While undocu/DACAmented students face many challenges in higher education, their lives demonstrate a tremendous amount of motivation, resilience, commitment, and perseverance. The literature on undocumented students has indicated that these students bring a vast array of assets to college -- assets that can be used to improve the campus and the…

The nation's health-care system has strained to keep up with the COVID-19 crisis. This pressure is occurring alongside mismatches in the supply and demand for health-care professionals that predate the pandemic, shaped by the aging of the U.S. population, declining birth rates, and other trends. Immigrant professionals have long played a vital…

The problem addressed in this study was the high attrition rates of teachers in elementary school districts and the unknown role of human, social, structural, and psychological capital determinants needed to retain teachers. The purpose of this qualitative descriptive case study was to describe the experiences of veteran K-6 teachers in the South…

Almost every state-level Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS) in the country includes family engagement as an indicator of early childhood education quality. Yet, most QRIS measure family engagement using a uniform, narrow set of parent involvement activities at the center. We propose an alternative approach that emphasizes a range of…

A new approach is suggested that depends on and measures how spending on higher and basic education is really an investment in the future, not consumption spending. This is a vital distinction because investment in human capital contributes heavily to growth and development, but also to higher state tax revenue and lower Medicaid, child care,…

This study examines the impact of student outmigration on Illinois employment and earnings. Our intent is for this study to inform policy to both decrease the outmigration of students and to collect appropriate data to track these students and quantify the impact. Appended are: (1) STEM-Designated Degree Program List 2012 Revised List; and (2)…

The Every Students Succeeds Act (ESSA) provided states with newfound flexibility on accountability measures and school improvement strategies. Many policy experts have analyzed states' ESSA plans, which explain how states use their federal funds under various provisions of the new law, as well as the approaches states take to identify and rate…

Abundant evidence has shown that quality early childhood programs generate enormous long-term benefits for young people as they grow to become productive adults, for our economy, and for society. But we don't have to wait 10 or 20 years to see strong returns on our investments in young children. Some programs create real savings in a year or less.…

To shore up the $46 billion pension debt the state has accrued over the past several decades, Illinois has been using its teachers as a piggy bank. New legislation adopted in December 2013 will raise the retirement age for mid-career workers and limit the amount retiree pensions can increase with inflation over time. State and national union…

Teacher residency programs are a relatively new method for building stronger teacher pipelines. Research assessing the impact of these programs is still limited, but some early reports suggest that residency programs hold promise for improving teacher effectiveness and retention rates (Barrett, Hovde, Hahn, & Rosqueta, 2011; Papay, West,…

The population growth, labor force participation, and educational attainment of Latinos in the U.S. influence the composition of the current and future U.S. society, economy, and workforce. In 2012, the Latino population in the United States is the youngest and fastest growing ethnic group, with the highest level of labor force participation…

He's patrolled the streets of Chicago, kept the local trains running on time and become a player in the highest echelons of City Hall. But at age 38, Ron Huberman--born in Israel and raised just outside of Chicago--is facing his most formidable challenge. The new Chicago Public Schools (CPS) CEO, who took over from Arne Duncan after President…

This study evaluates how welcoming thirty American cities--the twenty-five largest and five smaller "hotspots"--are to "nontraditional" problem-solvers and solutions. It assumes that the balky bureaucracies meant to improve K-12 education and hold leaders accountable are so calcified by policies, programs, contracts, and…

Human resources is out, human capital is in. This article describes how a simple departmental name change has propelled the use of data-driven, observation-based systems that recognize teachers as the primary influence on student achievement. Called the new "it" term in K-12, human capital management (HCM) aligns the development of…

Chapin Hall partnered with the W. Clement and Jessie V. Stone Foundation to host a convening for the Stone Foundation Education Grantees in October of 2008. The purpose of the convening was to gather key leaders in the education field for a discussion of the lessons learned in their work and how these lessons inform future practice and policy…