Rural communities in forested regions across the United States are in the midst of a transformation driven by a complex mixture of economic, policy, and demographic dynamics. This research examines, through survey results, rural youth educational aspirations in two forest- dependent regions and the role that perceptions of the local school,…

Background: Promise programs are place-based financial aid awards that seek to promote postsecondary attainment by covering all or nearly all college tuition costs. In 2015 Oregon became the second state in the country after Tennessee to implement a statewide promise program (Higher Education Coordinating Commission [HECC], 2020). Oregon Promise…

State Seals of Biliteracy (SoBL) are a growing trend and present a promising method of serving an increasingly bilingual population. Currently, state SoBLs have been available almost exclusively at the high school level. An Oregon community college initiated the opportunity for students to study and receive the state SoBL in higher education. The…

Race matching has positive effects on students' academic achievement and self-rated sense of belonging. However, when most public-school teachers identify as White, race matching is not always possible at the individual level. The present study extends current research to explore the effects of school-level diversity and race matching. Do the…

This paper examines the Oregon Promise, a state-level program that exclusively subsidizes in-state community college attendance. I estimate impacts using a difference-in-difference design that links students in states with essentially universal 10th-grade PSAT coverage to national-level postsecondary enrollment data. I find that the implementation…

This paper has two purposes: First, we describe the components of the Student Ownership, Accountability, and Responsibility for School Safety (SOARS) framework in the context of the literature on school safety. Second, we offer outcomes from a pilot study testing the framework's impact on student perceptions of: (1) school belonging; (2) sense of…

This Study Snapshot highlights key findings from a study that examines Oregon's statewide promise program. Representatives from Oregon's Higher Education Coordinating Commission and K-12 state and local education agencies worked with the Regional Educational Laboratory Northwest to conduct this study of Oregon Promise's reach and impact in its…

The "What Were the Reach and Impact of the Oregon Promise Financial Aid Program in Its First Two Years?" study examined Oregon Promise, a program that promotes students' postsecondary attainment by covering nearly all community college tuition. The study used student data from K-12 public schools, Oregon Promise applications, and…

In 2015 Oregon became the second state in the country to implement a statewide promise program. Its program, Oregon Promise, seeks to promote students' postsecondary attainment by covering nearly all community college tuition. This study used student data from K-12 public schools, Oregon Promise applications, and postsecondary records to examine…

Research has largely been silent on English Learner (EL) persistence and completion in U.S. community colleges, yet studies conducted across higher education report that only one in eight ELs completes a bachelor's degree (Kanno & Cromley, 2013). Many interventions have been proposed to improve college student persistence and completion. This…

Throughout history, a disproportionate number of learners have been tracked into terminal vocational programs based on their race, income, gender and disability, leading to jobs with uncertain promise of economic growth and prosperity. While the quality of Career Technical Education (CTE) programs has significantly improved since then, many…

Libraries are learning hubs that connect families to free resources, activities, and services to cultivate children's learning about topics that excite them. Despite recent technological developments which have revolutionized how we read and access information, libraries continue to evolve in order to serve their communities, especially families…

Purpose: The goal of this study was to investigate the initial feasibility of the Communication Matrix Professional Development Program (CMPDP), an online program created to help educational professionals teaching students with complex communication needs. Method: A one-group pretest-posttest design was employed with 102 educational professionals…

Foster children have been identified as one of the most high-risk groups for academic failure in schools today. However, a small number of foster youth are beating the odds by achieving academically. How are they able to overcome tremendous barriers and succeed? This phenomenological study reports the findings of former foster youth and their P-12…

Oregon students attend schools in a variety of geographic locations across the state and the sizes of the schools range from more than 3,000 students to fewer than five. This brief highlights schools in small and medium-sized towns, with a median 9th through 12th grade enrollment size of 92 for a school in a small town and 385 for a school in…