Advocates for a more inclusive legal profession are worried about the recent decline in enrollment of Black students in law school. According to the American Bar Association (ABA), Blacks were 7.4 percent of all law students in 1994. By 2005, that percentage had fallen to just 6.6. Several law journal articles have suggested that the schools…

In U.S. schools, students must pass statewide competency tests to graduate from high school. In this article, the authors summarize the development and testing of a program implemented to improve the skills of students failing to "make the grade" on these high-stakes tests. District personnel randomly assigned twenty-eight students who…

The dual Ontario graduating class of 2003, commonly referred to as the Double Cohort, was the product of that provincial government's initiative to eliminate the long entrenched practice of requiring a fifth year of secondary school for university-bound students. The new, more "rigorous" four-year curriculum, the Ministry of Education…

Canada depends on a steady flow of immigrants to maintain a viable workforce within an aging population. Without immigration, Canada's dependency ratio--the number of employed versus non-employed individuals--would grow dangerously unbalanced. In recent years, most immigrants have come from countries where the spoken language is not English or…

This paper explores the prescriptive, distancing and separating qualities that exist in Western systems of knowledge production. It examines scientific language and how discrimination takes place in the university setting and explores the ways in which academic knowledge production affects the learning experiences, participation and completion…

The voucher system in Denmark combines unrestricted generous subsidies with substantial autonomy of private schools as to schedule and teaching methods. This has produced a private school sector with a wide variety of school types. This paper uses data on eight cohorts of students (over 510,000 individuals) to compare educational attainment in…

What challenges do political science educators face teaching in the Hispanic-serving classroom? How do they adapt their teaching styles and strategies when confronting these challenges? This preliminary study explores these and related questions through a survey conducted of political science instructors at colleges and universities across Texas.…

This qualitative investigation examines factors and processes associated with high school graduation in a high-risk urban context. Participants include 11 graduating seniors with learning disabilities, all of whom are African American from low-income backgrounds. These youth are interviewed on multiple occasions to determine how protective factors…

This study analyzed documentation from 50 state departments of education concerning high school graduation requirements for students in general and for students with disabilities. Preliminary information reviews research on graduation requirements, research on minimum competence tests, and legal issues and implications. Study findings are then…

This anthology contains 20 commencement addresses delivered by prominent and successful Americans from many different fields of endeavor--all the addresses have in common an understanding of the audience's thoughts and feelings at the important moment of a college graduation. Each speech in the anthology is preceded by a brief biography of the…

This book describes a strategy for school reform, "planning backwards from exhibitions," which is a collective invention of the Coalition of Essential Schools. The strategy is based on the principle that graduation from high school should be based on genuine achievement. The first article, by Joseph P. McDonald, explains that the purpose of…

A major goal of state education reforms in the 1980s was to increase the number of courses students were required to complete for graduation. This document provides quantitative transcript data from high schools enrolling mostly lower achieving students in the 1980s. At 3 points in time, random samples of approximately 25 transcripts of graduating…

The paper addresses problems and strategies for evaluating mainstreamed students in vocational education classes. In addition to grading concerns, the area of graduation requirements is also considered. Alternatives to traditional methods of evaluation, including competencey based evaluation and adaptation of assessment techniques are described as…

In 1986 the State Board of Education of New Jersey approved more rigorous high school graduation requirements in academic subjects. Concern was expressed that requiring additional academic courses could crowd the daily schedules for many students and, in effect, impede their ability to take courses that meet other requirements, needs, and…

Data from 202 out of 311 surveyed school districts in Arkansas were collected to assess the congruence of course content guides, developed under administrative mandate by the school districts, with associated parental reporting forms. The guides outline skills associated with three instructional/skill levels--basic, developmental, and…