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The guided pathways model, comprising 14 different practices, is a framework for comprehensive, whole-college reform undertaken by community colleges to help all students choose, enter, progress through, and complete a program of study that enables them to secure sustaining-wage employment or transfer with junior standing in a major. Since its introduction in 2015, it has been adopted by hundreds of community colleges across the United States. This paper asks whether guided pathways practices implemented at 62 community and technical colleges in three states--Tennessee, Ohio, and Washington--are associated with improvements in student outcomes during the first year of college. Specifically, using institutional survey and rich administrative data, we construct measures of adoption of guided pathways reforms to examine the association between guided pathways practices and fall-to-fall persistence, college credits earned, college math credits earned, and STEM credits earned. Our study reveals substantial variation in the adoption of guided pathways reforms across the states and across community colleges within the states over time. While we cannot establish a causal relationship between guided pathways adoption and student outcomes, we find significant positive associations between the statewide adoption of guided pathways reforms and early student outcomes in Tennessee. The observed improvements in that state are likely the result of concurrent reforms--guided pathways and others--implemented simultaneously, rather than of guided pathways reforms alone. We do not find evidence of improved student outcomes in either Ohio or Washington following the launch of statewide guided pathways initiatives. Our findings suggest that complementarities among adopted practices within and across areas of practice--rather than the adoption of individual practices or the intensity of adoption--seem to drive larger improvements in early academic success across the three states. Our study is the first of its kind to explore the potential of guided pathways reforms in contributing to improved early academic success, representing a significant descriptive contribution given that whole-college reforms in higher education are understudied.

Each year, more than a million high school students nationally take college dual enrollment courses, which have been shown to increase college access and success among participants. Yet racial/ethnic and other equity gaps in dual enrollment participation are widespread. To broaden the benefits of dual enrollment, the state of Ohio passed legislation in 2017 establishing the Innovative Programs (IP) policy, allowing waivers to test-based eligibility requirements--a frequently identified barrier to equitable access--for specific high school-college partnerships providing expanded outreach and support for students underrepresented in the state's dual enrollment program. This paper describes a multiple methods study of IP we conducted to examine how these partnerships were implemented to address the needs of underrepresented students and to evaluate whether the partnerships were successful in broadening access to and success in dual enrollment, as measured by course participation, pass rates, and college matriculation after high school. We find that the IP increased participation in dual enrollment among Black and Hispanic students. And while the implementation of the policy broadened access without changing course outcomes, the impacts on college enrollment after high school were mixed. Our results underscore the importance of pairing increased access to dual enrollment with adequate financial, advising, and academic resources to promote student success in and beyond dual enrollment courses.

Dual enrollment--in which students take college credit-bearing courses when still in high school--is becoming increasingly popular. Community college programs account for about 70% of the dual enrollment that more than one million high school students participate in each year nationwide. Yet dual enrollment can be a big financial burden for community colleges. In most parts of the country, community colleges receive less funding per dual enrollment student than they receive for their regular, non-dual-enrollment students. If community colleges are to continue to provide broad access to high-quality programs, they need to be able to sustain these programs. In this paper, we consider the economics of dual enrollment from the perspective of the community college. We illustrate how dual enrollment may not be financially sustainable in colleges and states where it is offered at a discount, but we also show how community colleges can structure their programs to be more efficient. To support our analysis, we describe case studies to show the conditions under which dual enrollment is affordable and efficient.

Approximately 450 community colleges nationally are part of formal statewide or national initiatives to implement guided pathways reforms to improve student success, and many other colleges are implementing guided pathways practices on their own. Because guided pathways is a whole-college reform--and because it takes several years to fully implement--it is challenging to evaluate. This paper presents a methodology for assessing the scale of adoption and estimating the causal effects of guided pathways within states and across colleges that have adopted the approach. To measure the scale of adoption of guided pathways practices, we will conduct institutional surveys and phone interviews with college leaders and examine the websites of every community college in Ohio, Tennessee, and Washington (70 institutions total). We plan to use these data to estimate each college's scale of adoption using a rubric with indicators for scale and timing. Drawing on strategies used in K-12 whole-school reform evaluations, we propose to examine pre-reform adoption trends and apply a single interrupted time series design to project what students' early outcomes would have been in the absence of guided pathways. We then propose to use a comparative interrupted time series design (which closely resembles a difference-in-differences approach) to exploit variation in the intensity of guided pathways practices and the timing of their adoption across colleges by comparing early student outcomes in colleges that have adopted guided pathways practices at scale and those that have not or those with a low scale of adoption. [This report was written with Hana Lahr.]

In the United States, the prevailing high school mathematics course sequence begins with a year of Algebra I, followed by a year of geometry and a year of Algebra II. Educators and others have raised concerns about the extent to which this sequence, which prioritizes the mastery of algebra, is appropriate for the longer-term education and career goals of students who do not intend to pursue STEM degrees in college. These concerns have impelled educators and policymakers to reexamine the prominence of algebra in high school mathematics curricula and to consider new approaches that provide students with more mathematics course options better aligned with their academic and career goals. In this paper, we explore existing approaches to high school mathematics curricula as well as new developments in the field. To start, we discuss a range of high school mathematics course sequences that are currently offered across the country and look at some of the systemic challenges embedded within the traditional paradigm. Then we explore federal and state changes to the provision of high school mathematics in the early 21st century, which we follow with a look at the influence of postsecondary institutions on high school math curricula. We then introduce short case studies of innovative high school math reforms that are occurring in five states. We conclude the paper by considering the Charles A. Dana Center's new initiative, Launch Years, and how this project works to reimagine high school mathematics and its relationship to postsecondary education and careers.

This paper is the first to investigate the costs of institution-wide reforms at community colleges. Drawing on data from 12 community colleges implementing comprehensive guided pathways reforms, I use the ingredients method to analyze the resources required to implement such reforms and examine their feasibility and affordability, as well as their value for students. For a typical college with 4,000 full-time equivalent students (FTEs) that implements guided pathways over four years, the total implementation cost beyond business-as-usual operations is estimated at $450 per student each year, or $7.1 million in total, which amounts to 12% of the college's annual budget, or approximately 3% per year. Around one third of this cost is for enhanced student advisement. Extra investments in information technology are also significant. Ongoing operating costs, primarily for student advisement and student success courses, are around $350 per FTE each year. Cost estimates vary depending on how colleges implement guided pathways, but the results are robust to alternative input prices and college characteristics. There is also some evidence of economies of scale. To finance guided pathways, colleges relied mainly on resource reallocation and efficiency gains, extra public funding, and external grants and funds. Increases in tuition/fees were modest, temporary, or delayed until after implementation; increases of just under 1% per year would suffice to support guided pathways reforms. From the student perspective, guided pathways increases the affordability and value for money of community college. With enhanced advising, students take fewer unnecessary courses. Program mapping leads students to take the right courses both at the community college and at any transfer college. Improved advising help students access grants and in-kind services; they also assist with financial plans to pay for college. Overall, the savings these reforms allow for are likely to exceed the modest increase in tuition/fees from guided pathways. [For the companion paper "Funding Guided Pathways: A Guide for Community College Leaders. Report," see ED609234.]

Educational inequality due to family socioeconomic status (SES) has been the focus of both public dialogue and education research in the United States for many years. The current study aims to understand how educational inequality due to family SES has changed in the United States. Specifically, the study focuses on the changes in achievement gaps between high and low SES students between 2003 and 2017 and the changes in the performance of low-SES students over time. Data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) grade 8 mathematics assessment were used for the analyses. Results show that the SES achievement gap at the national level has remained the same over time. State-level results suggest that 34 of the 50 states' SES achievement gaps experienced no significant change between 2003 and 2017, 14 gaps widened, and only two SES gaps narrowed. In addition, at the national level, more low-SES students achieved at the NAEP Basic and at the NAEP Proficient levels over time with a majority of states improving their low-SES students' performance. In conclusion, the study contributes to the existing literature not only by reflecting on U.S. national trends using an effective SES index, but also by providing state-level results. It also collects trend data on states' macro-level indicators, including economic growth, social inequality, and educational expenditures, allowing state-specific findings to be presented in the context of changes in macro-level context. Initial explorations of relationships between state SES achievement gap trends and macroeconomic factors are presented to motivate future research. The trends in SES achievement gaps and the specific policy contexts are presented in greater detail for 13 states/jurisdictions.

This topic paper details how dual and concurrent enrollment programs can help states overcome workforce readiness and postsecondary access and completion challenges and how governors can strengthen these programs by using their bully pulpit, agenda setting authority and budgetary authority to do so. It concludes with a number of examples of how governors are acting to strengthen equity and access to these programs. It also includes a number of resources for interested policy makers.

Private school choice options are being proposed and adopted in numerous states across the country. As of the spring of 2019, 62 private school choice programs were in operation in 29 states and the District of Columbia, serving more than 400,000 children. Although growth in private school choice programs and enrollment has been considerable over the past decade, the percentage of private schools participating in school choice options varies considerably by program. Understanding how program design impacts the supply of private schools participating in these programs will be critical for policymakers as they work to create and expand education choice options for families. This report considers whether certain regulations governing school choice programs reduce specialization and diversity in the supply of private schools that participate. Expanding on the prior analysis of the impact of regulations in three locations, the authors chart how schools self-identify prior to and after switching into private school choice program environments in each of the five locations. The authors found that private school leaders in all five locations are more likely to classify their schools as less specialized than they were prior to entering the programs. The authors also found evidence to suggest that more homogenization occurred in more highly regulated voucher programs. These findings suggest a potential homogenizing effect of regulations on school supply, limiting the diversity of the private school market. These findings also suggest policymakers should carefully weigh the costs of regulating private school choice programs, as overregulation could reduce specialization and diversity of school supply in a given school choice program, limiting the options that are available to families.

Sixty-seven school finance reforms (SFRs) in 26 states have taken place since 1990; however, there is little empirical evidence on the heterogeneity of SFR effects. We provide a comprehensive description of how individual reforms affected resource allocation to low- and high-income districts within states, including both financial and non-financial outcomes. After summarizing the heterogeneity of individual SFR impacts, we then examine its correlates, identifying both policy and legislative/political factors. Taken together, this research aims to provide a rich description of variation in states' responses to SFRs, as well as explanation of this heterogeneity as it relates to contextual factors.

The issuing of badges for achievement is not necessarily a new concept for adults (consider the military), nor for children (look at scouting). Yet, except for sports trophies and award days, the concept is alien to education where letter grades and scores on standardized tests remain the primary means of recognition. This document shares alternative means to measure growth and learning in education, with an emphasis on "soft skills." The document discusses Open Badges--visual tokens of achievement, affiliation, authorization, or other trust relationship sharable across the web--as one way to recognize learning beyond formal credentialing systems. A parallel effort exists in Ohio. While not an open badging system, per se, students in the Class of 2018 may earn the "Ohio Means Jobs Readiness Seal," which also serves as one of the qualifiers under Option One of the 2018 Ohio Graduation Requirements. The document also discusses Credly, a thought leader in the digital credentials movement. Credly is committed to "access and equity by making the Credly platform universally available to anyone looking to be part of the Digital Credentials movement."

Recently, studies have adopted fixed effects modeling to identify the returns to college. This method has the advantage over ordinary least squares estimates in that unobservable, individual-level characteristics that may bias the estimated returns are differenced out. But the method requires extensive longitudinal data and involves complex specifications, raising the possibility that results are sensitive either to sample restrictions or to alternative specifications. Also, the extra requirements might not be justified if results from fixed effects models are broadly similar to those from conventional ordinary least squares models. In this paper we review results from fixed effects models of the earnings gains from completing an associate degree relative to non-completion for community college students. We examine both sampling restrictions and specification issues. We find results to be sensitive to assumptions about missing earnings data and to how time trend specifications are modeled. However, we find no substantively meaningful differences between estimates using fixed effects models and ordinary least squares methods. A main benefit of fixed effects models--controlling for unobservable student characteristics--should be weighed against the difficulty in interpreting coefficients and more intensive data requirements. On the other hand, a distinct advantage of fixed effects models is that they allow for analysis of earning profiles over the period from before to after college. Given the large fluctuations in earnings over this period, this advantage may be significant in yielding evidence on the full returns to college. The following two tables are appended: (1) Robustness Checks on Returns to Associate Degrees; and (2) Percentage Decline in Earnings From Two Quarters Prior to College Entry to Quarter of College Entry (Kentucky, Ohio).

This paper reviews recent evidence on the labor market returns to credit accumulation, certificates, and associate degrees from community colleges. Evidence is collated from estimates of earnings gaps across college students using large-scale, statewide administrative datasets from eight states. Six of these states were partners of the Center for Analysis of Postsecondary Education and Employment (CAPSEE), a research center funded by the Institute of Education Sciences of the U.S. Department of Education. CAPSEE researchers conducted extensive analyses of education and earnings in these states. Findings from these studies affirm a "CAPSEE consensus" with three main results and two key features. For associate degrees, this review affirms that completing an associate degree yields strongly positive, persistent, and consistent earnings gains: studies show that completing an associate degree yields on average approximately $4,640-$7,160 per annum in extra earnings compared to entering college but not completing an award. For certificates, the evidence shows positive but modest returns and that these returns may fade out within a few years post-college. For non-completers, there is evidence that earning more credits is associated with higher earnings. Generally, the results establish two main features. First, increments of college lead to higher earnings, but with returns that are heterogeneous by field of study. Second, the evidence is strongly suggestive that returns to college are robust to macroeconomic trends. Additional Figures and Tables are appended. [For the related Research Brief, "Does It Pay to Complete Community College--and How Much? Research Brief," see ED574807.]

Over the past few years, a multitude of studies have examined the labor market returns to community college credentials, taking advantage of new administrative datasets that link college transcripts to quarterly earnings records and allow for comparisons of students' earnings before and after enrollment. These studies, however, typically follow students for only four to six years after initial entry, meaning they may only be observed for a year or two after graduation. Graduates' early labor market experiences may not fully capture the returns to completion, and may particularly distort comparisons of longer versus shorter duration credential programs. We extend the literature by examining returns to terminal associate degrees and certificates up to 11 years after students initially entered a community college in Ohio. We use an individual fixed-effects approach that controls for students' pre-enrollment earnings and allows the returns to credential completion to vary over time. Additionally, we examine how the returns to credential completion shift as students enter and exit the Great Recession, as well as how credentials affect other labor market outcomes such as employment stability and the likelihood of earning a "living wage." Our results confirm prior findings regarding the positive early returns to associate degrees and long-term certificates. However, the value of an associate degree grows substantially after graduation while the returns to a long-term certificate remain flat. Returns to associate degrees are notably higher during the recession (the patterns for certificates are more muted and vary by gender). Finally, we find that while both associate degrees and long-term certificates increase the likelihood and stability of employment, associate degrees lead to much higher paying jobs and a greater likelihood of earning a living wage. We conclude with a discussion of policy implications.

This paper focuses on the authors' experiences teaching on Ohio University's Learning Network (OULN), which uses interactive television and real-time face-to-face interaction as a distance-education (DE) delivery tool. One of the authors is a sociology professor, and the other is her former student and an experienced OULN system operator. The transition to DE from a traditional, less technological approach presents numerous challenges as well as opportunities. This paper compares the semester-long progress of two different sociology courses that used the OULN. It presents an analysis of each class's strengths and weaknesses, along with qualitative data based on interviews with each class's students, as recorded in a diary that the authors kept throughout the semester on the progress of each class. One class experienced more success than the other, which presented numerous teaching challenges. The paper concludes by offering guidance for integrating traditional teaching methods, including group work, into DE environments.

Due to rising costs and declining affordability, many students have to work while attending college. The federal government takes a major role in subsidizing the wages of college students and spent over $1 billion on the Work-Study program in 2010-11 (College Board, 2011), yet little is known about how working during the school year impacts college student outcomes. Few studies have explored the causal effect of the Federal Work-Study program, and the previous studies provide an incomplete picture. In contrast to these earlier studies, our paper focuses on a large sample of over 45,000 students in the Ohio public higher education system, which is the fifth largest public system in the United States and reflects the national mixture of selective and nonselective four-year institutions. We estimate the causal effects of participating in the Federal Work-Study program on a range of college students' academic outcomes, including college GPA, credits earned, and persistence. Our empirical strategy employs a differences-in-differences instrumental variables model, which exploits the variation in allocation of federal work-study funds across institutions and across students. We find that working on-campus has a small, negative, but statistically significant effect on students' first-year GPAs. However, we also find some evidence that participating in the Federal Work-Study program increases the number of credits that students accumulate by the end of their first year. These results suggest that working in an on-campus, work-study job may have small negative effects that are outweighed by potential benefits. One figure and 7 tables are appended.

Employers increasingly reach job seekers through online job postings, particularly for jobs requiring a higher education qualification. Job postings available online provide a rich source of real-time and detailed data on the qualifications and skills sought by employers across industries, occupations and locations. Using a sample of over 9 million job postings in four US states (Ohio, Texas, Virginia and Washington), this paper explores three questions. How does employer demand for graduate skills vary geographically, within and among occupations? For graduates in a general study field without a dedicated career vocational pathway, like sociology, what occupational clusters show evidence of employer demand, and what skills are sought? Given the high demand in the field of information and communications technology (ICT), are employers looking for ICT specialists open to hiring graduates from study fields other than ICT? We find evidence of variation in occupational demand, and to some extent in skill demand, within occupational clusters across the four states. We identify three occupational clusters where sociology graduates are in most demand, with distinct skill profiles. We also find that, when filling ICT positions, a notable share of employers considers recruiting graduates from other fields of study while requiring those graduates have the right technical transferable skills. Job posting data, we conclude, hold promise to complement existing labour market information systems and aid educators and policy makers in aligning labour demand and educational offerings. If analysed and disseminated effectively, such data could also assist students and workers in making learning and career decisions, for instance by identifying opportunities to build their own non-traditional path into high-demand, high-paying ICT occupations.

In recent years, policymakers and academics have become increasingly interested in the returns to sub-baccalaureate degrees. This interest arises from surging demand for such programs over the 2000s, especially in the wake of the 2008 recession, as well as from President Obama's charge to dramatically increase the number of students with a college degree of some type. We estimate the returns to both community and technical colleges in the state of Ohio. We find that associate degrees generate positive earnings effects for both men and women. These positive effects occur across many fields but are strongest in health. We find that certificates also generate positive returns, but there is some heterogeneity across men and women. Men benefit from short-duration certificates while women benefit from long-duration certificates. This result is likely driven by heterogeneity in the returns across fields.

State governments serve as a key funding source for public higher education. An alternative to historically based state subsidies or enrollment-based formulas, outcomes-based funding allows states to convey goals for higher education by allocating state tax dollars based on measures of outcomes. Within higher education institutions, the Responsibility Center Management model engages deans and other mid-level managers in the responsibility and accountability for revenue generation as well as expense management. Policymakers will benefit from understanding this approach and how it could be used in concert with outcomes-based funding to support the development and delivery of new academic paradigms, expand access to underrepresented students, and, ultimately, increase educational attainment for a greater number of people. This article describes the potential alignment between incentives created by the Responsibility Center Management model and goals of outcomes-based funding. With an integration of the two models, there is a greater assurance of achieving the goals of both--fiscal sustainability and student success. By using Responsibility Center Management, college and university administrators are better able to marshal resources to help students complete their degrees and other credentials while also reaping the benefits of an outcomes-based funding system that directs public funding toward institutions that are doing just that.

In 2012, five foundations launched the Credit When Its Due (CWID) initiative that was "designed to encourage partnerships of community colleges and universities to significantly expand programs that award associate degrees to transfer students when the student completes the requirements for the associate degree while pursuing a bachelor's degree" (Lumina Foundation, 2012, n.p.), also known as "reverse transfer." Initially, 12 states (Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, and Oregon) were funded to develop and implement these reverse transfer programs and policies, and the Office of Community College Research and Leadership (OCCRL) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was chosen as the research partner. In late 2013, three states (Georgia, Tennessee, and Texas) were added to bring the total number of states to 15. At least six additional states have legislation, pending legislation, or statewide initiatives related to reverse transfer. This thought paper describes changes that are occurring at the state, system, and institution levels with implementation of reverse transfer in the 12 original states. Using qualitative and quantitative data collected from the CWID Implementation Study, the authors describe efforts related to the optimization of reverse transfer in these 12 states. The authors define optimization as policy and program change at any level--state, system, or institution--that yields the largest number of students who are eligible for and able to benefit from reverse transfer. The initial results suggest that some states are piloting reverse transfer with a limited set of public community college and university partnerships, and others are striving for system-level reforms that eventually may impact all forms of transfer. Understanding what optimization means and how it works is possible because of this variation in implementation approaches among states, and this thought paper explores how states are implementing and optimizing reverse transfer.

The COVID-19 pandemic drew new attention to the role of school boards in the U.S. In this paper, we examine school districts' choices of learning modality--whether and when to offer in-person, virtual, or hybrid instruction--over the course of the 2020-21 pandemic school year. The analysis takes advantage of granular weekly data on learning mode and COVID-19 cases for Ohio school districts. We show that districts respond on the margin to health risks: all else equal, a marginal increase in new cases reduces the probability that a district offers in-person instruction the next week. Moreover, this negative response is magnified when the district was in-person the prior week and attenuates in magnitude over the school year. These findings are consistent with districts learning from experience about the effect of in-person learning on disease transmission in schools. We also find evidence that districts are influenced by the decisions of their peers.

What does it take to make it successfully through college? For a growing proportion of the nation's students--many of whom are racial and ethnic minorities, from low-income families, or the first in their families to enroll in higher education--the answer encompasses far more than affordable tuition and decent grades. As access to higher education has expanded to embrace these historically underrepresented groups, the formula for student success is increasingly understood to include a mix of programs and incentives tailored to their needs. Legislators are taking notice. Their primary policy objective in financing higher education was once to increase student enrollments. As their focus shifts beyond enrollment to attainment levels and gaps among underrepresented populations, states are developing outcomes-based funding models, which recognize that underrepresented students may require additional academic, financial, and social support to achieve success, and which allocate funding to institutions as a way to further promote a culture of student progression and success. As participation rates in higher education have increased across social and economic groups and non-traditional students have become the norm, the hurdles to success have multiplied for the students themselves and for the institutions that serve them. Outcomes-based funding is a relatively new approach to higher education financing based on the idea that colleges and universities should be supported to do more to foster student success. As public funding has become more constrained and attainment rates have fallen, the question of whether higher education is providing appropriate returns on public investment has become increasingly urgent. As more and more students fail to make timely progress toward a degree, drop out altogether, or do not succeed in finding jobs that leverage their degrees, attention has focused on tools policymakers can use to encourage those outcomes. Outcomes-based funding models are increasingly seen as an effective way to foster the efforts of colleges and universities to assist students once they are enrolled and to help them progress toward graduation. Such funding allocation models have been embraced by a growing number of states, with varied levels of investment and design. In contrast with a traditional funding model based on enrollments, or even a model that allocates a portion of funding based on key performance indicators, outcomes-based funding is a comprehensive model in which all or a substantial part of an institution's funding allocation is oriented toward achieving the state's desired outcome. Experts agree that while it's too early to assess the effectiveness of the state's outcomes-based funding model at increasing attainment, the changes it has ushered in have led to meaningful achievements.

In recent years, "continuous improvement" has become a popular catchphrase in the field of education. However, while continuous improvement has become commonplace and well-documented in other industries, such as healthcare and manufacturing, little is known about how this work has manifested itself in education. This white paper attempts to map the landscape of this terrain by identifying and describing organizations engaged in continuous improvement, and by highlighting commonalities and differences among them. The findings classify three types of organizations engaged in continuous improvement: those focused on instructional improvement at the classroom level; those concentrating on system-wide improvement; and those addressing collective impact. Each type is described in turn and illustrated by an organizational case study. Through the analysis, six common themes that characterize all three types of organizations (e.g., leadership and strategy, communication and engagement, organizational infrastructure, methodology, data collection and analysis, and building capacity) are enumerated. This white paper makes four concluding observations. First, the three case studies provide evidence of organizations conducting continuous improvement work in the field of education, albeit at different levels and in different ways. Second, entry points to continuous improvement work are not mutually exclusive, but are nested and, hence, mutually informative and comparative. Third, continuous improvement is not synonymous with improving all organizational processes simultaneously; rather, research and learning cycles are iterative and gradual in nature. Fourth, despite being both iterative and gradual, it is imperative that improvement work is planned and undertaken in a rigorous, thoughtful, and transparent fashion. The following are appended: (1) Selected Continuous Improvement Methodologies; (2) Baldrige Education Criteria for Performance Excellence Framework; (3) Examples of Improvement Artifacts from the School District of Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin; (4) Examples of Improvement Artifacts from Montgomery County Public Schools, Maryland; and (5) Examples of Improvement Artifacts from Strive Partnership Cincinnati.

Every year millions of students enroll in colleges with the goal of completing a college degree or certificate so they can find a well-paying job. Unfortunately, many arrive on college campuses, take a college placement exam and discover they will need to complete remedial education courses in math, reading, or writing that won't count toward a college degree. The courses drain their financial resources and increase the time it will take them to earn a college credential. For many students, remedial education ends up being a road out of college instead of a pathway in. This paper describes how a number of states are taking concrete steps to improve the return on their remedial education investment. The innovative models presented in this paper can be adapted by governors nationwide to increase the number of college graduates in tough economic times. (Contains 1 figure and 1 footnote.)

With nearly a third of all students in for-credit postsecondary education enrolled in career and technical education (CTE) programs, CTE is a valuable partner in moving reform efforts forward at the postsecondary level by providing leadership in pedagogy as well as systems-building and economic development. This enables CTE to play the role of leader and convener, engaging partners across multiple sectors in the work to improve postsecondary education. Career and technical educators are not only teaching the skills necessary for the workplace, but they are also providing the skills and the human capital students need to move to the next step in the educational system. The Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE) developed this paper to offer broad recommendations for improving postsecondary success through the experiences and resources of CTE. Systemic improvements to guarantee the availability of information, opportunities and access are imperative if individuals are to increase the number of people earning postsecondary credentials, which will ultimately ensure a highly skilled and well-trained workforce that is able to meet the needs of American business and industry. The recommendations presented in this paper are: (1) Establish postsecondary preparation and expectations for all; (2) Develop education systems that integrate all levels; (3) Develop curriculum and instructional offerings that link to careers, foster lifelong learning, and encourage completion; (4) Ensure portability and transferability of credits and skills attained; (5) Enhance student advising and academic and life-supports; (6) Increase financial support for low-income students; and (7) Pilot innovative approaches to funding. (Contains 32 endnotes.)

Digital learning makes possible the "unbundling" of school provisions--that is, it allows children to be served by providers from almost anywhere, in new and more customized ways. At the same time, because it destandardizes and decentralizes educational delivery, digital education is far harder to bring under the yoke of the quality-control systems and metrics that have been devised for traditional school structures. In this paper, Hess explores the pros and cons of input regulation, outcome-based accountability, and market signals as solutions to the quality challenge. In the end, he recommends using all three approaches in careful combination so as to leverage their strengths and offset their weaknesses. In practice, that means demanding transparent financial information from providers, holding them to account for student achievement gains whenever possible, and developing "crowd-sourcing" reporting systems to help educators, parents, and students identify the most effective purveyors of online learning. (Contains 14 footnotes.)

Building on recent research, ICF sought to explore how socioeconomic status and attachment to place influence rural youths' educational and residential preferences across a wider geographic region. Our research questions included: What are rural high school students' educational and residential plans? And what factors influence rural youths' plans for adulthood? This white paper summarizes ICF's findings using the National Center for Education Statistics' Common Core of Data. First we identified districts with locale codes of 41 (rural fringe), 42 (rural distant), and 43 (rural remote) in eight states: Delaware, Iowa, Kentucky, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, and Virginia. Because we also examined the experiences of rural English Language Learners (ELL), we then selected and identified rural districts with ELL growth rates of 100 percent or higher between 2000-2001 and 2007-2008. Finally, we identified high schools within selected districts, for a total of 612 high schools. (Contains 2 figures, 2 tables, and 12 footnotes.)

This issue paper builds on an earlier ECS publication that reviewed five leading pay-for-performance models or proposals at the time titled, Pay-for-Performance: Key Questions and Lessons from Five Current Models (2001). The Education Commission of the States and The Teaching Commission have joined together on this issue paper to provide: (1) An overview of the research on compensation systems that have ventured beyond the single salary schedule; (2) Some of the key findings about such a shift from both researchers and practitioners; (3) Key questions that have been gleaned from previous experiences; (4) An overview of some recent attempts to diversify teacher pay, both at the incremental and sweeping level; and (5) A comparison and detailed summaries of four leading programs and proposals at the district and school levels. Appended are: (1) Summaries of Four District and School Programs; (2) Governors' Current Teacher Compensation Initiatives; (3) Updates from 2001 Paper; and (4) Bibliography.

This report summarizes findings from one component of the Consortium for Policy Research in Education's (CPRE) evaluation of the General Electric Foundation's (GEF) "Developing Futures"™ in Education program in Cincinnati Public Schools (CPS). The purpose was to closely analyze district capacity to support system-wide instructional improvement. Specifically, this phase focused on a single, overarching question: to what extent has the district central office adopted and institutionalized the core principles of "Developing Futures"™? To answer this question, this evaluation assesses the Cincinnati Public School District's progress in scaling up and institutionalizing seven core elements of "Developing Futures"™: (1) Internal constituency engagement; (2) External constituency engagement; (3) Curriculum and instruction; (4) Professional development for instruction; (5) Professional development for leadership; (6) Management capacity; and (7) Evaluation. These seven reform elements were identified through a review of GEF program materials and documentation, and through a close analyses of each districts' reform trajectory over the life of the grant. Based on a thorough review of the research and evaluation literature, a set of indicators was constructed to allow the research team to determine the extent to which there was evidence of effective practice in each of these seven areas. Each area was decomposed into a set of more specific, observable characteristics. Research instruments were designed to elicit evidence of these characteristics in descriptions of central office processes, functions, or overall capacity. Ratings were then assigned to each characteristic based on the prevalence of available evidence using a three-point scale: (1) Strong implementation; (2) Moderate implementation; and (3) Weak implementation. This report provides ratings for CPS for each indicator and its component characteristics, along with qualitative and survey evidence illustrating and supporting the ratings. Overall, CPS has made significant progress in building system-­wide capacity for instructional improvement by facilitating collaboration, involving all stakeholders in planning and decision-­making, clarifying instructional expectations, and building a robust professional development system. The evidence suggests that instructional practice remains inconsistent in some cases, and that shifting standards and summative assessments pose a challenge for alignment and coherence.

Previous research on attrition has focused on the economic consequences of low graduation rates in terms of costs to students and families (from tuition and fees that do not culminate in a credential), lost time, and income and tax losses from low educational attainment in the workforce. However, no systematic attention has been given to another critical aspect of the cost of attrition, which is the cost to institutions (and to their financial supporters) from the "lost" credits that do not lead to degrees or certificates. Attrition clearly adds to the expense of producing college degrees, thus reducing it is crucial to enhancing productivity and increasing educational attainment. How big is this lost investment, and what do these "unfinished degrees" from student attrition look like? Just as completed degrees come in different shapes and sizes, unfinished degrees vary widely from student to student, although there has not been a common language to talk about them nor a method to analyze their costs. The development of a simple definition of attrition, as well as a methodology that can be used with existing data to assign costs to it, is the focus of this effort. Guided by advice from a group of postsecondary education policy and data experts, this work sets forth the following: (1) A clear definition of attrition that can be used by institutions and policymakers to develop benchmarks and measure performance; (2) A methodology for assigning institutional production costs to attrition, both for national data sets and for states that wish to pursue a similar analysis; (3) Identification of benchmarks that can serve as the basis for setting goals and measuring performance in reducing attrition; (4) Suggestions of ways to use data on attrition and its costs to inform state-and system-level policy choices and budgets, including performance funding; and (5) Dissemination of the project's findings to leaders and decision makers around the country. "Beginning Postsecondary/Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System Analysis: Definitions and Methodology" is appended. (Contains 7 tables, 2 figures, and 4 footnotes. A static illustration (a spreadsheet) accompanies this report.)

This document summarizes the proceedings of the Third ACCLAIM Research Symposium, which took place over three days from May 18 through May 20, 2006. The Center's doctoral students took prominent roles, especially the entire second cohort of doctoral students. Three members of the first cohort also participated in events. Overall, the symposium staged a generative mix of voices new and familiar to the Center, of rural and urban voices, and of voices articulating varied cultures--and it brought both rising and established scholars together as colleagues: more than 40 altogether. Events were divided between three plenary talks on the one hand (by David Gruenewald, Marta Civil, and Sarah Lubienski) and on the other hand by eight small-group conversations (sponsored and led by Ted Coladarci, Alan DeYoung, Rico Gutstein, Aimee Howley, Craig Howley, Jim Lewis, Noran Moffett, and Paul Theobald). ACCLAIM doctoral students cordially and effectively facilitated each of these events, and prepared notes. Their notes inform this proceedings document. The more formally arranged sessions (plenary talks and conversations) were punctuated, as well, by six panels. Three panels composed of two doctoral students and a faculty member opened the responses to the plenary talks. In addition, the symposium convened three stand-alone panels: (1) What Does Resistance to Best Practice Mean? (all panelists were faculty); (2) Students Interrogate Participants (all panelists were students, posing questions to faculty participants); and (3) Students Sum Up (all panelists were students, reflecting on issues and dilemmas raised). Appended to this document are: (1) Speculations about the Symposium's Theme; (2) Agenda; and (3) Participant List. (Contains 2 footnotes.)

Over the past three decades policymakers have been seeking new ways to secure improved performance from higher education institutions. One popular approach has been performance funding, which involves use of a formula to tie funding to institutional performance on specified indicators. This report reviews findings from studies on performance funding programs in a multitude of states. The studies suggest that tying funding to outputs has immediate impacts on colleges in the form of changes in funding, greater awareness by institutions of state priorities and of their own institutional performance, and increased status competition among institutions. Because of these immediate impacts, performance funding produces intermediate institutional changes in the form of greater use of data in institutional planning and policymaking and in changes in academic and student service policies and practices that promise to improve student outcomes. However, claims that performance funding does indeed increase ultimate outcomes--in the form of improved rates of retention, completion of developmental education, and graduation--are not validated by solid data. In the face of this finding, this report identifies obstacles to the effective functioning of performance funding, as well as unintended impacts. The report closes by providing recommendations for overcoming the many obstacles to the effective functioning of performance funding and addressing the unintended impacts documented by the studies reviewed. (Contains 40 footnotes.)

While it is generally understood that defined benefit pension systems concentrate benefits on career teachers and impose costs on mobile teachers, there has been very little analysis of the magnitude of these effects. The authors develop a measure of implicit redistribution of pension wealth among teachers at varying ages of separation. Compared to a neutral system, often about half of an entering cohort's net pension wealth is redistributed to teachers who separate in their fifties from those who separate earlier. There is some variation across six state systems. This implies large costs for interstate mobility. Estimates show teachers who split a thirty-year career between two pension plans often lose over half their net pension wealth compared to teachers who complete a career in a single system. Plan options that permit purchases of service years mitigate few or none of these losses. It is difficult to explain these patterns of costs and benefits on efficiency grounds. More likely explanations include the relative influence of senior versus junior educators in interest group politics and a coordination problem between states. (Contains 7 tables, 16 figures, and 40 footnotes.)

This report examines the potential of adaptive testing, two?-stage testing in particular, for improving the data quality of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Following a discussion of the rationale for adaptive testing in assessment and a review of previous studies of two-?stage testing, this report describes a 1993 Ohio field trial of two-?stage assessment carried out, under the direction of the authors, by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC). The trial was part of a larger methodological study of science assessment at school-?leaving age supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI). This report summarizes the instrument design, procedures, and results of the field trial and discusses implications for the conduct of assessment generally, and for NAEP specifically. A technical appendix outlines the measurement justification for two design prototypes and describes procedures used in analyzing the data. [This paper was commissioned by the NAEP Validity Studies (NVS) Panel May 1998.]

This paper reviews the history of the founding of colleges in Ohio during the nineteenth century, focusing on a critical reexamination of the thesis of Donald Tewksbury (1932), which emphasizes the role of religious denominations in the founding and persistence of private institutions of higher education. It argues that colleges and universities, as they emerged during this period, should be viewed as broad-based local enterprises that were deeply rooted in the economic and cultural life of the local community. Local boosterism is thought to have been a more significant factor in the survival of independent colleges than the religious zeal of the denominations. Discussion of the national and historical context precedes a review of private college development in Ohio, noting the easy requirements for chartering a college under the Northwest Ordinance and the State Constitution of 1802. Examples are then provided showing the important role of local boosterism in the founding and development of such Ohio institutions as Heidelberg College, Ohio Wesleyan University, Wooster College, and Case Western Reserve University. Also discussed in relation to the founding of Ohio colleges are the influence of the quest for female education, philanthropy, for-profit institutions, canals, and railroads. (Contains 32 references.) (DB)

This study describes (a) potential mathematics education leaders' professional development experiences, awareness, beliefs, and attitudes and (b) the subsequent changes in these constructs as they participated in a leadership development program. The context of the professional development was a three-week institute and a year-long follow-up. The participants were 37 K-12 teachers and administrators and post-secondary faculty from schools, colleges, and universities in the Appalachian areas of Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Ohio. To describe leaders' professional development experiences, awareness, beliefs, and attitudes, researchers developed a questionnaire that contained both Likert-scaled and open-response items. Participants completed the inventory three times over the course of the program. To determine if statistical significance could be associated to the overall means of the three data collections, researchers performed a Mauchly's test of Sphericity and a post hoc Sphericity Assumed or Greenhouse-Geisser analysis. In cases of statistical significance, researchers conducted a Pairwise Comparison analyses to determine the exact location of the significance. The analyses showed statistically significant changes in leaders' experiences, awareness, and attitudes. (Contains 10 tables.)

Community colleges have many concerns over attrition and retention rates. Studies show that 50% of freshmen drop out before completion of a degree or certificate, and nearly half of all attending students are 25 years or older yet lack basic math, reading, and writing skills. Students experiencing learning difficulties, and older students such as single moms have an especially hard time making a transition into higher education, but they are still a growing population in the educational arena. Mercy College (Ohio) has experienced many of the same statistics within its institution and decided to implement the PASS (Project Assuring Student Success) program to address the declining retention rates. Objectives of PASS are to provide academic and other support services for students, develop a comprehensive retention model that addresses the needs of a diverse student population, and disseminate results of the program to other institutions who might benefit from its implications. All entering students must attend an orientation meeting and enroll in a student success strategies course. Mentoring, mid-term progress reports, and academic advising are some of the many aspects of the PASS program. After implementation of this program, retention rates at Mercy College rose from 82% to 89.7%. Retention rates are expected to continue to rise. (CJW)

The Ohio Migrant Farm Worker Safety Needs Assessment was conducted to obtain baseline data on why migrant farm workers are at high risk of injury and illness in Ohio. First, 106 migrant farm workers were interviewed at clinics, labor camps, and job sites. Information concerning demographics, safety training, and incidence of occupational injury and illness was gathered in English and Spanish. Next, a questionnaire was sent to 110 employers in 4 agricultural sectors (vegetable, fruit, packing, and nursery). Eighty-four (76%) of the employers responded to the questionnaire, which included questions about operation demographics, implementation of safety preventive measures, incidence occupational injury/illness among workers, and employer attitudes regarding specific safety-related activities. It was discovered that Ohio's migrant farm workers (more than 99% of whom are Hispanic and 50% of whom reported working in the fields/groves when children) are not receiving adequate, standardized safety and health training. The little safety training that was being provided by employers was often informal and delivered through ineffective training methods. A critical need for programmatic and educational support for the growers, managers, and crew chiefs who develop and conduct training was identified. (Contains 12 tables/figures and 12 references.) (MN)