College education is fundamental to students' upward mobility, states' economic growth, and the country's economic competitiveness. Researchers have forecast that 63 percent of future jobs will require a college degree, yet in the coming years the United States will likely produce 3 million fewer college graduates than are needed to fill workforce…

Ramp-Up to Readiness™ (Ramp-Up) is a program for middle and high school students that aims to provide greater depth and breadth of support for college readiness than do current supports. This study examined whether students' ACT Engage goal setting and commitment to college scale scores as well as the likelihood of key enrollment actions such as…

Students who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) experience higher rates of victimization by bullying than do their heterosexual-identified peers. In this article, we investigate the extent to which this difference in rates of victimization can explain LGBTQ youths' greater rates of suicidal ideation, suicide…

Few studies have examined school-based factors associated with variability in the victimization and health of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth. Among 15,965 students in 45 Wisconsin schools, we identified differences based on Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) presence. Youth in schools with GSAs reported less truancy,…

This mixed-methods study investigated relationships among gender, academic motivation and achievement in a mid-sized Wisconsin high school. A questionnaire was developed that focused on perceived ability, achievement motives and achievement goals. Interviews with teachers focused on relationships among academic motivation and gender achievement.…

For several weeks last spring, fliers announcing Sennett Middle School's Gay-Straight Alliance were torn from the hallways, revealing a hidden message to the culprits about why the club was important in the first place. Safe spaces can be hard to come by when you are a middle school student, especially if you are lesbian, gay, bisexual or…

This report summarizes preliminary and exploratory research conducted by the Council of the Great City Schools and the American Institutes for Research on urban school systems participating in the Trial Urban District Assessment (TUDA) of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The study is one of the first large-scale analyses…