Education and Literacy;Employment and Labor
This first report of an ongoing evaluation of The Wallace Foundation's Principal Pipeline Initiative describes the six participating school districts' plans and activities during the first year of their grants. The evaluation, conducted by Policy Studies Associates and the RAND Corporation, isintended to inform policy makers and practitioners about the process of carrying out new policies and practices for school leadership and about the results of investments in the Principal Pipeline Initiative. This report is based on collection and analysis of qualitative data, including the districts' proposals, work plans, and progress reports and semi-structured interviews in spring 2012 with 91 administrators employed by districts and their partner institutions. Leaders in all districts report wanting to enlarge their pools of strong applicants for principal positions and to identify and cultivate leadership talent as early as possible in educators' careers.
Districts are actively working on allrequired pipeline components: (1) with stakeholder participation, they have developed standards and identified competencies for principals, which they plan to use to guide principal training, hiring, evaluation, and support; (2) they are initiating or strengthening partnerships with university training programs; (3) for hiring, they have standard performance tasks and are developing systems to capture data on candidates' experience; (4) they have diagnostic evaluation tools and are working to build the capacity of principals' supervisors and mentors to support principals' skill development. In addition, all are also bolstering district-run training programs for graduates of university training programs who aspire to become principals.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States
Education and Literacy;Employment and Labor
This first report of an ongoing evaluation of The Wallace Foundation's Principal Pipeline Initiative describes the six participating school districts' plans and activities during the first year of their grants. The evaluation, conducted by Policy Studies Associates and the RAND Corporation, isintended to inform policy makers and practitioners about the process of carrying out new policies and practices for school leadership and about the results of investments in the Principal Pipeline Initiative. This report is based on collection and analysis of qualitative data, including the districts' proposals, work plans, and progress reports and semi-structured interviews in spring 2012 with 91 administrators employed by districts and their partner institutions. Leaders in all districts report wanting to enlarge their pools of strong applicants for principal positions and to identify and cultivate leadership talent as early as possible in educators' careers.
Districts are actively working on allrequired pipeline components: (1) with stakeholder participation, they have developed standards and identified competencies for principals, which they plan to use to guide principal training, hiring, evaluation, and support; (2) they are initiating or strengthening partnerships with university training programs; (3) for hiring, they have standard performance tasks and are developing systems to capture data on candidates' experience; (4) they have diagnostic evaluation tools and are working to build the capacity of principals' supervisors and mentors to support principals' skill development. In addition, all are also bolstering district-run training programs for graduates of university training programs who aspire to become principals.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States
Education and Literacy;Employment and Labor
This first report of an ongoing evaluation of The Wallace Foundation's Principal Pipeline Initiative describes the six participating school districts' plans and activities during the first year of their grants. The evaluation, conducted by Policy Studies Associates and the RAND Corporation, isintended to inform policy makers and practitioners about the process of carrying out new policies and practices for school leadership and about the results of investments in the Principal Pipeline Initiative. This report is based on collection and analysis of qualitative data, including the districts' proposals, work plans, and progress reports and semi-structured interviews in spring 2012 with 91 administrators employed by districts and their partner institutions. Leaders in all districts report wanting to enlarge their pools of strong applicants for principal positions and to identify and cultivate leadership talent as early as possible in educators' careers.
Districts are actively working on allrequired pipeline components: (1) with stakeholder participation, they have developed standards and identified competencies for principals, which they plan to use to guide principal training, hiring, evaluation, and support; (2) they are initiating or strengthening partnerships with university training programs; (3) for hiring, they have standard performance tasks and are developing systems to capture data on candidates' experience; (4) they have diagnostic evaluation tools and are working to build the capacity of principals' supervisors and mentors to support principals' skill development. In addition, all are also bolstering district-run training programs for graduates of university training programs who aspire to become principals.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States
This is the fourth year that Lumina Foundation has released a report on progress toward the goal that 60 percent of Americans obtain a high-quality postsecondary degree or credential by 2025 -- an objective called Goal 2025. In these now-annual reports, the foundation sets the metric for measuring progress as the higher education attainment rate -- the percentage of the nation's adult, working-age population holding a two- or four-year college degree.
This year, the report covers data for 2011 -- the most recent year for which data are available. In 2011, the percentage of Americans between the ages of 25 and 64 with a two- or four-year college degree was 38.7 percent. This is an increase from last year's report; in 2010, the attainment rate was 38.3 percent. Overall, the U.S. attainment rate has been increasing slowly but steadily; in 2008, it was 37.9 percent, and in 2009 it was 38.1 percent.
The higher education attainment rate of young adults (ages 25-34) is a good leading indicator of where higher education attainment rates are headed. In 2011, the rate was 40.1 percent -- almost one-and-a-half percentage points higher than that among all adults, and two-and-a-half percentage points higher than in 2008. Lumina's attainment goal has always included high value postsecondary certificates, but data on the number of adults holding certificates is not readily available.
This year, however, the first solid estimates of the number of high-value postsecondary certificates have been produced. They suggest that an additional 5 percent of the U.S. adult population between the ages of 25 and 64 hold a postsecondary certificate with significant economic value.The recent increase in attainment rates -- especially among young adults -- is a step in the right direction, but there is much more to do to reach Goal 2025
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States
In recent years, Americans have awakened to the profound connection between community college student success and the strength of our nation.
That community colleges matter deeply is clearfrom a few simple facts:
- They educate over 7 million degree-seeking students, more than 40 percent of the U.S. college population.
- They have in recent years been growing at four times the rate of four-year colleges.
- They enroll a disproportionately large share of the rapidly expanding number of college students of color and first-generation students.
Today, though, not enough community college students succeed. This reality was boldly acknowledged in a recent report by the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC): "What we find today are student success rates that are unacceptably low, employment preparation that is inadequately connected to job market needs, and disconnects in transitions between high schools, community colleges, and baccalaureate institutions."?
Focusing exclusively on the challenges facing the entire sector, however, obscures an important fact: Many community colleges have been engaged in difficult work on their campus to achieve improved rates of completion, higher levels of student learning and job preparedness, and more equitable outcomes for students of color and others who have historically been left behind in public education.
The organizations that prepared this report, Achieving the Dream and the Aspen Institute, work with many institutions that are in fact demonstrably improving student success.What we have learned through our work is that while strong leadership can be exercised by people throughout an institution, every high-performing community college has a first-rate president. The best leaders across the country have a special set of qualities and know-how that enable them to lead institutions to high and improving levels of student success.
This report presents a unified vision of who these leaders are and what they do, so that everyone involved in hiring and preparing community college presidents -- trustees and leaders of state systems, universities, and associations -- can consider the extent to which their assumptions and practices ensure that strong presidents are chosen and effectively trained to lead colleges in ways that meet the aspirations of every student as well as the critical goal of significantly improving student outcomes.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States
Education and Literacy;Race and Ethnicity
In most school districts, as access to and participation in Advanced Placement exams have gone up, the exam passing rates have gone down. But that isn't always the case. The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, looking to identify urban districts with promising trends in student achievement and college-readiness, analyzed four years of AP exam participation and passing rates for students in the 75 districts whose demographics qualify them for consideration for the annual Broad Prize for Urban Education. It found six districts where African-American students were improving their passing rates while keeping participation levels steady. This report illustrates some of the promising practices contributing to AP success in these six districts.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States (Southern) / Florida / Orange County;North America / United States (Western) / California / San Diego County;North America / United States (Southern) / Georgia / Fulton County;North America / United States (Southern) / Kentucky / Jefferson County;North America / United States (Southern) / Georgia / Cobb County;North America / United States (Southwestern) / Texas / Garland
To help inform policymakers and the public about the progress of education in the United States, Congress has mandated that the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) produce an annual report, "The Condition of Education." This year's report presents 42 indicators of important developments and trends in U.S. education. These indicators focus on population characteristics, participation in education, elementary and secondary education, and postsecondary education.
As this year's Condition shows, in 2012, about 90 percent of young adults ages 25 to 29 had a high school diploma, or its equivalent, and 33 percent had a bachelor's degree or higher. As in previous years, annual median earnings in 2011 were higher for those with higher levels of education -- for example, 25- to 34-year-olds with a college degree earned over twice as much as high school dropouts.
In 2011, almost two-thirds of 3- to 5-year-olds were enrolled in preschool, and nearly 60 percent of these children were in full-day programs. At the elementary and secondary level, there were about 50 million public school students in 2011, a number that is expected to grow to 53 million in the next decade. Of these students, nearly 2 million attended charter schools. Postsecondary enrollment in 2011 was at 21 million students, including 18 million undergraduate and 3 million graduate students.
NCES's newest data on elementary and secondary schools show that about one in five public schools was considered high poverty in 2011 -- meaning that 75 percent or more of their enrolled students qualified for free or reduced-price lunch -- up from about to one in eight in 2000. In school year 2009 -- 10, some 3.1 million public high school students, or 78.2 percent, graduated on time with a regular diploma. And, in 2011, about 68 percent of recent high school completers were enrolled in college the following fall. Meanwhile, the status dropout rate, or the percentage of 16- to 24-year-olds who are not enrolled in school and do not have a high school diploma or its equivalent, declined from 12 percent in 1990 to 7 percent in 2011.
At 4-year colleges in 2011, nearly 90 percent of full-time students at public and private nonprofit institutions were under the age of 25. However, only about 29 percent of full-time students at private for-profit colleges were, while 39 percent were between the ages of 25 to 34 and another 32 percent were 35 and older. About 56 percent of male students and 61 percent of female students who began their bachelor's degree in the fall of 2005, and did not transfer, had completed their degree by 2011. In that year, there were 1.7 million bachelor's degrees and over 700,000 master's degrees awarded.
The Condition of Education 2013 includes the latest data available on these and more key indicators. As new data are released, the indicators will be updated and made available. Along with these indicators, NCES produces a wide range of reports and data to help inform policymakers and the American public about trends and conditions in U.S. education.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States
The analysis here focuses on Boston's charter high schools. For the purpose of this report, an analysis of high schools is both a necessity and a virtue. It is necessary to study high schools because most students applying to charters in earlier grades are not yet old enough to generate data on postsecondary outcomes. Charter high schools are also of substantial policy interest: a growing body of research argues that high school may be too late for cost-effective human capital interventions. Indeed, impact analyses of interventions for urban youth have mostly generated disappointing results.
This report is interested in ascertaining whether charter schools, which in Massachusetts are largely budget-neutral, can have a substantial impact on the life course of affected students. The set of schools studied here comes from an earlier investigation of the effects of charter attendance in Boston on test scores.
The high schools from the earlier study, which enroll the bulk of charter high school students in Boston, generate statistically and socially significant gains on state assessments in the 10th grade. This report questions whether these gains are sustained.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States (Northeastern) / Massachusetts / Suffolk County / Boston
