Research shows that Early College high schools have a significant impact on high school and college outcomes for students from low income and racial/ethnic minority backgrounds, but how similar opportunities extend to English learners (ELs) remains unknown. We examine a program that offers Early College opportunities in high schools serving large…

Despite clear evidence of the benefits of taking advanced math courses in high school, access to and success in these courses are not experienced equally. Only about half of California high school seniors enroll in an advanced math course, and nearly one-quarter of seniors do not take any math. To increase equitable access to advanced math, six…

Elisabeth Barnett of the Community College Research Center proposes a new dimension to the general understanding of how best to prepare high school students for higher education. She suggests considering the accumulation of momentum points--specific to college preparatory "experiences" and markers of educational "attainment" in…

This executive summary describes a paper that is part of a series intended to encourage the nation's secondary and postsecondary systems to take joint responsibility for substantially increasing the number of young people who are prepared for college and career success. In this report, author Elisabeth Barnett of the Community College Research…

The population of United States Latino students is growing at a rapid rate but their academic achievement lags behind white and Asian students. This issue has significant consequences for the nation's economy, as the job market continues to demand more education and better skills. Early College High School programs have the potential to improve…

This literature review on high school capstone courses found that, while the idea of such courses has been around since the 1990s, such courses have not been widely implemented and virtually no research exists on their effectiveness. Nevertheless, several high schools around the country have implemented senior culminating projects in which high…

University admissions, like many other aspects of the higher education sector, are going through a time of significant change. From 2012, universities will receive full funding under the Commonwealth Grants Scheme (CGS) for as many places as they offer. Previously, the Government limited the number of funded places, with a tolerance band for…

This study compares alignment of the ACT and the American Diploma Project (ADP) national college readiness standards sets with the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for English language arts and reading (TEKS ELAR) standards for grades 9-12 and analyzes their cognitive complexity. It finds that a majority of the content in the ACT and ADP…

This postcard compares youth resistance across classroom contexts. It draws from a two-year ethnography of the East Oakland Step to College (Step) program, which prepared underserved African-American and Latina/o youth to enroll in four-year universities, while nurturing students' sensibilities to fight for social justice. Students were highly…

Remedial courses and programs are typically treated in isolation from the core mission of the college or university, an institutional quarantine. The author sees the remedial function as interconnected with foundational concerns: what does it mean to enter higher education in America? What truly is the relationship between the research and…

The dual Ontario graduating class of 2003, commonly referred to as the Double Cohort, was the product of that provincial government's initiative to eliminate the long entrenched practice of requiring a fifth year of secondary school for university-bound students. The new, more "rigorous" four-year curriculum, the Ministry of Education…

The message that college matters is getting through to more and more young people. Young people understand that a middle-class lifestyle increasingly requires at least an associate degree. Yet the percentage of college students actually completing a two- or four-year degree has not increased significantly in more than 30 years. College completion…

This report provides information about the performance of 2009 graduating seniors who took the ACT as sophomores, juniors, or seniors; and self-reported at the time of testing that they were scheduled to graduate in 2009 and tested under standard time conditions. The ACT is designed for students who plan to attend college, and the report results…

This report provides information about the performance of 2009 graduating seniors who took the ACT as sophomores, juniors, or seniors; and self-reported at the time of testing that they were scheduled to graduate in 2009 and tested under standard time conditions. This report focuses on: (1) Performance: student test performance in the context of…

This report provides information about the performance of 2009 graduating seniors who took the ACT as sophomores, juniors, or seniors; and self-reported at the time of testing that they were scheduled to graduate in 2009 and tested under standard time conditions. This report focuses on: (1) Performance: student test performance in the context of…