Texas' 2006 House Bill 1, which required all high schools in Texas to provide students with the opportunity to earn a minimum of 12 hours of college credit prior to their graduation beginning the fall of 2008, changed the high school experience. The goal of the bill was to smooth the transition from high school to higher education. By looking at…

Persistent school segregation means not only that children of different racial and ethnic backgrounds attend different schools but also that their schools are unequal in performance. This study documents the extent of disparities nationally in school performance between schools attended by whites and Asians compared with those attended by blacks,…

The cross-sectional study of factors predicting teacher self-efficacy involved surveys of 473 third- and fifth-grade, predominantly White female teachers in 196 schools. The schools served, on average, a relatively high proportion of students living in poverty and students of color. The findings indicate that the proportion of minority students in…

In 2007, eleven diverse undergraduate students from Texas spent a month in Mexico on a study-abroad program sponsored by the School of Education at their university. A central goal of the program was to facilitate pre-service teachers' ability to articulate a critical understanding of the needs of second language (L2) learners in their future…

Background: Children growing up in poor versus affluent neighborhoods are more likely to spend time in prison, develop health problems and die at an early age. The question of how neighborhood conditions influence our behavior and health has attracted the attention of public health officials and scholars for generations. Online tools are now…

Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) is more than a school system, it is a community. It's a community of people working together to provide Montgomery County students with an education that prepares them for success today, tomorrow, and in the years to come. That is MCPS' core purpose: to prepare students to thrive in their future. The Annual…

This paper and the four commissioned works on which it is based are guided by the important question: How can we start valuing practices and outcomes of teaching and learning that are difficult to reduce to numbers? As the process of developing indicators for the Post-2015 education targets unfolds, some of the targets are at risk of being dropped…

Childhood obesity affects children across all ages and genders. However, Latino children and adolescents are at an increased risk, with one out of three Latino children (ages 2-19) being classified as overweight. Physical inactivity is deemed a major factor contributing to the energy imbalance that leads to excess adiposity. The aims of this study…

Ensuring the success of P-12 public education is a moral imperative. Failure to produce students that are able to compete globally has serious implications to the success of America's economy. In addition, failing to address the academic needs of all students accelerates the achievement gap and leaves out groups of children that need help the…

In this powerful book, Arthur Levine (president of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation) and coauthor Laura Scheiber revisit the South Bronx, where Levine grew up in the 1960s, and compare his experiences with those of a group of teenagers coming of age in the same neighborhood nearly 40 years later. Shaken by the violent death of Leo Disla, one of the…

As districts face another year of budget gaps, hundreds of thousands of teachers have been warned that, come the end of the school year, their jobs may be gone. In a policy now termed "LIFO" or "last in, first out," most districts make layoff decisions based on seniority and not on job performance or effectiveness. Using…

The purpose of this study was two-fold. It was first to find out what the educational materials needs were for children living in poverty, and second, to learn of the challenges, obstacles, and strengths by the programs already in place that were supplying educational materials to these children. This study used interviews and surveys as data…

The "Tennessee County Higher Education Profiles 2010" provide basic information with respect to higher education for each county in Tennessee. The 2010 "Profiles" represent the fourth year for this report. In the demographic and enrollment sections, a few changes were made to better meet the needs of policymakers. This document…

As described in earlier articles, children whose parents have higher income and education levels are more likely to grow up in stable two-parent households than their economically disadvantaged counterparts. These widening gaps in fathers' involvement in parenting and in the quality and stability of parents' relationships may reinforce disparities…

Distressed urban neighborhoods face challenges on multiple fronts, but most efforts to confront these problems work in isolation of one another. The New Communities Program (NCP) is an exception, helping selected Chicago neighborhoods develop partnerships to address challenges involving employment, education, housing, and safety in a…