This follow-up report provides a revised Literacy Assignment Analysis Framework that incorporates discussion and teacher scaffolding. This new framework serves as a guidepost for studying sets of assignments across multiple days or weeks within a single classroom, school, or district. A closer look at more assignments from real classrooms provides…

"Rising Tide II: Do Black Students Benefit as Grad Rates Increase?" looks at a decade of graduation rates for African American students at four-year, public institutions that improved student success during the past decade. It shows that while a majority (almost 70 percent) of institutions we examined improved graduation rates for black…

In response to mounting concerns about the cost of college, lawmakers have proposed major new partnerships between the federal government and states to tackle college affordability. The Education Trust maintains that any new federal-state proposal aimed at making college more affordable must also simultaneously address completion problems by…

All across the country, leaders in colleges and universities are asking the same question: What can we do to improve student success, especially for the low-income students and students of color whose graduation rates often lag behind? This second practice guide: "Using Data to Improve Student Outcomes: Learning from Leading Colleges"…

The population of students of color has grown threefold, and there are more than 40 cultural and social student affinity groups. More impressive, the graduation rate for African American, Latino, and Native students has increased by 13 percentage points in the last decade. In this brief, the authors dig into a decade's worth of data on four-year…

The analysis in this report examines the national gap and institutional-level gaps in graduation rates between Pell and non-Pell Grant recipients at nearly 1,150 four-year, public and private nonprofit institutions across the nation. The data show the national graduation rate for Pell Grant recipients attending institutions in the sample is…

Although money isn't the only thing that matters for student success--districts with similar funding levels and similar demographics can produce vastly different results for their students--inequities in funding are foundational to all sorts of other inequities in the nation's school system. A district with more resources, for example, can pay…

Every community has strong teachers who help their students learn to high levels. But far too often low-income students and students of color are short-changed when it comes to teacher quality. Federal law requires states to end these disparities. But states, recognizing that most hiring, compensation, and promotional decisions, not to mention…

Prepared for school district and education leaders, "Checking In" is the first in the "Equity in Motion" series, which scrutinizes how issues of equity are translating into the daily activities of schools and educators. Nearly every state has adopted new, more rigorous standards for college and career readiness over the past…

School accountability systems have the potential to be a powerful tool to help close the long-standing gaps in achievement that separate low-income students and students of color from their peers. They can do this by: (1) Setting a clear expectation that schools have to serve all of their students--not just some--well; (2) Drawing attention to how…

America's financial-aid system has become almost impossible to navigate and burdensome for those who need it most. Tuition and fees are skyrocketing, forcing almost half of college-going students to borrow. Low and middle-income students are taking on frightening levels of debt. Bachelor's degree recipients leave school with an average of $26,600…

America's college financial-aid system has helped millions of students obtain a postsecondary education, but the system's flaws are increasingly apparent. Growth in tuition and fees outpace available resources, particularly for students striving to rise out of poverty. Low- and middle-income students confront frightening levels of education debt.…

Typically, achievement gaps between groups of students are measured as either differences in average scores or differences in proficiency rates. But, practitioners, policymakers, and researchers have long recognized that these approaches don't tell the whole story. Average scores, for example, are good at summarizing trends but can mask real…

In 2002, No Child Left Behind ushered in sweeping changes in school accountability. Diverging from the federal government's long history of leaving this matter largely to the states, a Congress broadly dissatisfied with the slow pace of educational improvement stepped in with a new framework designed to set schools on a path to getting all…

In the Shattering Expectations series, the reports focus on calling attention to gaps at the high end of achievement and shattering expectations about the achievement of our low-income students and students of color that have existed for far too long. Each report will provide examples of schools that are breaking long entrenched patterns and how…