This report provides educators and policymakers with information they can use to celebrate their successes, understand their unique challenges, and set meaningful goals to increase opportunity for all students. It is important to note that while AP® Exams are valid measures of students' content mastery of college-level studies in specific academic…

For 24 consecutive years, the Public Policy Forum has compiled and analyzed data from southeastern Wisconsin's public school districts in order to better inform policymakers and the public about the effectiveness of the region's K-12 education system. This analysis of the 2009-10 academic year, like many of the previous reports, indicates cause…

The policy to integrate English Gypsy children in schools tends to overlook the difficulties facing such youngsters in their attempts to negotiate between contrasting practices and values at home and school. Contradictions between such practices/value systems at home and school entail not only knowledge/skills, but also differing modes of…

Over the last decade, policy and business leaders have come to know what parents have always known: teachers are the largest school-based factor in student achievement. Yet not all schools have equal access to the most effective teachers. High-needs schools that serve large proportions of economically disadvantaged and minority students are more…

This document is one of eight reports prepared to support the development of a new learning system, a development effort that is the first step in a major initiative undertaken by the Stupski Foundation. The Foundation endeavors to improve the life options of all students, especially underserved urban youth of color by fundamentally redesigning…

Over the past few decades, community colleges have helped increase the representation of female and minority students in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Flexible schedules, low tuition, proximity to jobs, and open access admissions make community colleges attractive to a diverse student body, especially…

"Good Schools in Poor Neighborhoods" contrasts highly effective schools serving urban, low-income, minority youth with their more typical, struggling counterparts. Highlighted are two disparate schools: one serving predominately African American students in a large northeastern city and one serving Latino students in a southwestern urban area.…

Summarizes several intervention efforts and programs dealing with the underrepresentation and lower achievement levels of minorities and women in mathematics. Suggests five directions for new approaches and an expanded research base. (YP)

This study examines the evidence of deteriorating financial status for many of the nation's teaching hospitals, and the continuing underrepresentation of minorities in medicine. The study of teaching hospitals used existing financial data and information on both non-federal and Veterans Administration teaching hospitals. Results suggested the…

Since the 1960s The Netherlands has produced policy to combat educational inequalities stemming from the social milieu and ethnicity of pupils. This policy has evolved from local to central policy and back again to a decentralised level. The initial focus on disadvantaged native Dutch pupils in big cities has shifted to immigrant groups and--at…

The Southern Regional Education Board's (SREB) "Challenge to Lead" Goals for Education call for more students to take college admission tests, to score higher on those tests and for SREB states to reduce gaps in test scores among all groups of students. For states, achieving higher statewide scores is one sign that more students can go…

A complete restructuring of American institutions, values, ideals, economy, politics, and culture is required to overcome the peripheralization and injustices caused by the racism that is endemic and embedded in the capitalist fabric of American society. Race relations have declined during the 1980s as evidenced by the erosion of many of the gains…

"Straight A's: Public Education Policy and Progress" is a biweekly newsletter that focuses on education news and events both in Washington, DC and around the country. The following articles are included in this issue: (1) "Improving the Distribution of Teachers in Low-Performing High Schools": Alliance Brief and Event Examine…

Examines trends in the certification, hiring, and assignment of minority teachers in New York City over the past decade, drawing on published data, interviews, and a survey of new teachers seeking jobs. In attempting to provide minority youth with role models, the city may be denying students equal access to fully qualified teachers. (DM)

Teacher shortages are essentially a problem of distribution (Darling-Hammond, 2001; Ingersoll, 2001; National Association of State Boards of Education, 1998; Olson, 2000; Reeves, 2003; Voke, 2002). According to recent studies, hardest to find are teachers who are both qualified and willing to teach in hard-to-staff schools, which included those in…