Objective: In 2009, the Kentucky General Assembly found unacceptable and costly the ongoing high numbers of high school students requiring remediation once they enter higher education. The state passed legislation to better align secondary and college education, establishing a diagnostic cycle that would become its Targeted Interventions (TI)…

To increase interest in chemical engineering and introduce non-traditional chemical engineering fields to high school women, an outreach activity focused on the biomedical applications of polymers was developed. Surveys given to students before and after the activity demonstrated greater agreement with the statements "I am interested in…

Generally, need-based financial aid improves students' academic outcomes (Nguyen, Kramer & Evans, 2019). However, the largest source of need-based grant aid in the United States, the Federal Pell Grant Program (Pell), has a mixed evaluation record (Bettinger, 2004; Rubin, 2011; Marx & Turner, 2018; Park & Scott-Clayton, 2018;…

College preparation resources to support academic and college success have the potential to decrease challenges students often face when preparing for college. TRIO programs, funded by the U.S. Department of Education, were introduced in the 1960s as part of the fight on the war on poverty to make the college experience more accessible to low…

This study estimates the per-student cost of Kentucky's Targeted Intervention (TI) program. The program seeks to help high school students who score below the ACT benchmarks in the 11th grade become college ready when graduating high school. The study uses the ingredients approach to cost analysis and a resource cost model (RCM) to organize data…

This study adds to the currently limited evidence base on the efficacy of interventions targeting non-college-ready high school students by examining the impact of Kentucky's Targeted Interventions (TI) program. We focus on interventions that students received under TI in the senior year of high school based on their 11th grade ACT test scores.…

Kentucky offers college preparatory transition courses in math, reading, and English to grade 12 students. The courses are designed as one possible intervention for students who do not meet state college readiness benchmarks in one or more of those subjects on the ACT in grade 11. This study updates a previous Regional Educational Laboratory (REL)…

In September 2012, Governor Jerry Brown signed into law Senate Bill 1458, which calls for California's school accountability system to shift from a near-exclusive reliance on state test scores to a broader range of measures demonstrating student achievement. At the high school level, starting in the 2015-16 school year, the Academic Performance…

"The Condition of College and Career Readiness" looks at the progress of the 2016 ACT®-tested graduating class relative to college and career readiness. This state briefing begins with statistics in the following categories for Kentucky: performance, STEM, career readiness, impact, behaviors that impact access and opportunity, pipeline,…

Credit-based transition programs provide high school students with opportunities to jump start their college education. The Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS) offers college credit through dual-credit programs. While KCTCS dual-credit offerings have been successful in helping high school students start their college education…

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) call on science and social studies teachers to engage in literacy instruction that prepares students for the academic rigors of college. The Literacy Design Collaborative (LDC) designed a framework to address the challenge of literacy-content integration. At the heart of the intervention are fill-in-the-blank…

The purpose of this study was to examine Kentucky high school students' participation and pass rates in college preparatory transition courses, which are voluntary remedial courses in math and reading offered to grade 12 students in the state. Three groups of students were compared using the population of grade 12 students in Kentucky public…

This study examines Kentucky high school students' participation and pass rates in college preparatory transition courses, voluntary remedial courses in math and reading offered to grade 12 students. These courses are targeted to students scoring just below the state's college readiness benchmarks on the ACT in grade 11. The study found that:…

This literature review on high school capstone courses found that, while the idea of such courses has been around since the 1990s, such courses have not been widely implemented and virtually no research exists on their effectiveness. Nevertheless, several high schools around the country have implemented senior culminating projects in which high…

In response to growing concerns about college readiness, the Kentucky legislature revised the state's assessment and accountability system in an effort to increase the number of students who are ready for college when they graduate. The Kentucky Department of Education and the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education responded by redefining…