The schools and districts profiled in the four communities in this report have taken different steps to help smooth the transition to kindergarten for children and families, with a particular emphasis on promoting equity by focusing on better serving children from low-income families. Because of the historic divide between early learning and the formal K–12 school system, it will require years of
When early learning experiences are connected from birth through third grade (B–3rd), children and their families can more seamlessly transition between ECE programs and grade levels. Smoothing transitions requires careful planning, effective policies and practices, and funding. The transition between pre-K and kindergarten is a particularly important one. There are a number of federal and state
Apprenticeship is a proven education and employment model that combines structured on-the-job learning with related technical or classroom instruction to prepare individuals for specific occupations. Apprentices are paid, have access to work-site mentors, and earn progressively higher wages as they advance in their programs. The rising cost of higher education, combined with the increasing skill
. Recent policy and research efforts have focused on simplifying the college-going process, improving transparency around college costs, and helping students make informed decisions. In 2012, the Obama administration released the “shopping sheet,” a standardized financial aid offer that is intended to provide students with simplified information about costs, loan options, and college outcomes. Th
Place-based promise scholarships are a relatively recent innovation in the space of college access and success. Although evidence on the impact of some of the earliest place-based scholarships has begun to emerge, the rapid proliferation of promise programs largely has preceded empirical evidence of their impact. This paper analyses the causal effect of the Pittsburgh Promise on students’ immedia
Parents in the United States frequently supplement the student loans available to their children by cosigning on a loan, borrowing against their home equity, or with unsecured debt in their own names. This paper investigates whether some students are constrained from attending and completing college by their parents’ lack of access to credit markets by linking individual parental credit scores to
This study uses nationally representative data from the Education Longitudinal Survey (ELS) to update the literature on returns to community college education, comparing the experiences of the ELS cohort that graduated high school in 2004 with those of the National Education Longitudinal Survey (NELS) cohort that graduated high school more than a decade earlier, in 1992. The author estimates that
The WSG is a privately funded program designed to help low-income Wisconsin families pay for college and increase college completion. Student access to the WSG is based on Pell Grant eligibility, Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) information, and college admissions records. The grant provided students with $1,800 per year for each year in which they were enrolled in a Wisconsin two
Research shows that using only test scores to place students in remediation—the typical method—is correlated with over-placement, which can lead to unnecessary time and expense spent on the pursuit of a degree. To combat
