"Louisiana Believes," the state's comprehensive plan to prepare students for college and career success, includes a system of related policies and programs that help schools provide students with pathways to future prosperity, give schools the resources to offer these pathways, and reward schools when students achieve their goals. This…

Since 2012, the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation has supported educational enrichment in rural areas by awarding over $3.3 million in grants to six outstanding organizations operating in Iowa, Indiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. In this report, the authors combine the experiences of these organizations with findings from the…

Nearly two-thirds of students require some form of remediation before taking college-level classes, and community colleges have become increasingly important in providing this education. Unfortunately, relatively few students complete the developmental courses required to make a transition to college-level work. Based on a three-year study of over…

Contextualized teaching and learning (CTL), or the concept of relating subject matter content to meaningful situations that are relevant to students' lives, offers one promising approach to helping students learn more effectively. This brief offers instructors, college leaders, policy makers and funders a high-level summary of the CTL…

Education has changed, and at no time is this more evident than when working with students who are tethered to the Internet, are fully engaged in technology-based social networking, create blogs and wikis, and expect instantaneous responses as they twitter with their peers around the world. Some of the knowledge and skills that millennial students…

Adult education services, including education for those lacking basic literacy and numeracy, preparation for the high school equivalency diploma, and English-as-a-second-language courses, play a crucial role in bridging the basic skills gap for Latinos and other workers with limited formal education and training. With recent policy and program…

This guide is designed as a reference for District and School personnel working with English learners (ELs). The content of the guide represents a compilation of information, examples, and resources. This guide is a living document and subject to frequent updates. It is recommended to review the document online rather than printing a hard copy.

Financial literacy refers to the ability to make informed judgements and to take effective decisions regarding the use and management of money. A baseline survey carried out by the Financial Services Agency (FSA) in 2006 highlighted many issues: (1) 29% of 16-4-year-olds said they would not know how to prepare and manage a weekly budget; (2) 19%…

This report offers California college faculty a closer look at contextualized teaching and learning (CTL) as a promising set of strategies and practices that can be expanded through the state's Basic Skills Initiative. The report is relevant to a range of instructional and counseling faculty, including academic and career and technical education…

The Colorado Commission on Higher Education (CCHE) is required to prepare an annual report on students taking basic skills courses at Colorado's public higher educations institutions. CCHE has prepared this report which summarizes: (1) Commission activities since adopting the Remedial Policy in 2000; and (2) data on assessed and remediated…