The college participation rates of African Americans and Latinos continue to lag behind those of other racial and ethnic groups in the United States, despite the efforts of financial aid and affirmative action policies. Two recent federal policies that are "work-first" in nature threaten to further exacerbate racial and ethnic disparities in…

In the mid-1990s, the Chicago Public Schools declared an end to social promotion and instituted promotional requirements based on standardized test scores in the third, sixth, and eighth grades. This article examines the experience of third and sixth graders who were retained under Chicago's policy from 1997 to 2000. The authors examine the…

Across the country, grade promotion is tied increasingly to performance on standardized tests. One concern about such policies is that they might increase dropout rates. Policy proponents counter that adverse effects of grade retention should be more than offset by beneficial effects from rising achievement. Using data from Chicago, this study…

One point of debate in the recent controversy in the media and among policy analysts over the academic achievement of charter school students is whether the charter students are in some way harder to educate than their counterparts enrolled in traditional public schools. This article examines this question using data from the 2002-2003 school year…

This article reports first-year achievement outcomes of a national randomized evaluation of Success for All, a comprehensive reading reform model. Forty-one schools were recruited for the study and were randomly assigned to implement Success for All or control methods. No statistically significant differences between experimental and control…

Studies of the relationship between policy and practice typically focus on the formal policy system alone. Yet, the public policy system does not exist in isolation. A host of nonsystem actors promote, translate, and transform policy ideas as they carry them to teachers. This study draws on neoinstitutional theories of organization to investigate…

For more than two decades, many states have required students to pass exit examinations to obtain high school diplomas. Despite these sweeping policy initiatives, we know relatively little about whether such policies are related to the chances that high school students will obtain diplomas. The authors estimate the association between high school…

The federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) calls for a highly qualified teacher in every classroom. According to the legislation, "highly qualified" is defined as full certification, a bachelor's degree, and demonstrated content knowledge in all core subjects taught. States, district, and schools are spending considerable resources…

The Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 1999 Video Study examined eighth-grade mathematics teaching in the United States and six higher-achieving countries. A range of teaching systems were found across higher-achieving countries that balanced attention to challenging content, procedural skill, and conceptual understanding in…

Policies that mandate in-grade retention of low-performing students have become central components of standards-based reforms across the country. While educational researchers have extensively studied the student-level correlates of retention and the consequences of retention for student achievement, little attention has been focused on…

Using the 2000 follow-up of the National Education Longitudinal Survey, the authors estimated earnings effects of a community college education. Previous research relied on data collected from students enrolled 20 or 30 years ago. Because the labor market and community colleges have changed dramatically since then, the authors provide an update by…

This article addresses conflicting statements about the impact of accountability policies in which some argue that testing undermines good teaching, while others claim that it stimulates improvement. The authors begin with the assumption that it is important to explore implementers' cognitive perspectives in order to understand a policy's effects.…

Grade retention has been controversial for many years, and current calls to end social promotion have lent new urgency to this issue. On the one hand, a policy of retaining in grade those students making slow progress might facilitate instruction by making classrooms more homogeneous academically. On the other hand, grade retention might harm…

This article examines ethnic segregation, defined as segregation among racial groups as well as between native-born and immigrant students, across elementary school classrooms in New York City. Specifically, the study compares patterns in within-school segregation across ethnic groups, grades, boroughs, and years. Current levels of within-school…

This article derives an updated cost-benefit ratio for the High/Scope Perry Preschool Program, an intensive preschool intervention delivered during the 1960s to at-risk children in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Because children were randomly assigned to the program or a control group, differences in outcomes are probably attributable to program status.…