Low attendance in out-of-school time programs is the norm for many middle and high school participants. Using a database of more than 60 recent evaluations of out-of-school time programs, the authors examine reasons youth give for staying and leaving programs. They outline a proposed set of promising strategies for both attracting and sustaining…

Teachers make the greatest impact on students--what they learn, how they learn it, and what they do with it. Decades of research clearly demonstrate that a quality teacher, more than any other factor, enables students to overcome obstacles to learning like poverty and can even erase the achievement gap. The problem is that many teachers lack the…

The purpose of this study was to identify factors influencing students to enroll in an urban agricultural education program. Former students' in the study indicated parents and/or guardians as the individuals most influencing their decision to enroll in an urban agricultural education program. However, former students' indicated their mother or…

This inquiry is directed at understanding the factors related to recruitment and retention of urban secondary teachers. Data were collected via selected response questionnaires from 815 public high school teachers in a large Midwest city. The findings provide implications for urban centers in the U.S. educational system from the classroom…

The following paper presents the findings from an evaluative research project that investigated the merits and challenges of an academic bridge program between Milwaukee Public School high school students and the University of Wisconsin Madison. Using a mixed-method design, the researchers focused on evaluating the three-week writing workshops…

The purpose of this report is to provide information on the outcomes of the Intervention for College Attendance Program, a program of competitive grants awarded to postsecondary institutions, professional organizations, and community-based organizations. Prior to the 2008-09 biennium, the program focused on provision of college awareness and the…

According to recent data, the pool of principal candidates is shrinking. How is the role perceived and what can school districts do to make it more attractive in recruiting and retaining highly qualified administrators? This open-ended, qualitative study sought to uncover the underlying reasons leadership-skilled women teachers choose to remain in…

This article reports on the ATLAS project, which addressed the problem of poor recruitment to university courses in the less widely taught (LWT) languages. The results of a survey of school students' attitudes towards learning languages and towards using the web were used to help design a website to encourage students to consider taking up a new…

The Career and Technology Education (CATE) program integrates occupational learning into a curriculum of academic coursework. During 2002-2003, 1,217 CATE classes were held in Austin Independent School District (AISD), serving 12,343 AISD students.

Why are the brightest of the young, African-American male high school graduates not seeking a career in teaching? It is widely recognized that there are pedagogical and societal benefits to having more African-American male role models for both African-Americans and other ethnic and racial groups. This investigation was based on the premise that…

Secondary vocational-technical education programs in Mississippi are faced with many challenges resulting from sweeping educational reforms at the national and state levels. Schools and teachers are increasingly being held accountable for providing true learning activities to every student in the classroom. This accountability is measured through…

This article documents implementation and critically reflects upon the results of a partnership between a predominately white rural college and a multicultural urban school district. The partnership was intended both to recruit high school students of color from an urban school to teacher education and to encourage teacher candidates from a rural…

U.S. high school students' lack of preparedness has serious implications for the economy and prosperity. For most of the nation's history, manufacturing workers with modest formal education could earn decent wages. For roughly 60 percent of the jobs in today's labor market, at least some postsecondary education is needed, and that percentage is…

This report examines the ways that credit-based transition programs (CBTPs) may help middle- and low-achieving students enter and succeed in college. It highlights promising practices used by CBTPs to help students who might have been considered noncollege-bound prepare for college credit course work. The report also discusses the challenges that…

This paper summarizes the findings of a ten year study on a Pre-Engineering program aimed at dramatically improving both the recruitment and retention of under-represented students pursuing careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) at The University of Akron. The primary goal of this study was to evaluate The University of…