Background: Early Colleges (ECs) are a type of rapidly growing dual enrollment program proven to be successful in helping underrepresented students get a jumpstart on their postsecondary education. To date, the most rigorous evidence on the impact of ECs has come from two lottery-based natural experiments conducted by the SERVE Center (Edmunds et…

Allowing high school students to fulfill a math or science high school graduation requirement via a computer science credit may encourage more student to pursue computer science coursework. This Education Trends report is an update to the original report released in April 2015 and explores state policies that allow or require districts to apply…

To help inform education stakeholders in Utah, this study examined the differences in characteristics between rural and non-rural districts in the state from fiscal year 2012 through fiscal year 2017 using administrative data from the Utah State Board of Education and the Utah Education Association. All the findings are descriptive and do not…

This report provides a comprehensive look at computer science (CS) education across Utah elementary, middle/jr. high, and high schools as of 2018. The Utah Expanding Computing Education Pathways (ECEP) team sent out a survey to all public schools in the state of Utah. The survey presented targeted questions depending on whether it was completed…

In this study approaches to teaching melodic dictation skills used by Advanced Placement (AP) Music Theory teachers were examined. Twelve high school teachers from four states were interviewed. Four themes emerged from the interview transcripts: cognitive frameworks, processing strategies, rhythm, and course design. Participants generally…

Business leaders in Utah cannot find the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) talent they need to stay competitive. Students' lagging performance in K-12 is a critical reason why. The good news is that the nation's most effective STEM education programs can help turn the tide. Utah students have made some progress in math since…

Fingertip Facts is a compendium of some of the most frequently requested data sets from the Utah State Office of Education. This year's Fingertip Facts includes the following data sets: (1) RISE Testing, 2018-19; (2) Utah ASPIRE Testing, 2018-19; (3) 2019 Utah ACT Scores; (4) CTE Career Pathways; (5) 2019 Public Education General Fund; (6) 2019…

The Advanced Placement (AP) program is an educational program that permits high school students to take introductory college-level courses and receive college credit by passing a standardized end-of-course exam. Data were obtained from a statewide database of 2 high school graduating cohorts (N = 90,044). We used a series of propensity score…

Fingertip Facts is a compendium of some of the most frequently requested data sets from the Utah State Office of Education. This year's Fingertip Facts includes the following data sets: (1) SAGE Testing; (2) 2018 Utah ACT Scores; (3) CTE Career Pathways; (4) 2018 Public Education General Fund; (5) 2017 Public Enrollment Demographics; (6) Public…

Fingertip Facts is a compendium of some of the most frequently requested data sets from the Utah State Board of Education. This year's Fingertip Facts includes the following data sets: (1) SAGE Testing, 2016-17; (2) 2016-17 ACT Scores; (3) 2016-17 CTE Career Pathways; (4) 2017 Public Education General Fund; (5) 2017 Public School Enrollment…

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…

"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) Congress to Begin ESEA Reauthorization: In Joint Statement, House Democrats and Republicans Outline Plans for a…

Concurrent enrollment programs provide academic challenges for high school students and also provide a strong foundation for career and technical education programs. The state of Utah is one of the leaders in concurrent enrollments, providing funding for high schools to adopt such programs across the state, and Weber State University in Ogden,…

"Smoothing the Path" describes successful state-level strategies and policy lessons that have been learned in four states during the development of schools that integrate secondary and postsecondary education. Statewide efforts in the multi-year Early College High School Initiative, which began in Ohio and Utah in 2002 and in Texas and…

Six years after passage of No Child Left Behind and midway to the nation's goal of having students on grade level or better in reading and math by 2014, more data than ever before has been collected about the academic performance of American students and schools. Information in this brochure charts student demographics, achievement-to-date and…