What We Are Reading: NAEP Transcript Study, Mastering Reading, NC Early Colleges

Looking for new high school-related resources?  Here are some pieces that other organizations have recently released:

NAEP High School Transcript Study
The NAEP High School Transcript Study (HSTS), published by the National Center for Education Statistics,   provides the latest data and trends about the types of courses that high school graduates take, the number of credits they earn, the relationship between coursetaking patterns and achievement, as measured by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

Double Jeopardy: How Third-Grade Reading Skills and Poverty Influence High School Graduation
The importance of mastering reading early has been often noted by educators and researchers.  A new report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation describing the results of a new longitudinal study of nearly 4,000 students find that those who don’t read proficiently by third grade are four times more likely to leave school without a diploma than proficient readers. This is the first national study to calculate high school graduation rates for children at different reading skill levels and with different poverty rates.

Accelerating College Readiness: Lessons from North Carolina's Innovator Early Colleges
A recent Jobs for the Future (JFF) report takes a look at the lessons and best practices from five of North Carolina's early college high schools (ECHS) based on their highly effective strategies to prepare all students for postsecondary education. With the support of the North Carolina New Schools Project, a public-private organization that develops innovative high schools, North Carolina now has the most ECHS of any state and substantial data about what works. This is the first of several publications JFF released during its 3rd annual National Early College High School Week March 20-26, celebrating the successes of 230 schools across 28 states.

Are you reading any of these reports?  Or do you have other good high school resources to share? Tweet us at @NHSCatAIR and let us know!

Note: This blog post was originally authored under the auspices of the National High School Center at the American Institutes for Research (AIR). The National High School Center’s blog, High School Matters, which ran until March 2013, provided an objective perspective on the latest research, issues, and events that affected high school improvement. The CCRS Center plans to continue relevant work originally developed under the National High School Center grant. National High School Center blog posts that pertain to CCRS Center issues are included on this website as a resource to our stakeholders.