The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the highest unemployment that the U.S. has seen since the Great Depression, with particularly heavy job losses for Black, Hispanic, and Native American workers. In this set of studies commissioned by Lumina Foundation, the authors examine actions that states and community colleges can take to address the needs of…

Utah's population will become increasingly diverse in the coming decades. By 2065, the percent of minorities in Utah (age 18-35) will nearly double. There is already a postsecondary education enrollment and completion gap between minority populations and the white population at colleges and universities in the Utah System of Higher Education. If…

Utilizing surveillance data from five sites participating in the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network, we investigated contributions of surveillance subject and census tract population sociodemographic characteristics on variation in autism spectrum disorder ascertainment and prevalence estimates from 2000 to 2008 using ordinal…

Last year, the Utah System of Higher Education (USHE) published an issue brief on Utah's Opportunity Gap. The 2019 report focused on the long-range impacts of shifting demographics within Utah's population on enrollments and completions within USHE. What the report failed to do is address the responsibility of the System to evaluate the ways in…

In 2009, Excelencia in Education launched the Ensuring America's Future initiative to inform, organize, and engage leaders in a tactical plan to increase Latino college completion. An executive summary of Latino College Completion in 50 states synthesizes information on 50 state factsheets and builds on the national benchmarking guide. Each…

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

Purpose: This study documents the risk for language impairment in Latino children who had different levels of exposure to English and Spanish. Method: A total of 1,029 preschool- and kindergarten-age children were screened in the domains of semantics and morphosyntax in both Spanish and English. Parent report was used to document current exposure…

Utah is in the process of transitioning to new English language arts and mathematics standards that will better prepare students to be successful in college and their careers. Time, effort, and resources must be dedicated to effective implementation in order to realize the promise of these new common core state standards. This paper captures the…

This report focuses on the 15 states of the West (Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington and Wyoming), their ability to educate minorities, and the resulting impact on their workforces and economies. The foundation of the Western U.S. economy rests on…

Annually, ACT provides a snapshot of the college and career readiness of ACT-tested high school graduates. This report is offered as a service to inform policymakers and practitioners about selected indicators of effectiveness and how that translates into readiness. It is designed to stimulate discussion, inquiry, and action. This report is…

This report provides data on the academic achievement gap that separates low-income and minority students from other students, examining how well different groups of students perform in Utah and noting inequities in teacher quality, course offerings, and funding. Included are tables and data that provide: a frontier gap analysis (a comparison of…

This report compares Utah's reading and mathematics performance on the most recent administrations of the state assessment with performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). To indicate how Utah is doing in narrowing the academic achievement gap between African American and Latino students and their white, middle class…