The Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) administers programs that assist in educating children and youth with disabilities, provides funding for vocational rehabilitation (VR) services for youth and adults with disabilities and supports research to improve the lives of individuals with disabilities. OSERS established…

This report provides information on the retention, graduation, and transfer rates of first-time, full-time students at Maryland community colleges from 1999-2009. The report examines retention and graduation data for students two, three, and four years after matriculation into a community college. Retention, graduation, and transfer rates are…

First Generation undergraduate students from low-income households (FGLI students) continue to have substantially higher dropout rates than non first generation students or students from more affluent households despite numerous efforts over many decades to improve graduation rates among this group of students. The purpose of this research is to…

Many barriers can prevent students from entering and succeeding in college, including financial difficulties, family obligations, and personal problems. However, the most significant impediment is inadequate academic preparation. As higher education widens its focus from college access to degree completion, a new relationship between K-12 and…

During the past decade, New York City undertook a district-wide high school reform that is perhaps unprecedented in its scope, scale, and pace. Between fall 2002 and fall 2008, the school district closed 23 large failing high schools (with graduation rates below 45 percent), opened 216 new small high schools (with different missions, structures,…

Research indicates that programs designed to target first year students increase their likelihood of success during that year and their chances of completing an undergraduate education (Bureau & Rromrey, 1994; Conner & Colton, 1999). Theoretically, such programs should help in part because they foster integration into campus communities…

This paper provides information about the New York's Regents Examination. The purpose of the exam is to: (1) Provide schools with student academic diagnostic information; (2) Determine prospective high school graduates' knowledge and skill levels relative to those needed for entry-level employment; (3) Determine prospective high school graduates'…

As the poor performance of U.S. high schools has been acknowledged and come to the forefront of education policy debates over the past several years, so too has a recognition of the need to improve graduation rate calculations and accountability for increasing those rates. A range of state, national, and federal efforts have been launched toward…

Parents and caregivers are often faced with the daunting task of assisting students with disabilities in selecting a work program to attend after graduation. Finding the right program to suit the unique needs of each individual can be trying and frustrating as parents and teachers attempt to prepare students for life after school by providing work…

As part of his quest to help the United States reclaim its status as the world's top producer of college graduates by 2020, on July 14 President Obama introduced the aptly named American Graduation Initiative (AGI). The sweeping proposal would, if approved by Congress, pump an unprecedented $12 billion into the nation's community colleges to help…

A national study of rehabilitation counseling graduate students and state-federal rehabilitation counselors investigated whether there were differences between (a) what graduate students preferred to do upon graduation and what they believed vocational rehabilitation counselors did, (b) what graduate students preferred to do upon graduation and…

For over 20 years, Advocates for Children of New Jersey has published the Newark Kids Count Data Book, a one-stop source for child well-being data on the state's largest city. Newark Kids Count includes the latest statistics, along with five-year trend data, in the following areas: demographics, family economic security, food insecurity, child…

Public colleges and universities, which educate the vast majority of the nation's students, are an important part of states' economic competitiveness efforts. These institutions face a number of pressures that will demand increased productivity and a data driven investment strategy moving forward. Increasing productivity in higher education will…

For young people entering the twenty-first-century job market, high school graduation is no longer the finish line, but the starting line. While one-third of students will fail to graduate from high school, too many students who do graduate and make it to the postsecondary starting line find that they are underprepared for postsecondary work. A…

The Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 (HEOA) requires that Title IV degree-granting institutions disclose annually the graduation rates of first-time, full-time degree- or certificate-seeking undergraduate students, disaggregated by gender, each major racial/ethnic subgroup, and receipt or non-receipt of a federal Pell grant or subsidized…