The phrase "Catholic intellectual tradition" appears in many self-descriptions of Catholic colleges and universities. It communicates the identity of these institutions to the broader Catholic community, to members of the particular college or university community, and to the broader academic world. The phrase "Catholic intellectual…

Employers value a four-year college degree, many of them more than ever. Yet half of those surveyed recently by "The Chronicle" and American Public Media's "Marketplace" said they had trouble finding recent graduates qualified to fill positions at their company or organization. Nearly a third gave colleges just fair to poor marks for producing…

Taking advanced high school courses predicts such postsecondary outcomes as enrolling in college, persisting in college courses, and completing a degree. In Texas, where Hispanic students make up 51 percent of the student population, their access to and enrollment in advanced courses is an ongoing concern despite recent gains. In particular,…

During the school year leading up to summer 2015, summer leaders in Dallas, Pittsburgh, and Rochester made concerted efforts to integrate their summer learning programs into the core priorities and operations of the larger school district as a strategy to increase sustainability. This report examines these efforts and their impacts. The…

Linguistic diversity is part of Europe's DNA. It embraces not only the official languages of Member States, but also the regional and/or minority languages spoken for centuries on European territory, as well as the languages brought by the various waves of migrants. The coexistence of this variety of languages constitutes an asset, but it is also…

Over the past half-century, the college president's job and its associated expectations have grown increasingly complex. At the same time, colleges and universities across the United States are facing an unprecedented rate of anticipated turnover among college presidents (King & Gomez, 2008). Current statistics show that approximately 70%…

The College Course Map (CCM) is a taxonomy system for coding postsecondary education courses in NCES research studies. Originally developed in 1988 in support of the postsecondary transcript study in the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972 (NLS-72), the taxonomy was updated in 1993 for the High School and Beyond Study…

While there has been some increasing interest in external validity, most work to this point has been in assessing the similarity of a randomized trial sample and a population of interest (e.g., Stuart et al., 2010; Tipton, 2011). The goal of this research is to calculate empirical estimates of the external validity bias in educational intervention…

The trends and challenges faced by Hispanic superintendents in Illinois are stated and analyzed throughout the study in both literature and practice. The examined items centered on the issues of hiring experiences and other barriers associated with the acquisition and longevity of the superintendency in Illinois. Data for the study were collected…

The purpose of the study is to add to the body of literature on the hiring processes utilized by public school boards of educations in filling the position of the superintendent. Hiring superintendents is one of the most important and challenging duties of a school board. This study will focus on the personal interview, selection methodology, and…

Because of low college completion rates, the focus in higher education has shifted from encouraging students to enroll in college to getting students to complete college. In essence, the paradigm has shifted from student access to student success or completion. In addition to a national agenda focusing on higher education with an emphasis on…

In some tests, examinees are required to choose a fixed number of items from a set of given items to answer. This practice creates a challenge to standard item response models, because more capable examinees may have an advantage by making wiser choices. In this study, we developed a new class of item response models to account for the choice…

When the Minneapolis Public Schools first set out to hire turnaround school principals, administrators followed their usual process--which focused largely on reputation and anecdotal support and considered mainly internal candidates. Yet success at the complicated task of turning around the fortunes of a failing school depends on exceptionally…

In the human sciences, a common assumption is that latent traits have a hierarchical structure. Higher order item response theory models have been developed to account for this hierarchy. In this study, computerized adaptive testing (CAT) algorithms based on these kinds of models were implemented, and their performance under a variety of…

"Poetic Voices: Writing, Reading, and Responding to Poetry" was the title of the 2011 Master Class in Children's Literature. Woven into this session were the insights of poets Joyce Sidman and Pat Mora who shared their creative processes and the voices that inspire their poetry. In addition, Barbara Kiefer provided advice regarding how to connect…