Recent idea_mp items

Pipelines, Pathways, and Payoffs: Economic Challenges and Returns to Changing Demographics in California

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000

For individuals, success and persistence in schooling has a huge economic impact on their lives. Educational attainment affects the kinds of employment job seekers can find, the amount of money they earn, the housing conditions and lifestyle they can afford, the level of savings they can accumulate for retirement, their risk for incarceration, and the likelihood that they will live in poverty or need to rely on transfer payment for basic needs. Perhaps less obviously, the state also has a strong stake in the educational attainment of its residents. One element of the state's economic stake is its financial balance, since the demand for incarceration and poverty-related state services declines with higher levels of educational attainment, while higher rates of per capita income permit the provision of a fixed set of state services at lower average rates of taxation.

Historically, California has experienced a "brain gain", as the flows of highly educated and skilled...

Restructuring and Reculturing Schools to Provide Students with Multiple Pathways to College and Career

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000

The prevailing way of conceptualizing multiple pathways to college and career segregates or “tracks” students into college prep or voc-ed curriculum. Recent research and public commentary have shown that tracking neither provides students with equal educational opportunities nor serves the needs of employers for a well-educated workforce. Recognizing that tracked schools are both inequitable and ineffective, educators have been exploring alternatives to tracking practices since the 1980s.

This paper focuses on one attempt to redefine and restructure the academic curriculum, pedagogy, and course structures of California schools into “multiple pathways” to college and career. The Preuss School at UCSD “detracks” its curriculum, i.e., establishes high instructional standards and presents rigorous curriculum to all students while varying the supports available to enable all students to meet high the school’s academic standards.

Detracking high schools can provide students...