Research has demonstrated that principals have a powerful impact on school improvement and student learning. Principals play a vital role in recruiting, developing, and retaining effective teachers; creating a school-wide culture of learning; and implementing a continuous improvement plan aimed at increasing student achievement. Leithwood, Louis,…

Federal policymakers have interest in three specific areas of postsecondary career and technical education (CTE): associate degrees and certificates awarded in CTE, skills and training obtained through noncredit courses, and industry-recognized certifications. Research and data are readily available on students earning degrees and certificates in…

This report examines the results of the field test for the base year of the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09). The general purposes of the field test were, in anticipation of the base-year full-scale effort, to test instruments, forms, and procedures; to experiment with different approaches to questionnaire content and survey…

In an effort to better understand the factors associated with college persistence and attrition, the Survey Research Center at Princeton University, with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, is conducting the College Student Attrition Project. As part of that project, Mathematica Policy Research conducted the College Experiences Survey.…

Communities That Care (CTC) is a prevention system designed to reduce adolescent substance use and delinquency through the selection of effective preventive interventions tailored to a community's specific profile of risk and protection. A community-randomized trial of CTC, the Community Youth Development Study, is currently being conducted in 24…

Each year, from 1982 to 1986, the Library Research Center at the University of Illinois conducted a study called the Index of Quality of Public Library Service. For this study, unobtrusive tests of reference service and book availability were performed annually in Illinois Public Libraries. When the results from rural libraries were compared with…

This paper explores the range of ways in which school districts are using Title I funds for early education through kindergarten and examines how the implementation of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) has impacted those investments. It also makes recommendations for local education agencies (LEAs) interested in creating Title I-funded early education…

This phase of the downstate Illinois bilingual education program included: locating all past data still in existence in 1976; determining what data were actually retrievable and usable; reporting on these data retrospectively; and finally, collecting new data for a continuing longitudinal study. There were 44 school districts with 4,579 students…

A project was undertaken to develop standardized procedures for use in conducting follow-up and assessment of adult education students, including students in basic and secondary education, general educational development (GED) programs, and vocational training. The major activities of the project included the following: review of the literature…