For millions of students at American colleges, freshman year starts off with an unpleasant surprise: despite graduating high school, students find themselves assigned to remedial classes in math or English, which they must pay for and pass before being allowed into college-level courses. Policymakers looking to increase postsecondary enrollment…

Louisiana is currently the only state in the United States that requires foreign language (FL) study for some, but not all of their high school students, and these requirements are undergoing seismic changes. Considering that "geographic," "economic," and "integration" factors contribute to whether a school can…

The goals of placement reform and the elimination of developmental education at community colleges were to decrease the misplacement of students and to provide students with quicker access to college-level courses to improve retention and student success rates. However, the new placement reforms may be preventing some nontraditional students from…

California's Assembly Bill 705 has affected the way that English learners (ELs) access English and English as a second language (ESL) coursework, requiring that degree- or transfer-seeking students have the right to enroll in English or ESL courses, and community colleges are responsible for implementing initial placement practices and designing…

Previous studies on advanced middle and high school mathematics course enrollment have focused on the correlation of successful course completion and post-secondary outcomes for students. This instrumental case study examined how school related factors such as personnel and policy influenced equitable enrollment in middle and high school honors…

Following thirty-nine states, Illinois became the 40th state to make Civic Education a mandatory class for students to graduate high school in 2015. The mandated class is a semester long and usually occurs in the students Junior or Senior year of high school. The Illinois General Assembly then passed a separate bill that indicated that the 2016-17…

Nationally, credit recovery has been used as a strategy to encourage and enable students to re-take previously failed courses needed to graduate. The School District of Philadelphia (SDP) offers both in-person and online options for recovering failed or missing credits required for graduation. This study provides a snapshot of the district's…

Purpose: On average, one in five high school students in North Carolina fails at least one core, required course every year. After failure, students have two options to regain course credit: repeat the course face-to-face (F2F) or online credit recovery (OCR). This study seeks to provide descriptive evidence on OCR/F2F enrollment patterns over…

Many states are redesigning their college remediation policies to increase postsecondary degree completion. In 2012, Tennessee began waiving college math remediation for high school students who completed a computer-based remedial math course (SAILS) during their senior year. Using a regression discontinuity design, we find that the high school…

Many U.S. students arrive on college campus lacking the skills expected for college-level work. As state leaders seek to increase postsecondary enrollment and completion, public colleges have sought to lessen the delays created by remedial course requirements. Tennessee has taken a novel approach by allowing students to complete their remediation…

The purpose of this participatory action research (PAR) study was to use the experiences of African American male students in an alternative learning school setting to strengthen the learning environment and support for these students. The overarching research question was: How do the insights and experiences of students in an alternative learning…

Completing the A-G course sequence is the standard pathway to college for California high school graduates; however, findings indicate that there is substantial variation in A-G enrollment and completion rates across student subgroups and schools. This brief describes the distribution in access to and success in A-G courses as well as strategies…

This article examines the equivalency of virtual credit recovery (VCR) programs as a viable alternative to earning back failed credits needed to graduate on time. Utilization of interviews and questionnaires assisted with collecting perspective data of 10 teachers facilitating the VCR program. Artifact analysis provided a third source of numeric…

In recent years, many journalistic exposés and research reports have raised concerns about the quality of credit recovery programs, which are available in about 75 percent of US high schools and serve about 6 percent of students. Stories relay how schools from Los Angeles to Washington, DC, have used the system of makeup courses to boost…

Nearly all states require students to complete a certain number of units per course to earn a standard diploma in the state; but courses, units and assessments outside of exit exams and diploma options vary. This interactive resource provides an overview of state high school graduation requirements. To see how all states approach specific…