Interventions

How ESSA Can Support College and Career Readiness for Students Experiencing Homelessness

Preparation for college and careers is increasingly important as success in today’s labor market requires students having postsecondary education and training as well as employability skills. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) provides various policy levers for states to support college and career readiness for youth experiencing homelessness.

Pathways to New Accountability Through the Every Student Succeeds Act

The passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) provides states with flexibility and the responsibility to design and implement new systems of accountability, support, and intervention. With the new law comes an opportunity to focus efforts at the school, district, and state level on ensuring that all students graduate high school with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to participate fully in our society.

Using Assessments to Inform 12th-grade Interventions and Accelerations

Although nearly all states and the District of Columbia have adopted college and career readiness assessments for high school students, few are using the tests to: (1) identify students who demonstrate college readiness and provide these students with opportunities to enroll in advanced coursework during their senior year and (2) identify students who are not college ready and provide these students with interventions to put them back on track toward postsecondary matriculation.

Maximizing Resources for Student Success by Reducing Time- and Credits-to-Graduate

This report from HCM Strategists provides strategies for regional public universities serving high concentrations of low-income and otherwise at-risk students to reduce the amount of time and credits necessary to graduate. This report highlights while that more students are seeking a four-year college degree, less than 40% of first-time college students graduate within four years. Taking additional time to graduate not only can add years to a "four-year" degree, but it also comes with additional costs in tuition, room, board, and other expenses.

Laying Tracks to Graduation: The First Year of Implementing Diplomas Now

This report explores how Talent Development Secondary, City Year, and Community in Schools formed the Diplomas Now project to reduce the dropout rate in urban secondary schools and prepare students for college and careers. Diplomas Now is a data-driven, tiered intervention model funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Investing in Innovation (i3) competition in addition to matching funds from private organizations. The program's model focuses on early warning indicators of on-time graduation, including attendance, behavior, and course performance.

Diploma Plus: The Four Essentials Guide

This guide introduces the model for the Diploma Plus high schools. The schools are small, alternative high schools run by districts, or charter schools, and some alternative programs supported by community colleges in partnership with school districts. The students served are primarily those who are over-age, under-credit, and at-risk for dropout. The guide provides a detailed explanation of how Diploma Plus high schools function, an explanation of their effectiveness, and easy-to-use charts and lists to understand the components of the school system and curriculum.

Essential Elements in Implementation

This guide from the John W. Gardner Center for Youth and their Communities at Stanford University explores the meaning of college readiness beyond eligibility for college. Many students who are capable of succeeding in college are not eligible due to unmet course requirements or lack of knowledge about college opportunities. Through exploring the gap between eligibility and readiness, this guide helps districts think about how to build the most effective early warning and college readiness indicator systems. 

Participation and Pass Rates for College Preparatory Transition Courses in Kentucky

This report summarizes the results of a study that examined the impact of college preparatory transition courses on students who tested below ACT benchmarks in math and reading in 11th grade. The study found most students in the approaching benchmarks category do not enroll in college preparatory transition courses. In both math and reading nearly all students who take college preparatory transition courses pass them.

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