With funding from the Joyce and Lumina foundations, Jobs for the Future (JFF) launched Credentials that Work to help postsecondary institutions, regions, and states align their occupational training programs to changing market demands. This initiative incorporates innovations in real-time labor market information in guiding institutions to better…

American businesses and industries have long identified shortages in key career and technical areas--some of these areas require two- or four-year college degrees, whereas others simply require industry certifications. Career and technical education (CTE) has the potential to play a central role in filling these gaps. The current Carl D. Perkins…

In recent years, Teach for America (TFA) has placed thousands of high-achieving college graduates in hard-to-staff schools, and its popularity continues to grow. TFA thus represents an anomaly: it attracts higher education's top students to primary and secondary education's least desired jobs. This article reviews the current explanations for…

This study examined the differential effectiveness of three pathways to an elementary teaching credential across a large public university system. The study compared traditional campus-based, intern, and online credential programs across a 22-campus system using ratings of program preparation by 12,590 graduates after their first year of teaching…

While there are many factors critical to improving America's primary and secondary schools, strengthening teacher education is an essential part of any strategy likely to make a difference. When the Obama administration created the Race to the Top or RTT Fund--"to encourage and reward States that are creating the conditions for education…

Social capital has been extensively discussed in the literature as building blocks that individuals and communities utilize to leverage system resources. Similarly, some families also create capital, which can enable members of the family, such as children, to successfully negotiate the outside world. Families in poverty confront serious…

This study was designed to understand how school districts treat their current principals and principal candidates who have taken online courses or who have earned online degrees. Through a survey of 105 human resources directors in K-12 schools across the USA, the study found five major themes: (1) districts are reluctant to hire principals with…

The Student Transitions Project (STP) has reached a ten-year milestone: The STP has now collected student enrollment data from ten years of grade 12 graduation cohorts and ten years of post-secondary registrants, since the project's inception in 2003. The STP dataset continues to be an invaluable tool for tracking student transitions into…

Since the nation plunged into economic turmoil, a handful of states have scaled back pay bonuses and subsidies for teachers who earn certification through the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS). But factors other than the economy have also played into the cuts, too. Officials in Georgia, for instance, contend that the state…

Past research has revealed that students who complete coursework in a concentrated area, defined as completing three or more courses in a specific field of study, are much more likely to have successful outcomes than those who do not. Moreover, fewer than half of students included in this research, which followed students over seven years, entered…

In this study of a random sample of 524 professors (47% women, 83% White) from 100 colleges and universities across the United States, 91% reported at least one act of student incivility/bullying, 25% experienced at least one sexual behavior from a student, and 1-2% said a student had used or threatened them with violence in the past year. Women,…

The Career Technical Education (CTE) mission of California's community colleges is not well understood by policymakers in comparison to the transfer mission of the colleges. This exploratory study, to be followed by a more comprehensive research agenda, is motivated by the belief that CTE is a vital piece of the college completion agenda but is…

The evolution of AB degrees has been influenced by an increased emphasis on workforce development, baccalaureate degree attainment, and transfer on the state and institutional levels. Beginning as primarily programmatic decisions made by a few institutions, over time AB degree program decisions have involved more institutions, and eventually…

U.S. universities have had century-long success in absorbing existing professions into their curricula--by making academe their gatekeeper. These professions often started with apprenticeships and short training courses leading to a certification examination--and were then elevated and "academized" into a comprehensive body of knowledge,…

Correctional educators, recognizing that the majority of inmates lack the math, reading, and language skills required to be successful in today's workplace, strive to equip offenders with the skills and abilities needed to find and maintain work on their release. However, most adult literacy programs in prisons fail to raise the gradelevel…