The Kansas Association of School Boards (KASB) Comparing Kansas report data provides information related to the Kansas State Board of Education's Kansans Can outcomes and the "Rose Capacities" identified by the Kansas Supreme Court as a standard of constitutional funding and adopted as educational goals by the Kansas Legislature. It also…

This study investigates the relationship between participating in a high school debate program on college-readiness in the Chicago Public School district over a 10-year period. At-risk school students were identified using an index including 8th grade achievement, poverty status, and enrollment in special education. Regression analyses were used…

There is a very large population of students who struggle with the transition from the middle grades to high school, raising concerns that high school failures are partially a function of poor middle grade preparation. As a result, middle grade practitioners are grappling with questions about what skills students need to succeed in high school,…

While 8th grade algebra was once reserved as a course for the gifted, today, more U.S. 8th graders take algebra than any other math course. This article discusses a report from the Brookings Institution which chronicles the history of the 8th-grade algebra surge and its impact on today's low-performing students. The report indicates that many of…

An important question in preparing all students for college and career by the time they graduate from high school is that of determining how much growth in academic achievement typically occurs during high school and whether such growth can be accelerated so that more students are ready for college and career when they graduate from high school.…

The end of 7th grade provides an important moment to assess how prepared California's students are to succeed in the more advanced math curriculum that starts with algebra. At a minimum, all California students are required to successfully pass Algebra I in order to receive a high school diploma. But Algebra I also functions as the gateway to more…

In recent years, there has been heightened awareness of the importance of early childhood education and high school as intervention points in the educational lives of America's children. Less attention has been paid to the importance of the upper elementary grades and middle school and the role they must play in the preparation of students for…

The sometimes poor performance of Career and Technical Education (CTE) concentrators on a state-mandated proficiency test is a major concern of CTE educators. This study examined whether (a) there are performance differences on state-mandated 11th-grade math and reading tests between CTE and non-CTE students with similar proficiency scores in the…

ACT data suggest that the readiness of the nation's high school students for college-level reading is far too low. But ACT data also show that, while it is important for students to be able to comprehend both explicit and implicit material in texts, as well as to understand how various textual elements (such as main ideas, relationships, or…

Mastering mathematics has become more important than ever in the United States. Students with a strong grasp of mathematics have an advantage in academics and in the job market. The eighth grade is a critical point in mathematics education. Achievement at that stage clears the way for students to take rigorous high school mathematics and science…

The Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Program (GEAR UP) is designed to provide assistance to low income students. The program provides discretionary grants for the purpose of increasing the readiness of low income students to attend and succeed in postsecondary education. The grants are up to six years in length and provide…

Project Discovery is a community-based educational intervention program for low income and minority students. It operates outside the traditional public education system. The following projects comprise the program: (1) Project Discovery for ninth to eleventh graders, which is a College Option Orientation program; and (2) Discovery Groups for…

This report is one of a series of three reports on Latino students in the educational pipeline. The purpose of this series is to provide a sense of the challenges facing Latino youth compared to White youth on the pathways to postsecondary education and the baccalaureate. In researching Part I, our interest was in finding out what happened to NELS…