Two-year colleges used to be a small part of higher education, but they now enroll almost half of all entering college students. This report suggests new data is needed on this evolving sector of academe, including: (1) What are the unseen barriers in two-year-colleges?; (2) What are the unseen college options?; (3) What are the implications of…

Official school records are used to analyze the opportunity structure and selection mechanisms within a school. Critics' charges that tracking systems preclude choice and mobility are not entirely supported, but more complex and subtle mechanisms for restricting opportunity are found to operate. (Author)

High schools have responded to the poor labor market primarily by encouraging college-for-all policies, leading the majority of seniors to plan to get college degrees, even those who perform poorly. School policies focus too narrowly on academic achievement, overlooking soft skills like motivation, dependability, attention to quality, and social…

Research indicates that the "college for all" policies encouraged by well-intentioned but misguided educators are preventing many students from getting crucial information about how they are doing, seeing the full range of their desirable options, assessing the appropriateness and likely outcomes of available options, and identifying actions that…

Identifies the three elements of the school-to-work transition as schools, employers, and the relationship between them. Suggests that this transition could be improved if schools make academic instruction vocationally relevant, employers base hiring on applicants' achievement in school, and school-employer linkages are created and designed…

Presents case studies and multivariate analyses that show that prefectures in Japan with the most egalitarian detracking reforms had the most flight from public to private schools and the emergence of the most within-school grouping. Discusses implications for the design of tracking policies. (Author/SLD)

This article analyzes several misconceptions about a "college-for-all" policy. These misconceptions range from those about the desirability of college for everyone and the undesirability of jobs after high school. Highlighted are rules of college and the labor market and the role of counselors in preparing students for learning and work…