In almost all school systems, students are assigned to public schools based, at least partly, on their home address. Through this policy, students are typically assigned to the school closest to their home. The main objective may be to avoid long and costly commutes to and from school. However, over the past few decades, many countries have…

The Adult High School (AHS) program enables an adult student, as defined in section (s.)1004.02(5), Florida Statutes (F.S.), to complete the required courses and state assessments to earn a standard high school diploma. Course requirements in adult high school programs are designed in accordance with core content standards per s. 1003.41, F.S. A…

In 2014 the Washington state legislature approved career- and college-ready (CCR) requirements for high school graduation that better align with admissions standards at the state's public universities than previous requirements did and that aim to equip students with the skills to pursue the career of their choice. The requirements took effect for…

Letters of recommendation consume a lot of time and thought as they are solicited, written, and read, and, while many high school and college admission officials say that work pays off by providing a university with valuable and sometimes unique information about prospective students, most everyone also agrees they could be more effective. Some…

The Department for Education (DfE) provided funding for secondary schools to establish short face-to-face summer schools over the 2021 summer holiday, to help them make up for learning lost during the COVID-19 pandemic. Lasting for one or two weeks, summer schools involved a blend of academic learning and enrichment activities and were intended to…

The Good Friday Agreement (1997) brought political violence in Northern Ireland to an end and provided the basis for shared government. A consociational political structure was adopted which institutionalised community differences while encouraging coalition government. The goal was that a requirement for consensus decisions would encourage…

Admission criteria can be used to predict Saudi student performance in college, but significant differences across several studies exists. This study explores the predictive power of admission criteria for college assignment using King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences as a model. Scores from high school and standardized tests were…

Background: Despite the increasing need for STEM skills, to date, the connection between STEM subject choices and their impact on students' educational pathways has not been widely studied. Focusing on the mathematics choice (basic/advanced/no mathematics), a large register dataset that covered students admitted to Finnish universities during…

In an effort to align its college admission requirements with the new K-12 science standards, the University of California (UC) recently proposed to increase its high school science admissions eligibility requirement--known as area D--from two to three years. UC's new policy has the potential of improving student science learning and readiness for…

As Taiwanese students progress from elementary to junior high school, there is a remarkable increase in the inequality of achievement in mathematics. This increase is of a magnitude not seen in other countries. Findings show that the widening-gap phenomenon is accompanied by an exceptional increase in the percentage of students reaching the…

The study evaluated a recently postponed national test policy on the use of external agencies' English tests measuring four skills for Japanese university admission purposes. Using Kunnan's principles of fairness and justice, we generated and evaluated three claims regarding the test policy: vocabulary coverage of the tests, the justifiability of…

We explore the effects of a statewide policy change that increased the number of high school math courses required for admission to four-year public universities in North Carolina. Using data on cohorts of eighth-grade students from 1999 to 2006, we exploit variation by district over time in the math course-taking environment encountered by…

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of instructional leadership on high school students' academic achievement in the Chinese context and to determine which specific instructional leadership dimensions have the most important role. The sample included 26 high schools with 26 principals and 4288 students in Shenyang, China. The…

The number of non-native English speakers enrolling in British Columbia's (BC's) post-secondary system has likely increased in recent decades. This has led to concerns about whether such students have adequate English-language proficiency for academic success. Since it is impossible to accurately identify non-native English speakers in BC Transfer…

Students and families in Chicago are increasingly taking up school choice options offered by the school district. Prospective high school students and their families have 160 high schools to choose from. These options include a broad variety of schools in governance, size, academic approach, and programs offered. To streamline the school…