Illinois education policymakers have adopted the completion agenda that emphasizes increasing postsecondary credential attainment. Meeting completion agenda goals necessitates addressing the achievement gap. To aid in developing policy to support improved completion, this study analyzes a comprehensive statewide dataset of the 2003 Illinois high…

Penn State Hazleton sits at the very edge of town, on the top of a large hill, literally, as far removed from Hazleton as it possibly can be. Only a handful of professors actually live in Hazleton, and nearly all students return home for the weekend. Compared with the main campus, the student population at Penn State Hazleton is quite diverse.…

While ethnic-minority young people are increasingly defined as bodies "at disadvantage," marked as less fit or less healthy than the White "norm," the ways young people construct meanings around their bodies as a result of global health imperatives have received scant attention. The purpose of this participatory visual research…

Research shows that many of the predominantly White and middle-class teachers are unprepared to teach an urban public school population increasingly comprised of low-income children of color. Lack of cultural competencies, low expectations of and lack of caring for students, and racial/ethnic, linguistic, and class biases are all cited as barriers…

Urban school districts are comprised of many diverse high school environments including comprehensive neighborhood schools as well as a variety of smaller alternative models that focus on innovative practices, behavior remediation, or academic recovery. In terms of enrollment distribution, urban school districts are increasingly offering…

Academic achievement for African American and Latino students is lower than for White and Asian students. To help overcome the achievement gap, policymakers and social scientists have focused on the relationships between student outcomes and family, community, and schools. Family, church, and community have always played significant roles in…

In 2009, at the end of the 12-month Great Recession in the United States, the U.S. government established a college degree attainment goal for 60% of 25- to 34-year-olds to earn an associate's or bachelor's degree by the year 2020. In the same year, Lumina Foundation set a similar goal for 60% of 25- to 64-year-olds to earn a high-quality…

The researchers examined how speech-language pathologists (SLPs) in a small northern California school district assessed Spanish speaking English learning (EL) Latino children suspected of language impairments. Specifically we sought to (1) determine whether SLPs adhered to federal, state, and professional guidelines during initial assessments and…

This article examines the neoliberal influences on "Port City Schools" (PCS) unique district-wide extended learning time (ELT) initiative. Despite the recent popularity of ELT in urban schools, there have been few qualitative studies that question how stakeholders make sense of ELT on the ground. This research fills that gap in the…

Community colleges are a crucial channel for achieving postsecondary education success, especially for minority and nontraditionally aged students. Nonetheless, community colleges are inadequate to meeting national goals for postsecondary educational attainment. Most notably, the lack of a strong guidance of academic interventions stifles a…

A founding ideal of American democracy is that merit, not accident of birth, should determine individuals' income and social status. Schools have assumed a major role in judging key elements of merit among young people--namely, academic skills, hard work, self-discipline, and cooperative behavior. Schools do so mainly by evaluating students in a…

This practiced-based handbook describes postmodern career counseling models and methods designed to meet clients' diverse needs in today's challenging work environment. Readers will gain a solid understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of postmodern career counseling and learn practical approaches to counseling clients of various ages and…

As part of Maryland's ongoing commitment to early learning and school readiness, a comprehensive Kindergarten Readiness Assessment (KRA) was administered for the third time. This assessment is part of the Ready for Kindergarten: Maryland's Early Childhood Comprehensive Assessment System (R4K) that was developed to align to the state's more…

This dissertation project represents a 2.5-year ethnographic study in a second-grade bilingual classroom and the homes of seven emergent bilingual children of Mexican-origin. This study examines how educational assessment policies shape the ways in which emergent bilingual children are socialized to express social and academic identities during…

Fingertip Facts is a compendium of some of the most frequently requested data sets from the Utah State Office of Education. This year's Fingertip Facts includes the following data sets: (1) SAGE Testing, 2015-16; (2) 2016 Public Education General Fund; (3) 2015-16 Public School Enrollment Demographics; (4) Public Schools by Grade Level, 2015-16;…