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We tested the efficacy of a comprehensive intervention program designed for high school students across the autism spectrum, the Center on Secondary Education for Students with Autism (CSESA) model, in a cluster randomized control trial involving 60 high schools in three states (California, North Carolina, Wisconsin), with implementation occurring over a 2-year period. We examined outcomes for the schools, students (N = 547), and families. At the conclusion of the study, CSESA schools had significantly higher program quality than the services-as-usual (SAU) schools. In addition, students in the CSESA schools had significantly higher total attainment of educational goals than students in SAU schools. There were not significant differences between the two groups on standardized assessment outcomes. We discuss implications for intervention implementation and future research with this population in the public school context.

The role of racial diversity at colleges has been debated for over more than a half a century with limited quasi-experimental evidence from classrooms. To fill this void, I estimate the extent that classmate racial compositions affect Hispanic and African American students at a large and oversubscribed California community college where they are minorities. I find that when minority students are exposed to a greater share of same-race classmates, they are more likely to complete the class with a pass and are more likely to enroll in a same-subject course the subsequent term. The findings are robust to first-time students with the lowest registration priority versus all students and different combinations of fixed effects (e.g., student, class, and instructor race).

Comparability may be obtained for the Language Assessment Scale and the Bilingual Syntax Measure through a change in classification strategies which will also improve the equivalence of the tests and their correlation with achievement. Use of the tests along with teacher ratings should then provide meaningful criteria for classification. (Author/CM)

The article discusses the impact of El Niño (EN) on the California Current (CC) Ecosystem. The prediction of EN will promote the ability to anticipate its social and economic consequences, as well as its effect on fisheries and the productivity of the marine ecosystem. The warmer water brought by EN accelerates growth in some species such as California sardine, and lowers the reproductive capability of species that prefer cooler temperatures including rockfish and squid.