Online credit recovery (OCR) courses are the most common means through which students retake courses required for high school graduation. Yet a growing body of research has raised concerns regarding student learning in these courses, with low quality assessments posited as one contributing factor. To address this concern, we reviewed every…

This paper investigates the effect of high school graduation requirements on arrest rates with a specific focus on the number of required courses and the use of exit exams. Identifying variation comes from state-by-cohort changes in the laws governing high school graduation requirements from 1980 to 2010. Combining these law changes with arrest…

The corequisite model is a promising developmental education reform effort that is helping students transition into college-level coursework more quickly. The purpose of this Brief is to offer recommendations to college leaders, faculty, and staff involved with implementing the corequisite model at their institution. Our recommendations are from a…

For the past several years, the California State University (CSU) has been investigating a proposal to add one year of high school quantitative reasoning coursework to the current CSU first-year admissions requirements, often referred to as A-G courses. Qualifying quantitative reasoning courses would include courses in mathematics (area C),…

Online credit recovery (OCR) allows US students at risk of dropping out of school to retake courses to meet graduation requirements and eventually graduate from high school. The problem addressed in this study is that despite participating in online English II credit recovery (ELA II OCR), students in a rural school district in North Florida still…

Louisiana is currently the only state in the United States that requires foreign language (FL) study for some, but not all of their high school students, and these requirements are undergoing seismic changes. Considering that "geographic," "economic," and "integration" factors contribute to whether a school can…

California's Assembly Bill 705 has affected the way that English learners (ELs) access English and English as a second language (ESL) coursework, requiring that degree- or transfer-seeking students have the right to enroll in English or ESL courses, and community colleges are responsible for implementing initial placement practices and designing…

Completing the A-G course sequence is the standard pathway to college for California high school graduates; however, findings indicate that there is substantial variation in A-G enrollment and completion rates across student subgroups and schools. This brief describes the distribution in access to and success in A-G courses as well as strategies…

Nearly all states require students to complete a certain number of units per course to earn a standard diploma in the state; but courses, units and assessments outside of exit exams and diploma options vary. This interactive resource provides an overview of state high school graduation requirements. To see how all states approach specific…

We use data from the 2020 PACE/USC Rossier annual voter poll to report on California voters' attitudes towards educational equity policy initiatives, specifically: (a) increasing the number of public school teachers of color in California and (b) requiring all high school students in California to complete an ethnic studies course. A majority of…

The Regional Educational Laboratory Northeast and Islands (REL-NEI) partnered with the New York State Education Department (NYSED) to examine the pathways used by students to attain a Regents diploma at the outset of a new policy expanding those pathways in June 2015. Under the new 4+1 pathways policy, students could replace one of the two…

This study presents a critical review of religious education policies and practices from the perspective of inclusion. In this sense, it raises the problematics of compulsory and optional religious education courses and Imam Hatip schools, which have an important place in state-religion relationships in Turkey as an inclusive education issue.…

Across the country, states are considering policies that support civic learning among youth. Recent initiatives at the state level have changed graduation requirements and state assessments around high school civics. These initiatives can be grouped into three types: coursework, assessments, and accountability. The first type, coursework, refers…

In the United States, the prevailing high school mathematics course sequence begins with a year of Algebra I, followed by a year of geometry and a year of Algebra II. Educators and others have raised concerns about the extent to which this sequence, which prioritizes the mastery of algebra, is appropriate for the longer-term education and career…

The aim of this study is to explore whether latent classes, i.e. subgroups of students, representing specific motivational profiles can be found among learners of different foreign languages (L2s) in Finnish comprehensive schools. The focus is on whether motivational profiles are different for learning a compulsory foreign language (English) or an…