The College and Career Readines and Success Center closed on September 30,2019 because the grant cycle for the U.S. Department of Education Comprehensive Centers ended. The information on this website will no longer be updated. Visit www.air.org for updates on college and career readiness.
This paper from the Center for American Progress examines high schools that implement an extended learning day as part of a required educational program for all students, explores issues related to implementing such a program, presents examples of how schools accomplish this, and analyzes the implications for school design, capacity, and financing.
Many states and districts across the country struggle with designing and implementing coherent dropout prevention initiatives that promote academic advancement, especially for special needs students, who drop out at much higher rates than the general student population. This snapshot from the National High School Center recognizes New Hampshire for its innovative use of data collection and analysis as the key to unlocking the dropout problem.
This examination of the high school graduation rates by the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) highlights the necessity and need for a comprehensive, universal formula to be used across states, a vision shared by many stakeholders in high school reform.
This research brief from the National High School Center outlines existing barriers regarding teacher expectations, tracking, and placement of English language learners (ELLs) and offers key policies and useful strategies in building capacity and developing learning environments conducive for all students in obtaining academic success.
The National High School Center released methods for improving low-performing high schools based on some of the most rigorous research currently available in the school reform arena. This research brief identifies lessons learned as well as key practices used to strengthen high schools and is based on evaluations of four widely used high school improvement programs - Career Academies, First Things First, Project GRAD, and Talent Development.
This National High School Center report focuses on successful high schools, highlighting the ways in which many superintendents, principals, and teachers are setting and meeting high expectations for all students. Developed specifically for state leaders, it provides them with suggestions on how they may support initiatives that are linked with accelerated learning.
This matched quasi-experimental study compared 9th- and 10th-grade students in 2003–04 and 2004–05 who received READ 180 with students who did not receive the program. Overall, Read 180 students significantly outperformed their counterparts on reading tests. Further, subgroup analyses found that English language learner (ELL) READ 180 students performed better than an ELL comparison group on reading achievement.
After a thorough literature search, researchers identified 22 rigorous quantitative studies of ninth-grade remediation programs, 10 of which qualified for the full review according to the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC)’s Study Design and Implementation Assessment Device (DIAD). The 10 studies included in the full review were too divergent in the focus and construction of the programs they assessed for the authors to reliably draw conclusions about the overall magnitude and direction of effect sizes.
Schools and districts are adopting out-of-school-time (OST) programs such as after-school programs and summer schools to supplement the education of low-achieving students. However, research has painted a mixed picture of their effectiveness. To clarify OST impacts, this synthesis examined research on OST programs for assisting at-risk students in reading and/or mathematics. Researchers analyzed 35 OST studies that employed control or comparison groups and met other inclusion criteria.
