Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, online credit recovery (OCR) was the most popular use of distance learning in high schools in the United States. With high course failure rates during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, high schools have turned to OCR to help students recover lost credit. This study examined the potential consequences of…

Nationwide, school principals are given wide discretion to use disciplinary tools like suspension and expulsion to create a safe learning environment. There is legitimate concern that this power can have negative consequences, particularly for the students who are excluded. This study uses linked disciplinary, education, and criminal justice…

Purpose: On average, one in five high school students in North Carolina fails at least one core, required course every year. After failure, students have two options to regain course credit: repeat the course face-to-face (F2F) or online credit recovery (OCR). This study seeks to provide descriptive evidence on OCR/F2F enrollment patterns over…

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…

This update to "SAT Wars" provides new evidence in the case against standardized college entry tests, including the experiences of test-optional colleges. "The Scandal of Standardized Tests" sheds significant light on key problems such as: (1) Are the tests stronger proxies for race and family income today than they were 20…

This report looks at graduation rates for Latino students and the completion or graduation rate gap between Latino and White students at four-year colleges and universities across the country. Data come from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System. The bulk of this analysis focuses on 613 public and nonprofit private nonspecialized…

This study examined the North Carolina Virtual Public School's (NCVPS) credit recovery program and other common credit recovery options available to students in the state. The study compared short- and longer-term academic outcome data across credit recovery options, as well as correlations between the academic outcomes and characteristics of…

The existence of a gap in academic performance between various groups of students, such as minority and non-minority students or socioeconomically disadvantaged and advantaged students, has been the subject of public discourse and research for many years. Research has indicated numerous reasons for the existence of this gap and its impact on…

In the 2012/13 school year American Indian students accounted for 1.1 percent of K-12 students nationwide and 1.4 percent of K-12 students in North Carolina (U.S. Department of Education, n.d.). Research has identified substantial achievement gaps between American Indian and other students on national tests, in graduation rates, and in…

The Communities In Schools (CIS) Model of Integrated Student Supports aims to reduce dropout rates by providing students with integrated and tiered support services based on their levels of need. The model includes preventive services that are available to all students (Level 1 services) as well as intensive, targeted, and sustained services…

The Communities In Schools (CIS) Model of Integrated Student Supports aims to reduce dropout rates by providing students with integrated and tiered support services based on their levels of need. The model includes preventive services that are available to all students (Level 1 services) as well as intensive, targeted, and sustained services…

This study examined the effect of public school choice on adult crime and school-based outcomes. Prior to the 2002-03 school year, the Charlotte-Mecklenberg school district switched from forced desegregation to a district-wide open enrollment lottery. This study focuses on more than 2,000 male students in grades 6-11 who participated in the subset…

To understand and evaluate a university's effectiveness requires a lot of information. But rarely is that information brought together in one place. This report compiles publicly available data about the University of North Carolina system. It illustrates key characteristics of the 16 campuses and how they have changed over the past decade. This…

Across the Regional Educational Laboratory Southeast Region there is growing interest in strengthening the presence of online learning in all public schools to help equalize education opportunities for all students and prepare students for a digital future. For instance, the North Carolina General Assembly has required that the state transition to…

National and regional trends mask important variation among states in the supply of high school graduates. This profile provides brief indicators for North Carolina related to: current levels of educational attainment, projections of high school graduates into the future, and two common barriers to student access and success--insufficient academic…