Only a quarter of full-time U.S. students complete their desired goal from community college attendance, with the rate of success even lower for Latinx students. This panel-data regression study looks for evidence regarding the expected influence of increasing the presence of Latinx faculty or administrators on cohort completion rates for all…

Academic preparation is a key factor in readiness for college-level work. Students who enroll in rigorous courses while in high school realize better secondary and postsecondary outcomes. Evidence from California suggests that rigorous learning opportunities may not be equally distributed across the state, prompting questions about course…

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…

Prior research shows that English learners (ELs) lag behind their peers in academic achievement and education attainment. The persisting gap is partly attributed to ELs' limited exposure to academic content. This article investigates the efficacy of a summer credit recovery program aimed at expanding high school newcomer ELs' access to academic…

Despite increases in college enrollment, college completion rates have not kept up, at both 2-year and 4-year institutions. In California specifically, the 6-year graduation or transfer rate for students at 2-year institutions was only 48%. In response to the idea that students arrive at college unprepared, driving these low college success rates,…

California educates more than 6 million children in its K-12 public schools. More than half of these students are economically disadvantaged. About one in five are English Learners (ELs), compared with one in ten nationwide. In 2013, the state created the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) to simplify school funding and significantly increase…

California needs 1.1 million more workers with bachelor's degrees by 2030 to keep up with economic demand. More college graduates would mean higher incomes, greater economic mobility, more tax revenue, and less demand for social services. In addressing this projected shortfall, three regions will play an especially critical role: Los Angeles…

Higher education is a key driver of economic growth and individual opportunity in California. But the state has not been keeping up with a strong and growing demand for skilled workers. Recent investments and initiatives have helped increase enrollment, graduation rates, and the number of degrees awarded. Substantial gains in these…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) provides increased flexibility for states and districts to develop strategies to support school improvement while, at the same time, emphasizes the importance of implementing evidence-based interventions to support low-performing schools. As states and districts implement comprehensive college and career…

As the largest and fastest growing racial/ethnic group in the country, Latinos' educational success is a national priority. In the Los Angeles Unified School district, the country's largest, high school graduating rates for Latinos hover at near 40%. Examining this institutional and societal tragedy through the school-to-prison pipeline has…

Partnerships between colleges and universities and K-12 school districts attempt to improve access to higher education by tailoring college outreach and teacher professional development programs to local needs as well as aligning high school curricula with higher education admissions criteria. In this article, we conduct a quasi-experimental…

College readiness is measured by the number and percentage of 12th grade graduates who complete all the courses required for entrance to the University of California (UC) and/or California State University (CSU) with a grade of "C" or better. Course completion represents only a portion of the entrance requirements for UC or CSU; not all…

National and regional trends mask important variation among states in the supply of high school graduates. This profile provides brief indicators for California 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 fifth annual update on America's high school dropout crisis shows that, for the first time in history, the nation has crossed the 80 percent high school graduation rate threshold and remains on pace, for the second year in a row, to meet the goal of a 90 percent high school graduation rate by the Class of 2020. This report highlights key…

The second year of college can be as important as the first year but far fewer studies have been conducted on second-year students. About 12% of students leave California State University - Fresno during or after their second year. In this report, we examined second year students to find the differences between those who graduate and those who…