Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS) earned a performance grade of "B" for the second year in a row and was just seven points short of the points required to earn an "A." This Research Capsule summarizes several key elements that contributed to the district's achievement. Results indicate that, in most cases, students'…

In September 2006, the State Board approved a new System Direction to guide the two-year-college system for the next ten years. One of three primary goals for the system is to increase educational attainment for the economic development of the state and the economic well-being of Washingtonians. Since 2000, State Board staff has provided periodic…

Using data from Achieving the Dream: Community College Count, this issue of "Data Notes" is the first of a two-part series investigating the characteristics of late stop-outs--students who accumulate at least 30 credits within the first two years, only to stop out without completing credentials or transferring. Seventy-five percent of…

The significant increase of English Language Learners (ELLs) in the United States raises complex questions about how to provide these students with access to high quality education that can improve both their content knowledge of school subjects and their English proficiency, particularly their academic English proficiency. The development of…

NCTM Past President Cathy L. Seeley shares her messages on today's most relevant topics and issues in education. Based on Cathy L. Seeley's award-winning NCTM President's Messages, and including dozens of new messages, this must-have K-12 resource offers straight talk and common sense about some of today's most important, thought-provoking issues…

This publication reproduces the keynote address delivered by the author at the annual conference of the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education (AAHHE) in March 2009, in San Antonio, Texas. In her essay, the author discusses the significance of the growing Hispanic presence through the lens of education. To frame the challenges--and…

The Strategic Management of Human Capital in Education Project was founded in 2008 with one goal: to improve student achievement dramatically in the 100 largest urban school districts. Unless teaching quality and principal leadership improve significantly, lasting education improvement is impossible. In policy terms, without "strategic management"…

This research study was designed to determine leadership and instructional behaviors of administrators and teachers who are participants in the Alabama AP Initiative, as well as evaluate the perceptions of the AAPI with regard to student performance. The importance of this research was three-fold. First, this study provided principals, as well as…

This generation of young people is on track to be less-educated than their parents--for the first time in American history. This, at the same time the world and workplace are changing dramatically and rapidly--when students, more than ever, need high levels of skill in order to compete. Advance Illinois has developed this report "We Can Do…

This report on the state's early education system offers a dark assessment, but not a fatalistic one, especially if leaders can seize and build on reform efforts that have already started in patches throughout the state. There's much more that policymakers, advocates and the state can--and should--be doing to work toward a day when all California…

This article details a strategic planning model and concurrent 3-year research study focusing on the benefits of preK-16 professional development school learning communities for the participating preK-16 educational leaders in a midwestern school-university partnership network. Results of the study, along with the strategic plan's success at…

Student achievement gap between urban and suburban regions are a major issue in U.S. schools. Technology enhanced learning environments that support teaching and learning process with advanced technology may close this achievement gap. This paper examines the impact of student and school factors with an emphasis on schools' geographic location on…

The goal of this study is to apply a conventional education cost-function approach for estimating the sensitivity of cost models and predicted education costs to the inclusion of school district level racial composition variables and further to test whether race neutral alternatives sufficiently capture the additional costs associated with school…

While almost any educator would agree that students deserve access to equal educational opportunities, many schools still sort students based on test scores or other criteria. There's a better way: one built on offering all students access to the best curriculum. In this first-ever practical book that shows how educators can make detracking work,…

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is a federal education law that was passed in 2001 with the laudable but challenging goal of closing the achievement gap between minority and white students and improving academic achievement among all students. To that end, NCLB has held states, school districts, and individual schools to impossibly high standards of…