In a 2010 address to the College Board, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan laid out a vision for high school that advances the Obama administration's goal of the U.S. once again leading the world in educational attainment. There is no grade in which the magnitude and complexity of this shift becomes clearer than in senior year. Historically, senior year has been a time of finishing up graduation requirements as most students entered the work force after high school. In this new economy, most students now hope to go to college and those who are not entering college face a rapidly eroding labor market for young adults with only a high school education. This changing educational landscape means that students' coursework and activities in senior year are becoming increasingly important. If the new purpose of high schools is to be a "launching pad rather than a last stop destination," what does that mean for senior year? The bottom line is that there is much work to do if cps is to shift the focus of twelfth grade from finishing graduation requirements to preparing for college and employment or training. A central theme of this report is that there is no single answer to the question, "What is a good senior year?" Students are coming into senior year with very different needs. In order to look at differences in needs across students, the authors group students by their college qualifications at the end of eleventh grade. Thus, throughout this report, the authors focus on identifying the set of issues that educators need to grapple with for students on different trajectories. Appended are: (1) Data Used in This Report; (2) Determining Who is a Senior and Who Persists in Four-Year Colleges; (3) Variables Used in the Analysis; (4) Latent Class Analysis; (5) Identifying College Access; and (6) Methodology. (Contains 33 figures, 16 tables, and 70 endnotes.).

The authors offer advice for young people about beginning life on their own away from their parents, delivered with humor, quotes, frequently asked questions, lists, and other diverse approaches.

Fully updated and revised, the second edition of New Learning explores the contemporary debates and challenges in education and considers how schools can prepare their students for the future. New Learning, Second Edition is an inspiring and comprehensive resource for pre-service and in-service teachers alike.

Jurgen Herbst traces the debates, discussions, pronouncements and reports through which Americans have sought to clarify their conceptions of the goals and purposes of education beyond the common school. The Once and Future School argues that to make sense of the current trials of secondary educational system and to maintain any sense of direction and vision for its future, we need a clear understanding of its path in the past and of its setting in a multi-national world. From their beginnings in colonial America to the present day, Jurgen Herbst traces the debates, discussions, pronouncements and reports through which Americans have sought to hammer out and clarify their conceptions of the goals and purposes of education beyond the common school.

The Information Age Publishing new book series, Current Issues in Out-of-School Time, is designed with a purpose to disseminate original research and promising practices that further the OST field. This first book sets the foundation on which the series rests upon, by offering an analysis of the progress made since the 2000s, as well as by looking toward the future for areas of considerations. Leading OST experts explore latest knowledge, intentionally bridging research and practice, and propose new areas of inquiry within each of the following six sections: 1. OST as a vehicle for young people’s development; 2. socio-cultural dimensions of OST; 3. professional development within OST; 4. research- and evaluation-informed field; 5. OST advocacy; and 6. future directions for the OST field. The OST field has grown considerably over the last two decades. Today, we have the frameworks, practice- and research-based knowledge and tools, and burgeoning paths to advance the field across multiple dimensions: demographic, stakeholder groups, contexts, systems and sectors, and disciplines. The hallmark of the OST field has been the ability to remain agile and adaptable to change in a way that complements the field and supports all children and young people in diverse ways. This anthology is designed to be a platform for research-practice discussions and future directions that could further grow, sustain, and improve the field. We hope this book inspires both reflections and conversations on the OST field. Endorsements: It has been clear for some time that the so-called achievement gap is driven in part by gaps in educational opportunities. Providing access to high quality out-of-school learning experiences is one of the most important measures that can be taken to reduce disparities and level the playing field. The authors in this important new book show us not only how to create such programs but why it matters to our collective future. Timely, relevant, and readable, this book is an invaluable resource for anyone seeking to close gaps in educational opportunities. Pedro A. Noguera, PhD, Distinguished Professor of Education, UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies As the chair of the NAS/NRC committee that wrote the report Community programs to support youth development, I am delighted by this book. When we wrote the report in 2002, there were few systematic attempts to organize and theorize the emerging field of positive youth development. As the editors and chapter authors in this book make very clear, a great deal has happened at all levels of scholarship in this field over the last 15 years. Both this volume and the new book series that it is initiating signal the maturing of this field from childhood, through adolescence, and now into emerging adulthood. The breadth of work discussed in this collection is exceptionally broad, ranging from psychological theorizing about the impact of youth serving programs in the out-of-school time period to social policy analyses of how to grow the profession of OST Youth Professionals and create steady funding streams to support OST programming. All topics are critically discussed and new directions are suggested. I consider this book to be required reading of all students, scholars, professional, and practitioners in the field of positive youth development and OST programming. I go even further by suggesting it be read broadly by anyone interested in the education and development of young people around the world. There is no better collection available for educators, parents, community activists, and social policy makers concerned with positive youth development. I believe this collection lays a very strong foundation for achieving the goal set forth by Karen Pittman for the field to move from "Where and when to what and how." Jacquelynne S. Eccles, Distinguished University Professor of Education, University of California, Irvine The impressive growth of OST programs represents one of the brightest spots on the American educational landscape. Importantly, as this book portrays, what began a series of programs and local initiatives has now grown into a maturing field, with standards, scholarship, organizations, policies, and funding at the national, state, and local levels. And more than a field, OST carries the urgency, energy, and passion of a movement for social justice. The Growing Out-of-School Time Field offers a comprehensive review of earlier decades of work and points the way forward for the field’s future development. It should be read not only by those involved in the OST field, but by all educators who seek to create inclusive and powerful learning environments. Policymakers, as well, would benefit from deeper knowledge of this movement. It holds a key to preparing today’s youth for an uncertain future, where the nature of work is changing, norms of society are shifting, and multicultural, global perspectives are needed. Milton Chen, Ph.D., Senior Fellow & Executive Director, Emeritus, George Lucas Educational Foundation (edutopia.org) Book reviews: Journal of Youth Development: Book Review of The Growing Out-of-School Time Field: Past, Present, and Future Youth Today: The Growing Out-of-School Time Field: Past, Present, and Future (book review)

The University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research (UChicago CCSR) builds the capacity for school reform by conducting research that identifies what matters for student success and school improvement. Since 2004, CCSR has tracked the postsecondary experiences of successive cohorts of Chicago Public Schools graduates and examined the relationship among high school preparation, support, college choice, and postsecondary outcomes. The goal of this research is to help policymakers and practitioners understand what it takes to improve the college outcomes for urban and other at-risk students who now overwhelmingly aspire to college. This second report in the "From High School to the Future" series looks beyond qualifications to examine where students encounter potholes on the road to college. The findings reveal that Chicago students at all levels of qualifications do not successfully navigate the daunting process of enrolling in four-year colleges and too often default to colleges for which they are overqualified. The study relies on qualitative and quantitative data for CPS seniors in 2005: student and teacher surveys, transcripts, college enrollment data reported by the National Student Clearinghouse, and student interviews. Consortium researchers spent nearly two years interviewing and tracking the academic progress of 105 students in three Chicago high schools. The ten case studies included in the "Potholes" study each highlight a student who struggled at a different point in the postsecondary planning process.

Almost fifty years ago the Coleman Report, widely regarded as the most important educational study of the twentieth century, found that the most powerful predictor of academic achievement is the socioeconomic status of a child's family. The second most important predictor is the socioeconomic status of the classmates in his or her school. Until very recently, the importance of this second finding has been consciously ignored by policymakers, and the national education debate has centered on trying to "fix" high-poverty schools by pouring greater resources into them, paying educators more to teach in them, or turning them into charter schools. At the local level, however, eighty school districts educating four million students now consciously seek to integrate schools by socioeconomic status. The Future of School Integration looks at how socioeconomic school integration has been pursued as a strategy to reduce the proportion of high-poverty schools and therefore to improve the performance of students overall. It examines whether students learn more in socioeconomically integrated schools--and pre-K programs--than in high-poverty institutions and explores the costs and benefits of integration programs. The book also investigates whether such integration is logistically and politically feasible, looking at the promises and pitfalls of both intradistrict and interdistrict integration programs. Finally, it examines the relevance of socioeconomic integration strategies being pursued by states and localities to the ongoing policy debates in Washington over efforts to turn around the nation's lowest-performing schools and to improve the quality of charter schools. Contributors include Stephanie Aberger (Expeditionary Learning), Marco Basile (Harvard University), Jennifer Jellison Holme (University of Texas-Austin), Ann Mantil (Harvard), Anne G. Perkins, Jeanne L. Reid (Teachers College), Meredith P. Richards (University of Texas-Austin), Heather Schwartz (RAND), Kori J. Stroub (University of Texas-Austin), and Sheneka M. Williams (University of Georgia).