Original Research

This report examines the characteristics of Florida career academies in the 2006/2007 school year. Student and school-level data, as well as the Department of Education’s Common Core of Data from a nonrandom sample of 12 districts are analyzed. The findings reveal the types and locations of career academies, characteristics of the high schools offering career academies, and the number and characteristics of students enrolled in career academies.

This report describes the results of a mixed methods survey of acceleration programs in Florida. It compares Dual Enrollment with AP, IB, and AICE programs. The study found among Florida 11th and 12th graders in the 2006/2007 school year that 7.3% of students enrolled in a college credit or Dual Enrollment course were predominately White females who were not economically disadvantaged, and the majority of students in accelerated programs were enrolled in programs other than Dual Enrollment programs.

This paper examines how four Georgia career academies compare with a Central Education Center (CEC) exemplar in Georgia. This study focuses on three elements of the CEC model; courses and curricula development based on need, stakeholder engagement, and seamless integration of career and technical education with academics and alignment between secondary and postsecondary education. Internet searches and key informant interviews from each site were conducted to assess the results.

This study compares high school English language learners and non-English language learners performance on content assessments. The study also examined the performance of high school English language learner students in grades 10 and 11 on the Utah Academic Language Proficiency Assessment (UALPA), and on the English language arts and mathematics content assessments administered under the Utah Performance Assessment System for Students (U-PASS).

This study reviews the alignment of ACT and the American Diploma Project (ADP) national college readiness standards with the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for English language arts and reading (TEKS ELAR). The study assessed alignment based on both content and cognitive complexity. Findings reveal that the majority of the content in the ACT and ADP standards sets is also in the TEKS ELAR standards, and that the TEKS ELAR standards requires greater cognitive complexity than the ACT and the ADP.

The author examined the effectiveness of the Cooperative Alliance Program (CAP) designed to encourage high school students and adult students to enter technical programs in Oklahoma community colleges. The study measured enrollment status, GPA, and hours earned of CAP students compared to a non-CAP control group. After reviewing first-year data, the author found CAP students are more likely to remain in school than non-CAP students and achieve higher GPAs.

This study compared post-secondary education faculty to student beliefs regarding competencies for post-education employment. Faculty members and international and U.S. students were given quantitative surveys where they were asked to rank-order a list of 17 business skills in order of importance. The authors found students enrolled in business curricula had differing beliefs regarding competencies needed for post-education employment than those held by business faculty. Additionally, business faculty beliefs regarding exit competencies differ from those of surveyed employers.

This report describes how Project Exploration, a STEM pipeline alternative, has identified a disproportionate exit of minority and female students from STEM programs. The authors used a mix of quantitative and qualitative data to assess efficacy of Project Exploration's efforts to engage minority and female students who traditionally are under-represented in the STEM pipeline. Based on the success of their alternative approach, the authors propose an alternative model of a STEM pipeline that is based on a matrix of progressive competencies.

This paper examines the relationship between previous online education experiences and future success in online educational opportunities among students enrolled in a community college.

This paper examines readiness assessments and transition curricula in all 50-states and Washington, D.C.