On October 29, 2008, the Department published final regulations amending the existing regulations implementing Title I, Part A of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), as amended by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). The amendments included changes to 34 C.F.R. §200.19, regarding the "other academic indicators" that States use in defining "adequate yearly progress" (AYP). This non-regulatory guidance provides States, LEAs, and schools with information about how to implement the provisions in 34 C.F.R. §200.19(b). Section A of this guidance defines the four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate, the extended-year adjusted cohort graduation rate, and the transitional graduation rates that are allowable until States must implement the four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate. Section B guides States in setting a single graduation rate goal and annual graduation rate targets. Section C outlines requirements for reporting graduation rate. Section D answers questions about how States include the four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate and any extended-year adjusted cohort graduation rate in AYP determinations, including the use of disaggregated rates for student subgroups. Section E provides information about how a State must revise its Consolidated State Application Accountability Workbook (Accountability Workbook) to include certain information and submit its revisions to the Department for technical assistance and peer review. Section F clarifies the timeline for implementing the new graduation rate provisions, as well as the process for how a State that cannot meet the deadlines outlined in the final regulations may request, from the Secretary, an extension of time to meet the requirements.

The Advanced Placement Expansion project of the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) was one component of a large-scale initiative launched in 2005 to redesign the American high school.  Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maine, Nevada, and Wisconsinreceived funding to expand Advanced Placement (AP) courses to minority and low-income students at 51 pilot high schools in rural and urban school districts. The NGA Center, working in partnership with the College Board, has demonstrated that it is possible for states to raise rigor and get results at scale.

This report, a follow-up to CEP's 2008 report on school restructuring in Ohio, examines the implementation and effects of differentiated accountability and related policies in Ohio. We looked at a range of questions. How is the differentiated accountability pilot affecting districts with large numbers of schools in restructuring? How successfully is the new system differentiating support and interventions for schools and districts in which only a few subgroups of students missed AYP targets from those in which students across the board missed the targets? What local approaches are districts taking to improve restructuring schools? To collect data for this report, we conducted interviews in the fall and winter of 2008-09 with two officials in the Ohio Department of Education (ODE). We also interviewed more than 20 local administrators, teachers, and other district and school staff in four school districts--Cincinnati Public Schools, Cleveland Metropolitan School District, Mansfield City Schools, and Mount Vernon City Schools--and in eight schools within these districts. In addition, we reviewed restructuring-related documents and analyzed test data at the state and local levels.

"Graduating America: Meeting the Challenge of Low Graduation Rate High Schools" by Robert Balfanz, Cheryl Almeida, Adria Steinberg, Janet Santos, and Joanna Hornig Fox, Jobs for the Future and the Everyone Graduates Center

The federal government has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to stimulate significant progress in solving the nationâ??s graduation crisis, according to this report from Jobs for the Future and the Everyone Graduates Center. While high schools with low graduation rates exist in every state and many communities across the country, they are concentrated in a subset of 17 states that produce approximately 70 percent of the nationâ??s dropouts. Data from these states are used to develop new analytic tools for examining the characteristics of schools, districts, and states that make certain approaches more likely to succeed in certain places. July 2009

As the focus on school improvement at a state education agency moves from mostly a compliance approach to playing a greater role in capacity building, the agency's leadership needs to rethink student and learning supports. That is the focus of this report. Given that almost half of the chief state school officers have assumed their position in the last three years, major changes are underway across the country. We hope the content of this report can help focus agency leadership on the importance of fashioning systemic changes that recognize the primary and essential role a system of learning supports can play in school improvement policy and practice. We begin with a look at how state education agencies currently conceive and organize efforts to guide and support district and school approaches to addressing external as well as internal barriers to learning. Then, we explore recommendations for state education agencies to expand school improvement policy, frame intervention, and rework operational infrastructure. We conclude by delineating specific implications for revising school improvement guidance.

America's Promise Alliance commissioned Grad Nation, a new tool comprising the best evidence-based practices for keeping young people in school paired with suggestions for effectively preparing them for life after high school. It is a guidebook that provides a road map to help communities tackle the dropout crisis. It is designed to help communities develop tailored plans for keeping students on track to graduate from high school, prepared for college, work and life. Grad Nation includes ready-to-print tools and links to additional online resources, in addition to research-based guidance. It provides information and tools for developing and implementing a customized program that's right for individual communities.

This book aims to inform the policy debate by examining four primary research questions in several geographic locations: (1) What are the characteristics of students transferring to charter schools? (2) What effect do charter schools have on test-score gains for students who transfer between TPSs and charter schools? (3) What is the effect of attending a charter high school on the probability of graduating and of entering college? (4) What effect does the introduction of charter schools have on test scores of students in nearby TPSs?  We examine similarities and differences in the answers to these questions across locations, seeking insights about the policy levers that might be available to improve the outcomes associated with charter schools. Data sets are from Chicago, IL; Denver, CO; Milwaukee, MN;  Philadelphia, PA; San Diego, CA; Florida; Ohio; and Texas.
Authors: Ron Zimmer, Brian Gill, Kevin Booker, Stephane Lavertu, Tim R. Sass, John Witte