This sixth annual High School Benchmarks Report provides the most updated data on high school graduates' college access, persistence, and completion outcomes. The report was designed with several features particularly tailored to secondary practitioners and policymakers. First, results presented in this report were based on the most up-to-date…

This study took place in an urban high school that implemented the data-driven school improvement plan after it received a grade of "F" in 2010. This school experienced significant growth during the next three years and received a letter grade of "C" in 2011, "B" in 2012, and "A" in 2013. I examined the role…

This comparative case study examines the prevalence of caring practices in two higher performing and two lower performing urban high schools and the contextual factors that helped or hindered the extent to which students felt cared for. We found that higher performing schools demonstrated caring communities, where interpersonal relationships and…

Across the nation, quality leadership and positive school climate are critical to the success of every principal, student, and school. As a result, this study examined the relationship between teacher perceptions of the degree to which a principal displays the factors of transformational leadership and the perceived school climate. A purposeful…

While the adjusted cohort graduation rate of students in the United States has reached 80 percent during the 2011-12 school year (Stetser & Stillwell, 2014), in the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) only 57% of its students graduate from high school in four years, which is typical of large urban school districts (Swanson, 2009). Moreover,…

The academic model of this charter high school for boys in Rochester, New York has four pillars: 1) strong relationships, 2) personalized year-round academics, 3) character education, and 4) career preparation. The two-page grantee profiles from Next Generation Learning Challenges (NGLC) provide factual information about the secondary school and…

This study used comparative interrupted times series analyses to assess the impact of a continuous improvement-focused family engagement intervention on ninth grade attendance and course passing rates. The intervention, conducted in an urban district, sought to improve middle and high school family engagement practices during the transition to…

The United States has undergone a revamping of education standards in an effort to systematize rigorous learning standards across the country and prepare students to be college- and career-ready. In addition, new accountability requirements have been put in place to determine the effectiveness of the school leader. Certainly, educational reforms…

This ethnographic case study examined the experiences of African American students within an urban school detracking reform initiative, which was intended to replace tracking practices through the institution of small schools. Over the course of a year, the researchers interviewed administrators, teachers, and students while gathering…

In this brief, we describe the distribution of college prep course offerings across Texas and determine which school characteristics are associated with higher and lower numbers of course offerings. We also examine how college prep course offerings are related to student-level college prep course-taking and, in turn, how course-taking behaviors…

Curriculum materials are integral to the teaching and learning of mathematics and have been described as having the most influence on what teachers actually plan for and enact in their classrooms. In this paper we describe how two teachers with varying years of experience, but similar experiences with curriculum materials, use curriculum materials…

Although there are more African American male students in higher education, they do not succeed to the same extent as other demographic groups. The purpose of this Action Research qualitative interpretative phenomenological analysis is to explore the lived experiences of African American male high school students in regards to their academic…

In this quantitative study, the perceptions of safety and preparedness of Missouri's high school administrators after participating in active shooter training as mandated by Missouri's Senate Bill No. 75 were analyzed. As school shootings continue, states have passed legislation to prepare schools to provide safety for students and faculty members…

The detection of complexity in behavioral outcomes often requires an estimation of their variability over a prolonged time spectrum to assess processes of stability and transformation. Conventional scholarship typically relies on time-independent measures, "snapshots", to analyze those outcomes, assuming that group means and their…

What are the policies, programs and practices that make some high schools in the same state and district context more effective than others? Motivated to understand the differences between schools with similar size and demographics yet different attendance, graduation and levels of student academic growth, the National Center for Scaling Up…