The PEN National Office Data Department's review of key data points for the network, including:

* PEN College- and Career-Ready Compact
* Effective LEF Strategies
* LEF Scorecard
* College College- and Career and Career-Readiness
* Effective Teachers
* Public Engagement

The PEN National Office Data Department's review of key data points for the network, including:

* PEN College- and Career-Ready Compact
* Effective LEF Strategies
* LEF Scorecard
* College College- and Career and Career-Readiness
* Effective Teachers
* Public Engagement

The objectives of this research project were to:

* Understand the perceptions of low- to moderate-income African-American and Latino parents/caregivers concerning the schools in their communities and the schools their children attend.

* Understand the importance of a college education and thecollege-going expectations that parents of color have for their children.

* Assess attitudes of parents/caregivers toward key aspects of public school reform.

* Identify effective means of connecting with parents/caregivers of color to enlist their support for school reform and improvement efforts.

This research was conducted in partnership with the Alliance for Excellent Education, Black Alliance for Educational Options, Campaign for High School Equity, Communities for Teaching Excellence, Leadership Conference Education Fund, League of United Latin American Citizens, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund, National Council of La Raza, National Indian Education Association, National Urban League, Public Education Network, United Negro College Fund, Southeast Asia Resource Action Center, Southern Education Foundation, and Stand for Children

The objectives of this research project were to:

* Understand the perceptions of low- to moderate-income African-American and Latino parents/caregivers concerning the schools in their communities and the schools their children attend.

* Understand the importance of a college education and thecollege-going expectations that parents of color have for their children.

* Assess attitudes of parents/caregivers toward key aspects of public school reform.

* Identify effective means of connecting with parents/caregivers of color to enlist their support for school reform and improvement efforts.

This research was conducted in partnership with the Alliance for Excellent Education, Black Alliance for Educational Options, Campaign for High School Equity, Communities for Teaching Excellence, Leadership Conference Education Fund, League of United Latin American Citizens, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund, National Council of La Raza, National Indian Education Association, National Urban League, Public Education Network, United Negro College Fund, Southeast Asia Resource Action Center, Southern Education Foundation, and Stand for Children

The objectives of this research project were to:

* Understand the perceptions of low- to moderate-income African-American and Latino parents/caregivers concerning the schools in their communities and the schools their children attend.

* Understand the importance of a college education and thecollege-going expectations that parents of color have for their children.

* Assess attitudes of parents/caregivers toward key aspects of public school reform.

* Identify effective means of connecting with parents/caregivers of color to enlist their support for school reform and improvement efforts.

This research was conducted in partnership with the Alliance for Excellent Education, Black Alliance for Educational Options, Campaign for High School Equity, Communities for Teaching Excellence, Leadership Conference Education Fund, League of United Latin American Citizens, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund, National Council of La Raza, National Indian Education Association, National Urban League, Public Education Network, United Negro College Fund, Southeast Asia Resource Action Center, Southern Education Foundation, and Stand for Children

In March of 2005, Ohio's high school sophomores will take the new Ohio Graduation Test (OGT) for the first time - for keeps. For these students (and those who come after) the OGT will be the gateway to a high school diploma, post secondary education, good paying jobs and successful careers. Failure to pass the OGT will leave the limited options of a Graduate Equivalency Diploma (GED) or a complicated appeals process.

While a high stakes graduation exam is not new to Ohio, this test is different. By all indications it is far more rigorous than the old Ninth Grade Proficiency Test, there are less opportunities to re-take the test, and it is geared to measure an extensive set of new academic content standards. Tests like the OGT are part of what has become known as the "standardsbased" reform movement in education. Simply put, they allow states to measure whether or not students are learning according to whatever set of standards, benchmarks and indicators are adopted by that state. They also help meet, in part, the reporting requirements of the Federal "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB) Act.

Such tests, however, are not without problems. Most problematic is their relevancy to what is required by higher education and the workforce. Ohio has a new, evolving, P-16 agenda. Placing 39th among states in four-year college degrees, Ohio must begin to reconsider the entire continuum of education and the workforce to insure its economic future.

If educational systems are to be productive, serious questions emerge as to such issues as loss of instructional time due to testing, costs of such tests and whether or not such tests are "productive" from the aspect of improving instruction or promoting access to college and post secondary instruction. What if a single test in Ohio could meet several needs at once? What if a test could not only measure Ohio's K-12 academic standards, but also serve for college admission and (given that the basic skills needed for both college and the workplace are now virtually the same) career entry?

The purpose of this study was to see whether or not the ACT test, or a combination of ACT's EPAS System or WorkKeys Assessment could, with some additions, serve this purpose.

The major finding of the study is that the ACT assessments (social studies excluded) do an adequate to excellent job of measuring Ohio's academic content standards at the 10th grade and beyond into the 11th and 12th grades. When certain Ohio benchmarks are eliminated, the match becomes even more compelling.

Politicians, academics, and business and community members all seem to be raising concerns that America is not as globally competitive as it once was. This is due, in part, to the fact that public schools in America are not producing high school graduates with the math, science, and technical skills to succeed in higher education or be employed in a knowledge-based, global marketplace. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, jobs requiring science, engineering or technical training will increase 24 percent between 2004 and 2014 to 6.3 million.

However, less than half of high school graduates in the United States are academically prepared for college-level math and science. Between 1970 and 2010, America's proportion of science and engineering doctorates will fall from 50 percent to 15 percent. Additionally. the U.S. ranked 27 out of 39 countries in the 2003 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), which measures 15-year-olds' ability to solve real-life math problems.

What can be done in math and science reform by local education funds (LEFs)?

Quality teaching matters - particularly for low-income, inner-city students who perform below grade level. But these students are often taught by the least-qualified and least-experienced teachers. Philadelphia schools will not be able to improve student performance dramatically without more teachers who have the skills, experience, and rich content knowledge needed to help every student achieve high standards.

Once & For All: Placing a Highly Qualified Teacher in Every Philadelphia Classroom examines the current status of teacher quality in the city and what the School District of Philadelphia is now doing to ensure that all classrooms have highly trained, motivated, and knowledgeable teachers ready to boost the achievement of the district's 188,000 students.

For the first time, thanks to information provided by the School District of Philadelphia, researchers have been able to identify what we know about the qualifications, experience, and school assignment patterns of Philadelphia's 11,700-member teaching force. The study was conducted by a group of scholars who have launched Learning from Philadelphia's School Reform, a three-year research project designed to measure and help the public understand the impact of the 2001 state takeover of the Philadelphia schools, the school management partnerships undertaken with external for-profit and non-profit organizations, and the reforms initiated by the state and city-appointed School Reform Commission (SRC) members and School District of Philadelphia CEO Paul Vallas.

Led by Research for Action (RFA), a Philadelphia non-profit, the research team includes investigators from the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education and the Wharton School, the Philadelphia Education Fund, Swarthmore College, Rutgers University, the Consortium on Chicago School Research, and other organizations