Rural Appalachia encompasses a region of the United States represented by unique cultural strengths and systemic challenges. To meet their students' career and college needs, school counselors working in rural Appalachia must understand the cultural nuances of the region. Consensual qualitative research (CQR) methodology revealed five domains and…

Most states claim academic rigor and career readiness as goals for all their students. But as school systems continue tracking students into higher or lower levels of academic coursework and into career and technical courses that lack rigorous, real-world assignments, they reflect an apparent underlying belief that their students' abilities are…

Framed through ecological and LatCrit theories, this article offers critical perspectives on the academic achievement of two Latin@ students. Findings suggested participants obtained critical support from the micro and meso systems to access college, but they also had to battle multi-layered oppression on their own. The study cautions using…

Developmental education has been examined from the perspective of students, college instructors, administrators, and policy-makers. However, the perspectives of one important stakeholder group--high school teachers--has not been included in the research literature on this topic. The purpose of this study was to allow teachers to be heard on the…

Georgia Gwinnett College, an access institution serving the most diverse student body of southeast colleges, was awarded National Science Foundation and University System of Georgia STEM-Education Improvement grants to help our students meet the evolving needs of STEM education. One of the initiatives emerging from these resources is the Peer…

Students with low socioeconomic status (SES) are much less likely to participate in out-ofschool-time (OST) activities than their more affluent peers. This "opportunity gap" may have compounding effects, as these activities help develop key noncognitive factors: the skills, beliefs, and behaviors associated with college readiness.…

The recent legislation calls for attention to be given to rural education. Although the minority of the Georgia population lives in rural areas, school counselors play many roles in the lives of students in rural areas due to limited resources. This review summarizes the current literature on strategies utilized by school counselors in rural…

This article provides a brief background on the evolution of the two testing consortia and the perspective of one principal with the transition to online testing in an elementary school.

School climate has increasingly been recognized as an essential component of school improvement owing to the established associations between a positive school climate and academic outcomes for students. Our study examines associations among a brief measure of school climate assessing elementary student perceptions and the College and Career Ready…

The Common Core State Standards were implemented in the state of Georgia in the 2012/2013 school year replacing NCLB. Previous studies indicated that teachers and administrators viewed NCLB negatively, and the purpose of this study was to gauge teachers' perceptions of the new standards after they had been in effect for one and a half years.…

Despite some cuts to the nation's oldest Federal College Access Programs, known as the TRIO programs (e.g., Upward Bound), new education policies have emphasized college and career readiness. In 2010, Congress approved the College Access Challenge Grant Program, which aims to increase the number of low-income students who are ready for college.…