This report, the first in the Economic Vitality and Education in the South (EVES) series, provides state-by-state information on more than 20 critical data points associated with the education-to-workforce pipeline. The report looks specifically at the 17 states in the Southern Education Foundation (SEF) region: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware,…

Landon Mascareñaz and Doannie Tran propose that, even as events of this decade have exposed stress points in existing top-down, closed systems within education and other public institutions, they have also created prime opportunities to rethink and redesign those systems in ways that encourage civic participation and invigorate local democracy. In…

The concept of boundaries, as borders that separate two entities, can be problematic in that those who "belong" within a boundary in a given social world or entity are separated from those who do not, creating binaries. The field of literacy research has had a long history of binarism in which instructional methods, epistemological…

In the 2014-15 school year, 47 states are administering high school assessments to gauge students' mastery of college and career readiness standards in English language arts (ELA) and math. These new assessments represent a departure from prior high school exams that measured acquisition of high school (or lower) content but provided no actionable…

For more than thirty years, personnel from the University of Louisville J.B. Speed School of Engineering have presented a summer program targeting high school students historically underrepresented in engineering fields. INSPIRE provides these students with an introduction to careers in engineering and assists the students in planning their…

Since we were young, we have been raised to believe that "bigger is better" and that the big city is the place you have to go to live an exciting life and have a successful career. Far too many individuals believe that small and rural towns are not the places for opportunity but that they are places to live for those who have no…

The nation's 1,200 community colleges are well positioned to strengthen the workforce of one of America's most critical sectors--health care. They can provide training and credentialing for incumbent workers in health care and to prepare new workers to succeed in and meet the workforce demands for this sector--expanding individual opportunity and…

This report provides educators and policymakers with information they can use to celebrate their successes, understand their unique challenges, and set meaningful goals to increase opportunity for all students. It is important to note that while AP® Exams are valid measures of students' content mastery of college-level studies in specific academic…

The purpose of this literature and field review is to understand previous efforts at scaling up performance assessments for use across districts and states. Performance assessments benefit students and teachers by providing more opportunities for students to demonstrate their knowledge and complex skills, by providing teachers with better…

The nation's changing economy requires workers to attain increasingly higher job skills. Leaders in education, workforce development, and economic development recognize the need to help workers meet this challenge and to help employers find qualified employees. Barriers to educational and career opportunities will need to be removed so that…

Since the 2003-04 school year, Save the Children, U.S. Programs, has supported programming designed to improve reading skills among struggling students in rural areas. The literacy program includes both afterschool and in-school interventions with small groups of children. These are implemented by well-trained paraprofessionals and are designed to…

Online learning programs are designed to expand high-quality educational opportunities and to meet the needs of diverse students. While the primary reason online courses are offered in school districts is to expand offerings to courses that would otherwise be unavailable, the second most commonly cited reason for offering online learning is to…

The Section 8 housing assistance program in Jefferson County, Kentucky, is a Federally funded program designed to expand the housing choices of low to moderate income families. This report provides an analysis of all moves made in Jefferson County between 1975 and 1979 by participants in the program, as they relate to the county's school…

This report provides data on inequality in school funding systems and the status of the legal challenges taking place. Disagreements about what is needed to resolve inequality are resolved through the political and legal process, professional judgment, and facts and objective data. This report provides facts and objective data. The first part…

Emerging research suggests that providing personal computers to students, in combination with a constructivist teaching approach, holds promise for significant gains in student achievement. As we begin a process of using one-on-one learning with laptop computers in a large urban district, it is important to share information concerning the design,…