The quality of high schools--how well they prepare students for productive employment as well as active citizenship--has been part of the state and national agendas for several years. To help complete an action plan for addressing the issue of high school quality, the Iowa Department of Education and State Board of Education during the spring of…

Of the 11,770 new full-time freshman matriculating at Maryland community colleges in fall 1998, 22.9% transferred to a Maryland public four-year college, 8.2% graduated and did not transfer, and 10.5% were still enrolled in a Maryland community college four years later. The combined four-year transfer and community college graduation rate of 31.1%…

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 2004 established a requirement that all states develop and submit to the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) a performance plan designed to advance the state from its current level of compliance with the statutory and regulatory requirements of the law…

This analysis focuses on school offerings and practices that limit or increase the course work taken by particular groups of students. The National Commission on Excellence in Education has recommended minimal requirements for high school graduation consisting of 4 years of English, 3 years of mathematics, science, and social studies, and one-half…

This comparative academic performance study of direct entry secondary school students and college transfer students admitted to Simon Fraser University (SFU) was conducted to determine whether differences in university course grades between the two groups still exists when controlling for secondary school performance. (Contains 2 figures, 1 table,…

This Technical Assistance Bulletin is to be utilized by districts and schools to design and implement their components of the Rhode Island High School Diploma System (Diploma System) as required by the RI Board of Regents' "Regulations Regarding High School and Ensuring Literacy for Students Entering High School" (Regents' Regulations)…

This report presents the progress toward school completion of New York City students who entered ninth grade in fall 1996 and were scheduled to graduate on time by summer 2000 after 4 years of high school. It presents outcomes for the class overall and specific groups of students categorized by gender, native language, race/ethnicity, and…

This handbook is a tool that reporters can use to uncover the hidden dimensions of race in public education and ask the right questions about the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Section 1, "Race Revealed", includes "Special Education" (Daniel J. Losen); "Dropout and Graduation Rates" (Daniel J. Losen);…

This brief explores the pros and cons of three alternative approaches to college admissions policies: race-based preferences, which are backed by most Democrats; class-rank plans (admitting the top students in each high school), which is backed by the Bush administration; and economic affirmative action for the disadvantaged of all races, which…

In 1997 the Oregon University System (OUS) identified four strategic goals for meeting state higher education needs: (1) strengthening the quality of instructional, research, and service programs; (2) expanding student access; (3) achieving appropriate cost effectiveness; and (4) enhancing graduates' employability. These goals guided the…

This paper examines and refutes the hypothesis that white, male, middle class college students are falling behind their female peers in higher education. After an introduction, the paper focuses on gender gaps in the educational pipeline, discussing several indicators that could be used to measure educational attainment. These include high school…

This document is a summary of the degrees, awards, and certificates completed at community colleges in California during the 1997-1998 academic year. Table 1 presents the number of degrees and certificates awarded by district and college. The largest number of degrees and certificates were awarded in Los Angeles (4,693), Los Rios (2,610), Ventura…

This book examines the commonplace rituals and ceremonies that play a central role in college and university culture; it examines how people build, learn, and transform culture in ways that create meaning and give definition to existence. Qualitative research on four campuses over 10 years investigated: why colleges persist with rituals and…

The "comprehensive" high schools that now educate almost all young people in Colorado and elsewhere in the United States were designed in a different era for a different economy. American comprehensive high schools were intended to provide a basic education in reading, writing, and arithmetic, preparing most students for work and some…

This research note describes data on college persistence, educational attainment, and remediation, and explains the difficulty in interpreting this data.