Ten-year trends in the retention, transfer, and graduation of first-time, full-time Maryland public community college students are presented in this report. Tables track students two, three, and four years after matriculation and are broken down by gender and ethnic categories. When considering this data, it must be remembered that retention,…

Although substantial attention has been given to federal strategies for improving college access, too little attention has been given to the impact of state finance strategies on academic preparation and access for prepared students. This report provides the following: (1) a review of prior access studies; (2) a new conceptual model for assessing…

High school graduation requirements vary from state to state and district to district across the United States. These requirements establish criteria that students must meet in order to obtain diplomas or certificates of completion. An increasingly common graduation requirement is the achievement of a passing score on an exit exam, a practice…

Community colleges are a crucial point of access to higher education for low-income, minority, and other underserved students. These groups are overrepresented (with respect to their share of undergraduate enrollment) in two year and less than two year post secondary institutions. The community college access mission is built on low tuition, …

This 2004 annual report, continues to investigate the complexities of low achievement that evidently leads to the pernicious dropout problem that North Carolina?s American Indian students are experiencing. Although students in grades three through eight are showing gains on the End of Grade tests and high school students have continued to improve…

For too long, education in West Virginia has operated as a series of discrete silos: early childhood programs, elementary schools, middle grades, high schools, vocational and technical programs, two-year community and technical colleges, workforce training, four-year colleges and universities, and graduate education. As students move from one silo…

Discusses the external master of science degree program conducted jointly by the Center for Community College Faculty Development and by the School of Applied Science. These two Rochester units are aimed at educating the technical faculty and graduates of the community junior colleges. (CC)

Presents arguments for continuation of commencement exercises and how they should best be utilized. (RK)

"A laboratory, a studio, and a forum, a place where the rational and the romantic can exist side by side, is the way the author describes the social studies classroom he wishes to see evolve. His provocative article discusses concrete ways of educating prospective teachers to become a vital part of this setting. (Editor)

In setting performance standards for schoolchildren, the school system not only announces what students must know; it specifies what it presumes it can teach. Tests of competency should be merely a monitoring device to indicate whether the system is meeting its obligation to students. (Author)

To investigate the status of foreign language studies at the middle school and high school levels in Tennessee, 1000 questionnaires were sent to Tennessee Foreign Language Association members and to foreign language departments. Information obtained from the 156 valid responses emphasized funding as the critical issue in foreign language programs.…

This article examines the program planning implications of specific advantages and disadvantages to competency testing which have been cited by lawyers and educators. Part of a theme issue on student assessment. (SJL)

Describes admissions procedures, graduation requirements, curriculum, and achievement of students in the Science/Math Mini-School Program, housed at F.W. Ballou Senior High School in Washington, D.C. The program is especially designed for talented minority students who show promise in the fields of science and technology. (Author/GC)

Two years after the implementation of Florida's Educational Accountability Act, which mandates statewide competency testing in reading, writing, and arithmetic, the author cites the advantages of the program, refutes criticisms of it and reviews the challenge to it in Federal District court, the Debra P. V. Turlington case. (SJL)