More than ever before, educators across the United States are enabling a wider and more ethnically diverse proportion of students to achieve success in AP[R]. Significant inequities, however, which jeopardize traditionally underserved students' chances at college success, remain. This "Report" uses a combination of state, national, and…

This article reports on a research project in which a digitally based assessment model is being developed for the Pacesetter Program. This program, established by the College Board to prepare culturally diverse students for higher education, is built around a curriculum that reflects not only the world that these students come from but also the…

This report summarizes the 2002-2003 program evaluation results of AISD's GEAR UP program, and the program's intent is to increase the number of low-income, at-risk students who are prepared to enroll in postsecondary institutions upon high school graduation.

Recently, there has been increasing interest among state governments in establishing statewide testing of high school students. This interest has been driven by various goals, such as reforming high schools, improving the alignment between P-12 requirements and postsecondary expectations, and fulfilling the mandates of the federal No Child Left…

What are ways to encourage minority students and those from low socioeconomic backgrounds to take and succeed in AP classes? Advanced Placement courses and their final national standardized exams began in 1954 to help students, mostly white males, get through college more quickly so that they would have more time in the work force. 50 years later,…

This report summarizes the 2005-2006 program evaluation results of AISD's federally-funded smaller learning communities grant program.

Using a collaborative program evaluation of a bridge program at a state flagship university, the authors argue that contradictions in student perceptions of their literacy learning are endemic to the effects of the structure of urban schooling. Overcrowding and underfunding of particular schools, in contrast with successful academic magnet…

Schoolwide literacy--the teaching of reading, writing, speaking, and thinking practices in all content areas--is generally considered an effective, even necessary, approach to addressing the learning needs of adolescents. In early college high schools, which blend high school and college for students who are underserved in higher education, the…

The American School Counseling Association (ASCA) identifies scheduling students for classes as a non-counseling activity. Ideally, school counselors should limit non-counseling activities, but the reality is that counselors do in fact spend much time and energy scheduling classes, according to a recent survey of secondary counselors. We introduce…

The more mathematics and science subjects are included in the curriculum in upper secondary education, the higher the number of accessible follow-up studies provided. The meritocratic caliber of secondary education is threatened when groups of students distinguished according to sex, social, and ethnic background but with otherwise equal…

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…

It is time for high school and college educators alike to come to grips with the fact that high school and college are not nearly as well aligned as they need to be. As a result, many high school students who have set attending college as a goal never get there, and many who do make it struggle to succeed once they arrive. Merely taking…

The federal Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs, or GEAR UP, project strives to equalize low-income students' access to higher education by increasing their participation in rigorous coursework, providing expanded opportunities for low-income students and parents to learn about postsecondary educational opportunities…

The authors examine South Dakota's 2+2+2 Project, a collaborative effort between South Dakota State University (SDSU) and the state's tribal colleges designed to enhance educational opportunities for American Indians, through the W. K. Kellogg Foundation's indicators of an engaged institution. Indicators include responsiveness, respect for…

This research describes data on college persistence, educational attainment, and remediation, and explains the difficulty in interpreting this data.