 2000", is designed to enact the theories of standards-based education reform which is predicated on the belief that high expectations and setting of goals will result in success for all students. This article highlights the major provisions provided in the framework of…

Supplemental instruction classes have been shown in many studies to enhance performance in the supported courses and even to improve graduation rates. Generally, there has been little evidence of a differential impact on students from different ethnic/racial backgrounds. At San Francisco State University, however, supplemental instruction in the…

Background/Context: Although increasing numbers of scholars have begun to focus on student experiences, research on the history of underrepresented populations' transition to college is still in its formative stage. The classic histories of higher education have tended to focus on university infrastructure and intellectual life rather than on…

Background: There is an emerging corpus of work on the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on education in sub-Saharan Africa. This mainly employs demographic models to make projections of student enrolments and teacher requirements. However, there is a paucity of research in basic schools to examine the experiences of AIDS-affected teachers and…

Tennessee Code Annotated (T.C.A.) Section 49-7-202 (c) (7) requires the Tennessee Higher Education Commission to "submit a biennial report to the governor and the general assembly, commenting upon major developments, trends, new policies, budgets and financial considerations which in the judgment of the commission will be useful to the…

"Straight A's: Public Education Policy and Progress" is a biweekly newsletter that focuses on education news and events both in Washington, DC and around the country. The following articles are included in this issue: (1) Bush Budget Proposes Spending Freeze for U.S. Department of Education: Title I, Striving Readers, Statewide Data…

The purpose of a state report card is to provide the general public and policymakers with information to assess and improve post secondary education in each state. "Measuring Up 2008" is the fifth in a series of biennial report cards that evaluates states in six overall performance categories: (1) Preparation for post-secondary education…