The middle grades are a time of dramatic growth for youth. This is a time period marked by significant physical and emotional changes, as adolescents experience the early stages of puberty and a late spurt in brain development. It is also a time marked by the increasing importance and influence of peers and increasing independence from parents and other family members.

In schools, the middle grades mark a unique period of transition. Students entering middle schools are exposed to a more fluid environment with changing classes, multiple teachers, rotating schedules, and significantly larger numbers of students at each grade level that come from different elementary schools. There are increased expectations for student academic performance and behavior/self-control. Middle grades students are also expected to assume greater responsibility for their learning and to develop and put to use critical work-study skills including task persistence, completing assignments and projects on time, time management, and organizational skills.

This report focuses on a growing body of research that demonstrates a strengthening of the middle grades experience is a critical leverage point for improving high school graduation rates and increasing the number of students who graduate prepared for higher education.

"Black Minds Matter: Supporting the Educational Success of Black Children in California," examines how the nearly 1 million Black youth in California are faring from preschool through college and reveals the distressing disparities that newly released state and national data show persist at all levels of their educational journey. The report also highlights the groundbreaking efforts underway to reverse these trends in California and close achievement and opportunity gaps for African American students.

The report calls on policymakers, education leaders, and all Californians to prioritize the equity-based changes that California's Black students deserve and have been waiting far too long for. If we believe California is a land of opportunity, we must acknowledge that the current rate of progress we see is unacceptable.

A joint effort by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and National Center for Education Statistics, this annual report examines crime occurring in schools and colleges. This report presents data on crime at school from the perspectives of students, teachers, principals, and the general population from an array of sources--the National Crime Victimization Survey, the School Crime Supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey, the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, the School Survey on Crime and Safety, the Schools and Staffing Survey, EDFacts, and the Campus Safety and Security Survey. The report covers topics such as victimization, bullying, school conditions, fights, weapons, the presence of security staff at school, availability and student use of drugs and alcohol, student perceptions of personal safety at school, and criminal incidents at postsecondary institutions.

The Joyce Foundation's Shifting Gears initiative was launched in 2007 as a state policy change effort in Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin. The goal was to strengthen adult basic education, workforce, and community and technical college systems so that more low-skilled workers gain the education, skills and credentials needed to advance and succeed in our changing economy.

The Joyce Foundation extended Shifting Gears funding from 2012 -- 2014 (referred to as SG 3.0) in Illinois, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. This report reached five primary findings:

• Illinois, Minnesota, and Wisconsin doubled the total number of their bridge programs from 79 to 196 between SG 2.0 to SG 3.0.
• Each state effectively institutionalized its adult education bridge program as an ongoing option to address the educational and skill needs of low-skilled adult learners.
• In two of the three states (Minnesota and Wisconsin), important policy changes expanded financial resources available for adult education bridges, and created the foundation for further advancing adult education bridges.
• Scale was not achieved during this period in terms of serving many or most of the low-skilled adults who might benefit from bridge programs.
• The work of Shifting Gears positively influenced the national discourse on workforce development.

Foundation funding focused on Ghana over the past decade has encompassed all aspects of the global development agenda and beyond. Among foundations whose grants are tracked by Foundation Center, their giving focused on Ghana totaled $499 million between 2002 and 2012. While few foundations intentionally aligned their grantmaking priorities with the MDGs, over half of grants (54 percent) made by the 151 foundations included in this analysis and most of their grant dollars (79 percent or $394 million) supported activities consistent with at least one of the eight MDGs.