Sandy Baum, The George Washington University and The Urban Institute; Alisa Federico Cunningham, Independent Consultant; and Courtney Tanenbaum, American Institutes for Research The information in this report provides a useful view of a subset of questions about educational attainment in the United States. The primary goal of this report and the data presented, however, is to highlight the importance of clarifying exactly what is being measured by the various data sources and bringing multiple sources of information to bear in developing a more nuanced understanding of the problems the United States faces, the progress the nation is making, and constructive strategies for achieving our educational attainment goals.
The Data Quality Campaign In the last decade, states have made incredible investments to harness the value of education data and provide the critical information parents, teachers, and other education stakeholders need to make the best decisions for students. These state data systems are critical for personalizing student instruction, informing policy decisions, and improving the quality of the state’s schools.
The Data Quality Campaign (DQC) The Data Quality Campaign (DQC), a strong advocate for statewide student-level longitudinal data systems, reports on how to create or transition to a state-level next generation system, evaluates how current systems are organized, and lays out recommendations for state P-12 data systems including ten essential elements. With these essential elements, the data system becomes a powerful tool for tracking individual student progress, serving as an early warning system, conducting program evaluation activities, and answering important policy questions.
The Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education & The University of Pennsylvania Alliance for Higher Education and Democracy (PennAHEAD) A report on the 45-year trends in higher education attainment by family income. This report details the status of equity in United States higher education and identifies changes and trends over time in measures of equity. The report concludes with a section on the search for solutions, and two essays on strategies for widening the equity of participation in Higher Education in the United States.
U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics United States policymakers have targeted reducing STEM attrition in college, arguing that retaining more students in STEM fields in college is a low-cost, fast way to produce the STEM professionals that the nation needs (President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology [PCAST] 2012). Within this context, this Statistical Analysis Report (SAR) presents an examination of students’ attrition from STEM fields over the course of 6 years in college using data from the 2004/09 Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study and the associated 2009 Postsecondary Education Transcript Study.
National Center for Inquiry & Improvement This report is designed for higher education leaders and explores ten commonly asked questions about implementing guided pathways. It addresses concern about compromising our higher education values, practical considerations about control and enrollment, and apprehensions about the impact on students’ learning and development—all issues that will need to be addressed to successfully pursue a guided pathways effort.
Thomas Bailey, Shanna Smith Jaggars & Davis Jenkins This first part of a 3-part series practitioner packet is designed to help community college leaders and staff who are considering guided pathways reforms at their college. Part one, What We Know About Guided Pathways, describes the reform model and summarizes evidence supporting its design principles.
Charles A. Dana Center Part one of a 2-part blog post on integrating complex contexts and/or literacy skills into your mathematics courses. This first posting makes the case that strong quantitative literacy and reasoning skills in rich, complex, and realistic contexts serves students.
Charles A. Dana Center Part two of a 2-part blog post about the need for students to develop critical thinking and literacy skills as a part of mathematics with complex and realistic contexts. In this piece, the author shares helpful resources and suggested strategies to support students in developing these skills in the classroom.
U.S. Department of Education The purpose of this report is to examine how often, and under what conditions, postsecondary institutions accept the transfer of credits earned by students at other institutions.. This report findings utilize transcript data from the Postsecondary Education Transcript Study of 2009, a component of the 2004-2009 Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study, and followed a nationally representative sample of approximately 17,000 students who entered postsecondary education for the first time in the 2003–04 academic year for a period of 6 years.