With so many career choices in the home schools, recruiting for competitive, academically rigorous career technology education programs offered at a county technical high school can prove quite a challenge. Washington County, Maryland, has eight high schools, one of which is a technical high school. Many of the county's students select career…

The scientific discovery process comes alive for 70 minority students each year at Uniondale High School in New York where students have won top awards for "in-house" projects. Uniondale High School is in a middle-income school district where over 95% of students are from minority groups. Founded in 2000, the Uniondale High School Research Program…

The discussion in this paper is based on the assumption that international education is equated to recruiting and educating international students, even though its true concept goes far beyond this narrow understanding. The purpose of this research is to look at the key factors that influence recruiting young Chinese students, and make sure all…

School leaders face the difficult challenge of finding teachers who are highly qualified, committed, and prepared to ensure that all students achieve at levels mandated by NCLB. The pervasive strategy attempted by school districts to recruit teachers to high need schools is incentive programs that include either salary enhancement or bonuses.…

Teacher quality is the school factor which makes the greatest impact on student achievement and consistent exposure to effective teachers can overcome obstacles to learning and even close achievement gaps. These facts were the driving force behind the development of federal law, in the No Child Left Behind Act, mandating that states ensure that 1)…

"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…

Recruiting and retaining teachers is a nationwide issue for schools in all locales. For rural schools, however, lower salaries, small school sizes, and geographic isolation can make it even more difficult to recruit and retain a qualified teaching staff. This study sought to quantify and characterize differences in recruiting teachers between…

Public school leaders throughout the United States are approaching consensus about what it takes to educate all students well: more class time, smaller schools, a college preparatory curriculum, instructional coaching for teachers, and utilization of data to understand student needs. Yet results on the ground vary dramatically and remain, in large…

This paper describes a one-and-a-half day Distinguished Scholar Symposium during which undergraduate underrepresented minorities (URMs) from nearby schools visit the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) to learn about advanced degree programs in the biological sciences. The symposium created an environment that inspired URMs to…

Project FUTURE is one component of a multifaceted approach in the Northwest Texas region to target Hispanic and African-American youth, encouraging them to go through school with a desire to complete education programs leading to professional credentialing in teaching. Project FUTURE inspires students to believe that they can attend Texas Tech…

Middle and high school math and science teachers provide the foundation for education in the growing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields. They are crucial to California's efforts to remain competitive in a global economy. This policy brief looks at the shortage and challenges involved in recruiting and retaining fully prepared…

Local high schools sending the names and phone numbers of all juniors and seniors to United States military recruiters is more than a back-door assault on student privacy. This may have life-or-death consequences for unwitting kids who are contacted by these recruiters. This student information give-away was mandated in a little-known provision of…

The college admissions process teaches students how to express themselves during interviews, how to describe their best qualities in application essays. It may also make them wary of college marketing campaigns, and skeptical of being treated as a statistics, due to the large role played by standardized-test scores and grade-point averages. Such…

In this article, the author discusses the military recruiting in high schools that has been a mainstay of the so-called all-volunteer armed forces from the start. High school kids are at an age when being a member of an identifiable group with a grand mission and a shared spirit--and never underestimate a distinctive uniform--is of exaggerated…

The primary research question for this project was whether a streamlined, relatively inexpensive, counseling-based program that assists low-income high school students with the college and financial application processes can significantly increase college enrollment rates. The intervention was designed to test the hypothesis that lack of…