This is the second in a series of policy notes and related publications exploring prospects for developing indicators of teaching quality. The first examined federal databases that include information about teachers, demonstrating that almost none of the measures in these datasets provides indication of teaching quality. This policy note takes the…

America's private colleges and universities include most of the oldest institutions of higher education in the country, and their evolving physical campuses say much about American education. In recent years, the study of campus history, preservation, and adaptive reuse has received increasing attention by many sectors of the educational…

When the deepwater horizon offshore oil drilling rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010, 11 crewmen were killed; the accident led to the largest oil spill in U.S. history. Forty workers on the rig managed to escape the catastrophe, thanks largely to a safety-training program they had taken at community colleges in the Louisiana Community…

An estimated 370,000 schoolchildren were displaced last year by Hurricane Katrina, the worst natural disaster ever to strike the United States. One year after, hundreds of thousands of these displaced students remain scattered in schools across the nation. In Houston, which has the largest concentration of evacuees, two schools continue helping…

Thousands of children displaced by one of the most destructive natural disasters ever to strike the United States will be back in school soon, sometimes as far as 500 miles away from home. Whether their own schools are flooded in New Orleans or missing roofs in Biloxi, Mississippi, many students will find a spot in a classroom in the town where…

For decades three historically Black colleges and universities have called New Orleans home: (1) Southern University-New Orleans (SUNO), founded in 1956 as a branch of a system known for producing a majority of the state's Black lawyers; (2) Xavier University of Louisiana, founded in 1915 and long known for sending the most African-American…