An opportunity gap exists in the United States school system where students of color score lower on standardized tests and have fewer opportunities than their white counterparts. Culturally Relevant Education (CRE) theory attempts to close this gap, and is defined by Gloria Ladson-Billings (1995) as Pedagogy that rests on three criteria or…

The authors describe Pathways2Teaching, a grow-your-own-teacher program operating in high schools in six Colorado school districts that focuses on getting students of color interested in going into K-12 teaching.

Charter school Alternative Education Campuses (AECs) leverage the nimbleness of the charter school model to create unique learning opportunities nationwide for students who experience challenges that make it difficult to excel academically. Some of the challenges include homelessness, pregnancy, parenting while in school, or interaction with the…

Research is needed to understand the impact of high-stakes testing on teachers' practices and consequently on their students, particularly at schools that serve large numbers of low-income students and students of color. In this research study, we examined how a state's annual high-stakes test and administrative mandates influenced the assessment…

Greybull is a small high school nestled among the graybrown buttes of northwestern Wyoming. As in five other states, juniors take the ACT test, not for college entry but to see how they perform and how curriculum might be improved. Principal Mark Fritz said that they do watch the scores and do make changes in the curriculum and that Wyoming has…

In today's economy, employers increasingly demand that workers have a high school diploma, yet America's graduation rates are unacceptably low, particularly among poor and minority students. Nationally, only about 70 percent of students graduate from high school on time with a regular diploma; for African American and Hispanic students, this…

The need to complete a successful high school education has never been more important for an individual's future success. But, across the nation, high schools are not living up to their promise. U.S. high school graduation rates have remained virtually the same for the last 30 years--about 30 percent of students fail to graduate from high school…

This paper profiles Colorado's test score trends through 2008-09. In 2003, the mean scale score on the state 4th grade reading test was 598 for non-Title I students and 558 for Title I students. In 2009, the mean scale score in 4th grade reading was 599 for non-Title I students and 556 for Title I students. Between 2003 and 2009, the mean scale…

Graduation rates are a fundamental indicator of whether or not the nation's public school system is doing what it is intended to do: enroll, engage, and educate youth to be productive members of society. Since almost 90 percent of the fastest-growing and highest-paying jobs require some postsecondary education, having a high school diploma and the…

This report contains summary tables of Colorado state graduation rates for the class of 1994 and dropout rates for the 1993-94 school year, along with reports of graduation and dropout rates by school district. The dropout rate is an annual rate reflecting the percentage of all students enrolled in grades 7 through 12 who leave school during the…

This report presents information in a series of tables about graduation and dropout rates in Colorado in 1996 and suspension and expulsion rates in 1995-96. The 1996 graduation rate is a 4-year rate based on students who began ninth grade in 1992-93 as reported by school districts. The graduation rate for the Class of 1996 is 77.7%, an increase of…

The "comprehensive" high schools that now educate almost all young people in Colorado and elsewhere in the United States were designed in a different era for a different economy. American comprehensive high schools were intended to provide a basic education in reading, writing, and arithmetic, preparing most students for work and some…

This document reports on a study into the relationships between cognitive preferences, achievement, and ethnicity of first year algebra students. The sample consisted of 175 students from two high schools in the Denver (Colorado) metropolitan area. The two schools were chosen because of the diversity of ethnic groups in the student populations.…

This study examined differences in nine factors between a group of the highest-performing needs high schools (HPHN) and a group of the lowest performing high-needs (LPHN) high schools using teacher responses from a national dataset. The factors are: (1) shared mission and goals; (2) professional development; (3) collaboration among teachers (4)…

"Straight A's: Public Education Policy and Progress" is a biweekly newsletter that focuses on education news and events both in Washington, DC and around the country. The following articles are included in this issue: (1) Secretary Spellings Defends Bush Budget on Capitol Hill: Congress Expresses Concern over Education Cuts, Proposal to…