Act 49 of 1987 requires the Secretary of Education to provide the General Assembly with an annual report on public school dropouts in Pennsylvania. The purpose of this report is to document the actual number of students who drop out each year and to provide various characteristics about these students. The type of data collected about each dropout…

In September 2005 the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) in association with the Department for Education and Skills (DfES), the Sutton Trust and the College Board, began a five-year research study to examine the validity of an aptitude test in higher education admissions. This report describes and explores the relationships…

Due to the increasing complexity in the financial aid process and the movement of available financial aid up the economic scale, poor people and minorities have less access to college, including engineering programs. Some impediments are lack of access to knowledge about college, increasing complexity and up-front costs in the application process…

Students designated as English language learners (ELL) tend to go to public schools that have low standardized test scores. However, these low levels of assessed proficiency are not solely attributable to poor achievement by ELL students. These same schools report poor achievement by other major student groups as well, and have a set of…

Attendance in preschool centers can yield short-term benefits for children from poor or middle-class families. Yet debate persists in Europe and the United States over whether centers yield gains of sufficient magnitude to sustain children's cognitive or social advantages as they move through primary school. We report on child care and home…

This publication is a transcription of a forum held at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on May 19, 2006 on background knowledge and reading proficiency. This topic goes to the heart of the education reform agenda, according to the first speaker, Eugenia Kemble, executive director of the Albert Shanker Institute, the sponsor of this…

Reading for pleasure is associated with numerous educational and social benefits. For example, it has been associated with increased reading attainment and writing ability, greater breadth of vocabulary and greater general knowledge (e.g. Cox and Guthrie, 2001). Children who read very little do not reap these benefits, and studies show that when…

This article measures targeting of public spending on school education in South Africa for the years 1995 and 2000. Equalisation of publicly subsidised pupil-teacher ratios in this period largely eliminated discrimination in subsidies per child, but some differentials in subsidies still remain as a result of differences in qualifications and…

Although computer ownership is not 100 percent, progress has been made on closing the digital divide. However, defining the digital divide according to the haves and have-nots of computer ownership is only a starting point. Beyond computer ownership, colleges and universities should explore the "second-level digital divide," which can be…

Purpose: The performance of low-income African American preschoolers (36 to 52 months old) on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Third Edition (PPVT-III; L. M. Dunn & L. M. Dunn, 1997) was examined to provide a norm for assessing the performance of this population and to explore the link between socioeconomic status (SES) and language scores on…

Thirty-five to 45 percent of low-income American households do not possess a bank account. This statistic coupled with claims of price gouging by check cashers has prompted government intervention. The author finds that state legislation requiring banks to offer low-cost accounts slightly decreases the number of low-income minority unbanked…

Teachers working in inner city high schools in the United States face enormous challenges. Their students, most of whom come from economically disadvantaged minority families and often do not speak English as a first language, present a daunting array of educational needs for teachers and schools. Resources and school structures are seldom…

The correlates of authoritative, authoritarian, indulgent, and neglectful parenting were examined within a sample of 1,355 14- to 18-year-olds adjudicated of serious criminal offenses. The sample is composed primarily of poor, ethnic-minority youth living in impoverished urban neighborhoods. As has been found in community samples, juvenile…

This article describes Success Express, a program planned and implemented as part of a collaborative 1990 Javits project for gifted students between Lamar University and Texas A & M. The program has been continued by Lamar and Beaumont Independent School District as a two week summer program to identify high-potential, low-income 4-5 year olds…

Under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, every school is subject to the controversial mandates for annual test score gains contained in the federal law. The law represents a profound change in the relationship between the federal government and state and local education agencies regarding who controls education and has direct implications for…