The Young Women's Preparatory Network (YWPN) is a private foundation that supports single-sex, college preparatory schools throughout Texas. Over the past fifteen years, the organization has worked through public-private partnerships to establish and support public, all-girls secondary schools in districts across Texas. This study evaluated the…

In September 2012, Governor Jerry Brown signed into law Senate Bill 1458, which calls for California's school accountability system to shift from a near-exclusive reliance on state test scores to a broader range of measures demonstrating student achievement. At the high school level, starting in the 2015-16 school year, the Academic Performance…

An alarming convergence of factors--diminishing percentages of high school graduates enrolling immediately in postsecondary education, traditionally underserved students comprising a growing proportion of the overall U.S. school population, and projections that more occupations in the future will need education beyond high school--suggest that…

Using state administrative data for three cohorts of college enrollees from 1997 to 2008 and incorporating propensity score matching techniques, we examine the effects of attending a Minority-Serving Institution (MSI)--that is, a Historically Black College or University (HBCU) or a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI)--on college-completion outcomes…

Texas is profiting from a diverse, vibrant and growing economy. Yet this prosperity could turn to crisis if steps are not taken quickly to ensure an educated population and workforce for the future. At present, the proportion of Texans enrolled in higher education is declining. Too few higher education programs are noted for excellence and too few…

About one-third of college students are required to take remedial courses to redress the lack of preparation for college-level coursework. Assignment to remediation is generally made on the basis of a placement test score, and in some states students are required to take a placement test prior to enrolling in college-level courses. In this type of…

Many states are experimenting with mechanisms for making college more affordable while maintaining quality and access. This report examines promising or innovative state programs to improve college affordability and credential attainment. Many of these approaches show innovative thinking and bear watching to see if they result in meaningful…

In this article, we examined the extant literature regarding college-readiness in math for students entering community colleges. Included in this review are the following topics: (a) the role of community colleges between secondary and postsecondary institutions; (b) national initiatives for college-readiness standards in math; (c) Texas…

States rely on data from both the K-12 and postsecondary sectors to inform policy discussions; chart the progress of students, schools, districts, colleges, and the state; pinpoint best practices and areas of need; allocate scarce resources; and make other important education decisions every day. However, states need to securely link limited, but…

"Core-Plus Mathematics" is a four-year curriculum that replaces the traditional sequence with courses that each feature interwoven strands of algebra and functions, statistics and probability, geometry and trigonometry, and discrete mathematics. The first three courses in the series provide a common core of broadly useful mathematics,…

National and regional trends mask important variation among states in the supply of high school graduates. This profile provides brief indicators for Texas 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…

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 Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science (TAMS) is a publicly financed, residential early college entrance institute at the University of North Texas at Denton. Created in 1987, TAMS enables high-achieving students planning STEM careers to complete their last 2 years of high school simultaneously with their first 2 years of college. Admission…

One of the important arguments by critics of affirmative action is that it actually hurts the students it is supposed to help by subjecting them to the "stigma" of being admitted under policies explicitly seeking campus diversity. Such students, this theory argues, must feel embarrassed and uncomfortable as a result and would prefer to…

This study compares alignment of the ACT and the American Diploma Project (ADP) national college readiness standards sets with the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for English language arts and reading (TEKS ELAR) standards for grades 9-12 and analyzes their cognitive complexity. It finds that a majority of the content in the ACT and ADP…