America and the South seem to have turned a corner on the deep and prolonged recession that started in 2008. The stranglehold it has had on jobs and job prospects caught many by surprise, and it has caused education leaders to refocus state policy on the relationship between career preparation and education. This report provides updates on the…

Reflecting the growing momentum in support of quality rating and improvement systems (QRISs) as a key strategy to improve early care and education quality, significant amounts of public dollars have been devoted to their development and implementation. In this brief, the authors report on their investigation of both quality rating and improvement…

The investigation identified Delaware public and charter middle schools across the state which outperformed other Delaware middle schools with similar student demographic profiles. Teachers and administrators at six of these "Beating the Odds" schools and at six comparison middle schools were surveyed regarding their schools…

Policymakers and education leaders in Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) states have been working since 2002 to meet all 12 "Challenge to Lead" Goals for Education. At the same time, SREB states have had to struggle with the toughest economic challenges in decades. Even so, SREB states have succeeded in achieving many of the goals…

A survey of employers in Delaware, New Jersey, and eastern Pennsylvania provided (1) information on organizational characteristics, employers' perception of the relative importance of nine previously identified successful transition skills, and their perception of the deficiency of these skills in today's employed youth; and (2) a model procedure…

In 1990, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) included a Trial State Assessment (TSA); for the first time in the NAEP's history, voluntary state-by-state assessments (37 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, and the Virgin Islands) were made. The sample was designed to represent the 8th grade public school population in a state…