This policy brief examines standards-based approaches that hold promise for shaping a common vision of skilled teaching commensurate with the national goal of preparing all students for college and careers. Numerous studies confirm that teachers are the most significant school-based factor in improving student achievement, particularly for the…

The ongoing economic crisis in Europe raises fundamental questions about the European Union's ability to harmonize educational policy across its member states. With evidence that European unity is clearly faltering, many educational goals, including lifelong learning, are in trouble. In this book, the contributors work toward a greater…

The need for new forms of schooling with a learner-centered focus underlies the urgency to retool and enhance the systems that are used to leverage improvements in teaching and learning. In order to transform education at this most fundamental level, policy leaders and educators must focus on crafting integrated systems for defining and developing…

The purpose of this study was to identify differences in performance if any, between learners with a high school diploma, and those with a GED credential, at two postsecondary institutions, Holland College on Prince Edward Island (PEI) and Nova Scotia Community College in Nova Scotia (NS). Of interest is how these adults perform in a postsecondary…

We exploit a natural experiment to estimate the causal impact of parental education on educational outcomes of their children when they are high school seniors. In 1968, the Taiwanese government extended compulsory education from 6 to 9 years and opened over 150 new junior high schools at a differential rate among regions. We form treatment and…

This article draws on the 21st Century Skills Movement and the successful teaching practices of Asian schools in order to provide five suggestions that secondary math teachers can incorporate into their classrooms in order to promote the skill set necessary for an ever-changing global economy. Problem-based instruction, student-led solutions, risk…

This report presents the results of an innovative study designed to provide a more detailed understanding of how parents and their teenage children were affected by the Opportunity NYC-Family Rewards program, a comprehensive conditional cash transfer program. The three-year program, launched by the Center for Economic Opportunity in the Mayor's…

The study examines how urban school principals lead schools that make a difference for children in challenging settings. This research delves deeply into the experiences of three urban public school principals in the School District of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, who used technology as an avenue to improve educational options for their students.…

Economists have identified a substantial adult wage premium attached to high school leadership activity. Unresolved is the extent to which it constitutes human capital acquisition or proxies for an "innate" unobserved skill. We document a determinant of high school leadership activity that is associated purely with school structure, rather than…

As Coos County youth age, their attachment to their communities may deteriorate. This brief presents new data from the Coos Youth Study. This research indicates efforts to keep young people in Coos may benefit from efforts to show students that their views matter to adults in their communities. (Contains 8 figures and 10 endnotes.) [This work was…

Last year the author had the pleasure of working with a team of dedicated teachers in an alternative high school setting on the implementation of a grant she had written for their program. The grant was the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education (CTE) Act grant, federally distributed to the states. As the grant writer and teacher…

In an effort to better understand the various economic benefits that a particular urban area could expect were it to reduce its number of high school dropouts, the Alliance for Excellent Education, has developed, with the generous support of State Farm[R], a sophisticated economic model in partnership with Economic Modeling Specialists Inc. The…

This report lays out the case for career and technical education (CTE) in New York City. It examines 21 dedicated CTE high schools, the interests and needs of a business community eager to support career-oriented education, and the performance, problems and promise of a vein of educational programming whose time might finally be at hand. The…

This paper outlines a model for giving meaning to student achievement by referencing assessment to student learning or standards. This effectively shifts the focus in assessment from notions of rank ordering students (comparing their performance purely to each other) to those of monitoring growth or progress and measurement. More specifically it…

In this paper we analyze the link between people's "subjective" expectations of returns to schooling and their decision to invest into schooling. We use data from a household survey on Mexican junior and senior high school graduates that elicits their own and their parents' beliefs about future earnings for different scenarios of…