While students begin schooling with high engagement levels, these levels begin to drop in the middle years of schooling but appear to recover somewhat in 10th grade, suggesting that the middle years of schooling are an especially vulnerable time in terms of student engagement (Willms et al., 2009). Moreover disengagement is most common in students…

Twenty years after democracy, the legacy of apartheid and hitherto unmet challenges of resourcing and teacher development are reflected in a severely inequitable and underperforming education system. This paper focuses on second language writing in the middle years of schooling when 80% of learners face a double challenge: to move from…

Charter schools have substantial bipartisan support for their expansion. Yet, the bulk of charter school research ascertains that the majority of students in charter schools do not significantly outscore their traditional school peers on measurable indicators of academic performance. Additionally, students in charter schools do not have comparable…

Aboriginal children experience social and educational disadvantage and many are not engaged with schooling or learning, which results in significantly lower levels of educational attainment. The Aboriginal Education Program delivered by Scitech to remote Western Australian schools has been shown to significantly increase student ratings of their…

Although American schools are required to meet civic education goals of preparing students to become active and informed citizens, high-quality civic opportunities (e.g. service learning and volunteering) are consistently less available to youth of color who are typically enrolled in schools located in high-poverty communities. The purpose of this…

Interdistrict open enrollment is the nation's largest and most widespread school choice program, but our knowledge of these programs is limited. Drawing on 5 years of student-level data from the universe of public school attendees in Colorado, we perform a three-stage analysis to examine the dynamics of student participation in the state's…

Statistics indicate that demographically, Singapore's minority Malay community, unlike the other ethnic groups in the small multicultural, multi-religious island-state, has yet to 'mature' and contribute fully to the country's economy. A subsequent argument is thus made on the need to ensure that learners from the community be developed in the…

To serve students and society well, higher education needs to make a pervasive commitment to equity and inclusive excellence--both preparing students for and providing them with access to high-quality learning opportunities, and ensuring that students of color and low-income students participate in the most empowering forms of college learning.…

Education is a critical pathway by which children can rise out of the cycle of poverty. Billions of dollars are invested annually in America's public schools and considerable improvement has been made in academic achievement and educational attainment. However, certain school-aged cohorts--entire communities of youth--have been left behind. An…

In this report, the Annenberg Institute for School Reform and the Southern Education Foundation (SEF) highlight instructional and community-based strategies for strong public schools in Georgia. The authors offer eight essential, evidence-based strategies for success: (1) Access to high quality early childhood and pre-K education; (2)…

Through a comprehensive overview of policies and data related to the renewed European agenda for adult learning, this Eurydice report aims to support the exchange of policy and practice between countries. The report concentrates on measures to ensure that the most vulnerable groups of adult learners, in particular those with low basic skills or…

This study used data from the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) 2009 4-year-old cohort to examine associations among family characteristics, home and classroom environments, and the emergent literacy skills of Head Start children. Results from hierarchical linear models suggest that both family and classroom contexts play a…

Over the last two decades there have been a number of efforts to catalogue and determine how much is spent on federal education programs. However, because education programs are administered by agencies throughout the federal government, and there is no standard definition of a federal education program, there currently is no single source that…

This article considers the relationship between gender and self-efficacy in teacher trainees engaged in an electricity-related design and construction task. Quantitative data (examination scores, task assessment, and questionnaire) and qualitative data (interviews and written student reflections) were collected. There is a gender bias in student…

Creating smart, coherent education policy is painstaking work; there are technical, budgetary, and political challenges at almost every turn. But it is some of the most important work that state leaders can undertake. As Ohioans prepared to elect a new governor in late 2018, we at the Fordham Institute began rolling out a set of policy proposals…