In the United States, student social-emotional well-being has become a priority because of concerning mental health and well-being outcomes for adolescent youth. High schools and school districts have responded by expanding mental health and social-emotional supports. However, there is little research to understand the ways in which educational…

Admission to highly selective institutions offers a pathway to upward social mobility, particularly for low-resource students. However, entrenched wealth disparities in the United States present serious challenges for admission officers at highly selective institutions. Utilizing individualized holistic review (IHR), including letters of…

In the face of unprecedented challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, Diné College, America's first tribal college, emerged as a beacon of resilience and innovation. Diné College demonstrated resilience through the creation of new programs, investment in technology, commitment to student readiness, pursuit of economic development, and the…

In US-based postsecondary education, first-year students commonly have their compositional ability consequentially assessed on the basis of standardized tests. As a result, students who score above certain thresholds on ACT, SAT, or AP exams often are placed into honors or remedial courses; receive credit remissions; and/or test out of general…

New York State has long been a leader in educational reform, including initiating efforts to enhance civic education. For example, in 1985, concerns regarding the civic and economic literacy of the state's youth prompted the New York State Education Department (NYSED) to mandate a fourth credit in social studies education. This fourth credit…

The study by Sanchez (2024a & 2024b) reveals evidence of grade inflation in high school GPA (HSGPA) from 2018 to 2022 despite stable or slightly decreased ACT scores. This study demonstrated that the predicted cumulative first-year hours earned at 2- and 4-year colleges decreased when the predictions were based on HSGPA alone, but predicted…

The state of Washington, through the Mastery-based Learning work group, is embarking on an exciting journey to reimagine the state's education system. The work group believes that mastery-based learning (MBL) is a way to transform the education system--with this approach, teaching methods are designed to equitably engage each and every student in…

Cynthia Coburn, in her 2016 article in the "American Journal of Education"--''What's Policy Got to Do With It?''--states that the field of policy implementation suffers from the propensity to learn the same lessons over and over again. This repetition of mistakes, I argue, stems from a failure to account for predictable patterns in how…

How can school counselors support large-scale postsecondary and career-readiness initiatives? While schools and districts want to use personalized learning or individualized learning plans as a way to align students' school experiences to their postsecondary and career goals, schools may lack the human capital to support and guide this endeavor.…

Scores from standardized tests are common criteria for admission to a four-year college or university, and most require, recommend, or consider test scores as part of the admissions process. To help improve their chances of college admission, many high school students turn to test-preparation programs. We used an experimental design to evaluate…

Although improving, students with learning disabilities (LD) still do not experience positive postsecondary outcomes at the same rate as their nondisabled peers. Research indicates that inclusion in the general education classroom for core content courses correlates to better outcomes; however, the large amount of content to be covered in these…

Remediation has long been a costly way to address the misalignment between K-12 and higher education. In 2011, the California State University (CSU), the nation's largest public four-year university system, enacted "Early Start," requiring students needing remediation to enroll in such courses in the summer before their freshman year. We…

Using the framework of belonging, this qualitative study explores how one upper Midwestern college engages in student-readiness and explores the disconnects that create barriers to student-readiness. The study investigates 'student readiness' broadly through the literature and more specifically by narrowing efforts to a detailed examination of one…

The importance of chemistry practical work in enhancing students' performance and 21st-century skills has been highlighted in the literature. However, Malaysian Matriculation chemistry lecturers were lack of knowledge in the 21st-century pedagogies and practiced the cook-book recipe teaching style which proved ineffective in enhancing students'…

Youth of color enrolled in urban public high schools, particularly those students who seek to be the first in their families to graduate from college, frequently encounter barriers to their college readiness and access. This study engaged an analytic approach built with culturally relevant and sustaining theories of education to examine how 10…