In the 1980s and 1990s important demographic, economic, and social changes will affect the nation's schools, families, and workplaces. In anticipation of these developments, there is renewed interest in formal educational attainment and basic academic skills. A concerted national effort to address the current crisis in basic skills development…

Reviewing research on grade retention, this paper describes tools and guidelines developed as an aid in retention decisions and examines actual promotion/retention policies and practices. Most research on academic and social effects of grade retention suffers from poor methodology, leaving the conclusions suspect and the results contradictory. The…

This bulletin contains materials--announcements, papers, and studies--that are concerned with youth policy issues and that focus on education and training. The first section, entitled Quidnunc, offers brief descriptions of projects of interest, reports recent appointments, and announces conferences. The second section, called Aspects, offers two…

Hispanic-American dropouts are a population seriously at risk socially and economically in the United States. A recent study by the Hispanic Policy Development Project (HPDP), "Too Late to Patch: Reconsidering Second-Chance Opportunities for Hispanic and Other Dropouts," suggests a number of programs that can benefit the 1.8 million…

This study relates the personal characteristics, high school experiences, and college experiences of students pursuing a baccalaureate degree to the type of institution they attended and their ethnicity. Multivariate analysis was performed on data drawn from the High School and Beyond database. Summary conclusions include the following: (1)…

The report of the National Longitudinal Transition Study presents initial findings on the educational experiences since 1985-86 of more than 8,000 youth (ages 13 to 23) with disabilities. The report addresses three questions: (1) What educational programs and other services are provided to secondary special education students? (2) How well do…

This report represents the efforts of a commission of 20 citizens who were directed by the Illinois General Assembly to identify the principal problems in Illinois' elementary and secondary schools and to recommend specific actions for improving the State's educational program. The commission concluded that student learning should be the foremost…

A study was conducted by the Appalachia Educational Laboratory (AEL) to determine impediments to and facilitators of adult students' success during their first semester of attendance at a community college and to recommend interventions which would minimize the difficulties of returning adults as they attempt to manage the learning process. The…

Guilford Technical Community College (GTCC) received a grant to establish a centralized unit for job development, placement, and data monitoring that could serve as a model for the North Carolina Community College System. The first goal of the project was to establish a centralized method for collecting, recording, and maintaining job placement…

Since the 1983 publication of "A Nation at Risk," most states have responded to public demand for educational improvement by enacting legislation increasing the number of units in academic subjects required for high school graduation. Required courses now consume three-quarters of the high school years, countering the former trend to large…

A profile is presented of the social and economic characteristics of black students, 16 years old and over, enrolled in college or a noncollegiate postsecondary institution, based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau's 1976 Survey of Income and Education. After a reviewing of characteristics of the black population in the United States in the…

Abstracts of 76 documents on retention of minorities in higher education are presented in a bibliography created to provide faculty and administrators access to unpublished works and journal articles on minority retention. The materials, which were produced between 1978-1982, include unpublished reports, conference papers, and dissertations.…

A student attrition research methodology and results of attrition research at Barber-Scotia College are examined. Questionnaire responses from 137 students indicated the degree of student satisfaction with academic and social services provided by the college. Data are presented on student enrollments by class during 1970-1980, and on student…

Academic persistence at the University of Alabama in Birmingham (UAB) was studied from fall 1979 through spring 1983. Attention was directed to the school's graduation rate and correlations between sex, race, major, grade point average (GPA) and persistence. Of the 1,043 students who were beginning freshmen in 1979, the study sample consisted of…

In order to provide educational opportunities for all students while preventing the "open door" from becoming a "revolving door", Southeastern Community College (North Carolina) established the Resources for Student Learning (RSL) program. During 1976, a comprehensive evaluation of the success and/or reasons for failure of current and former RSL…