This dissertation includes two studies, aiming to explore the status of physical education and stakeholders' perceptions of physical education in Colorado. In study one, using the PE for All Colorado model policy as a guiding framework, the purpose of this study was to explore the status of physical education in Colorado. Research questions…

To increase capacity for public participation and improve problem-solving practices, some public school districts have launched stakeholder-training programs. This mixed methods study examined the impact of five school district parent training programs (four in Colorado and one in Illinois) designed to increase trust and engagement. Data were…

Parent involvement in children's education has a long history in the United States. Over the last several decades, research has demonstrated the positive effects of parent involvement on student outcomes. Consequently, parent involvement strategies have been written into education law in the United States and abroad. An intrinsic case study was…

States and districts use career pathways in a variety of ways, in a variety of settings, and under vastly different circumstances to give young people access to meaningful careers and stable lives. In this report, the authors conducted case studies of career pathways initiatives in Texas, Ohio, and Colorado to better understand the triumphs and…

The discussion of enrollment of students with disabilities in charter schools focuses on fundamental questions related to equal access and has not typically explored the quality of special education programming available. However, absent quality support and services, access to charter schools is essentially a hollow promise. This report examines…

Colorado has led the nation in supporting the success of all Coloradans, enacting bold policies, and continuing to build a Colorado for all. These efforts have all been informed by robust stakeholder engagement paired with data analysis. Various initiatives over the years have improved the state's ability to use data to inform these goals. With…

This article discusses two multidisciplinary courses created at the Colorado School of Mines that were developed to integrate ethics into the first-year engineering curriculum: "Nature and Human Values" (NHV) and "Innovation and Discovery in Engineering, Arts, and Sciences" (IDEAS). In both NHV and IDEAS, our objectives are to…

The Colorado Study (Lance, Wellborn, and Hamilton-Pennell 1993) and its many replications in other states have demonstrated that when educators and learners had access to a qualified school librarian in the context of a thoughtfully built, adequately resourced, technology rich, and widely accessible school library, learners tended to flourish on…

Literature suggested that the mandated filtering required by the Children's Internet Protection Act of 2000 adversely affected the educational system. The literature stated that schools imposed more restrictive filtering than the Act mandated. School systems had the responsibility to ensure that children learn to read, write, and perform…

This article endeavours to increase educators' understanding of the experiences of students who have been expelled from school in order to represent this critical stakeholder group in future policy development and programme implementation. Students' perspectives are presented through thick description in this narrative case study. Findings…

The performance of public schools and the achievement of their students influence many important outcomes beyond the classroom, including one that may seem surprising: health. Studies consistently show a strong correlation between educational level and health over a lifetime, even after controlling for demographic characteristics such as income.…

College enrollment has increased over the past 10 years and is projected to continue growing over the next 10 for both full- and part-time students. At the same time, institutions face low retention and graduation rates. One policy that shows promise in increasing completion rates, especially for adult learners and those who served in the…

Milwaukee's system of K-12 public education is distinct from many other urban school systems in the degree of educational choices offered to students and their families. This range of options has fostered intense competition among Milwaukee's K-12 schools over the past decade. While enrollment in traditional Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) has…

Every year millions of children under the age of 5 participate in federal and state early care and education programs. For fiscal years 2010 to 2015, Congress appropriated almost $48 billion to Head Start and over $31 billion to the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), the two largest sources of federal funding for early care and education. To…

In partnership with the National Charter School Resource Center (NCSRC), the National Association for Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) has been conducting authorizer assessments over the past six years. However, the correlation between high-quality authorization practices and charter school impact has largely been unexplored. This report uses a…