No Child Left Behind and the Every Student Succeeds Act have made accountability central to conversations about education policy. But neither statute articulates a clear vision of what constitutes "quality" or "equity" in education, nor do they include a mechanism to ensure that schools have sufficient resources to pursue that…

A master plan in higher education is developed to address the academic and workforce needs of a particular state. The master plan helps serve as the roadmap for implementation of proposed strategies to reach state goals in education and degree attainment. In Tennessee, Drive to 55 is a state-wide effort to increase the number of Tennesseans with a…

There were a number of historic public charter school policy wins across the country in 2017. Kentucky became the 44th state (along with the District of Columbia) to enact a charter school law. Colorado and Florida provided charter school students with unprecedented access to locally raised dollars for facilities. Tennessee and Texas created new…

For many students, developmental education is the largest obstacle to college success, hindering progress before they ever enroll in a college-level course. Postsecondary practitioners and researchers have been re-examining and challenging many traditional elements of developmental education from placement strategies to the sequence of courses…

The issue of student retention and graduation from postsecondary institutions has grown in stature over the past decade. While the last 40 years of federal and state policies have focused largely on access to college, there is now a very real interest in not only getting students into college but also helping them earn baccalaureate and other…

The purpose of this slide deck is to shine a spotlight on education in the American South with a focus on equity and to provide an understanding of the historical, social, political, and economic context in which the education sector operates. Any movement serious about improving education and life outcomes for underserved student groups --…

This report presents a multi-year study of how states are implementing their state college- and career-readiness standards. In this report, the Southern Regional Education Board's (SREB's) Benchmarking State Implementation of College- and Career-Readiness Standards project studied state efforts in 2014-15 and 2015-16 to foster effective…

In 2010, HCM Strategists received support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to engage academic researchers in identifying and discussing the best currently available ways to account for differences in college "inputs"--students, resources, and fixed characteristics--when evaluating postsecondary outcomes. The project, Context…

Driven by economic and educational imperatives, public policymakers, higher education leaders, and philanthropic and advocacy groups are mobilizing aggressive national and state campaigns to bolster college completion. Campaigns to improve student success are particularly concerned about the performance of the nation's community colleges. In…

Driven by economic and educational imperatives, public policymakers, higher education leaders, and philanthropic and advocacy groups are mobilizing aggressive national and state campaigns to bolster college completion. Campaigns to improve student success are particularly concerned about the performance of the nation's community colleges. In…

This brief report offers analysis of ACT and SAT results from 2008 to 2013 in the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) region. The brief focuses on the increase in test participation rates and points to policies that SREB states initiated that affected these rates. Five SREB states currently require 100 percent student participation on the…

This latest brief updates education leaders on the key policies the 13 (Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia) Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) states plan to implement under federal waivers to No Child Left Behind. It details,…

Nearly 7,000 students drop out of the nation's public high schools each school day, and 3,000 of them are in the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) states. Altogether, an estimated 1.3 million teenagers in the United States abandon high school each year without earning a diploma. In 1,700 of the nation's high schools, less than 60 percent of…

SREB states were among the first in the nation to implement statewide high school exams. Today, these exams are a key component of each state's accountability system. This report identifies which states use comprehensive exams and which use end-of-course exams, how students perform on them, and whether achievement gaps have narrowed. It also…

"The 2009 Legislative Briefing" is a topical summary of actions during the 2009 legislative sessions that affect education in the 16 SREB states. Topics include: state budgets and the economy; tax and revenue; teacher and faculty pay raises; retirement systems; issues affecting teachers and education leaders; health and safety;…