Mississippi

The overuse of out-of-school suspensions, expulsions and school-based arrests across has pushed many youths -- especially those of color -- out of school and into jail. The Advancement Project’s action kit is intended to help parents, youth, advocates and educators address the school-to-prison pipeline so they can create better learning environments. Read more>.

A Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analysis shows that nearly half of all states have made "significant cuts" in public education, disproportionately affecting low-income communities and children of color.

In a new brief from the Pew Center on the States, Timothy Bartik argues that investing in early childhood helps with job creation in the short term and also creates a stronger future workforce. His comprehensive model combines well-designed business incentives with high-quality early childhood programs.

This report analyzes the effectiveness of the Schoolwide Performance Bonuses Program, which is an effort to improve student performance through school-based financial incentives. The three-year study, which found that the program did little to improve student achievement, examined student test scores; teacher, school staff, and administrator surveys; and interviews with administrators, staff members, program sponsors, and union and district officials.

More than 1 million youth ages 16 to 19 are not enrolled in school and do not have a high school diploma. Although states are beginning to use research to create successful dropout prevention policies and programs, more work needs to be done. This report summarizes recent policy developments in dropout prevention and recovery and recommends effective strategies for states to facilitate the reengagement of out-of-school youth.

The Center for Education Policy examines a decade’s worth of research on school vouchers, including the effects on graduation rates, parental satisfaction, public school achievement and the cost to taxpayers. Among the report’s key findings is that vouchers have no clear positive effect on student academic achievement. The report stresses the need for closer scrutiny of voucher research to ensure greater objectivity because CEP’s reviewers found that a majority of previous research has been conducted or sponsored by voucher proponents.

Today there is nothing short of a state of emergency in the delivery of education to our nation’s communities of color. As our communities quickly grow on pace to become a numerical majority, it is clear that confronting the issues we face is not just our challenge alone but all of America’s challenge. As a nation, we are failing to provide the highquality educational opportunities that are critical for all students to succeed, thereby jeopardizing our nation’s ability to continue to be a world leader.

There is an economic -- as well as ideological -- importance to providing all students with an equal opportunity for rigorous education. In this report, the Alliance for Excellent Education makes the economic case, analyzing state-level economic data to determine the monetary benefits that states could see by improving the graduation rates of students of color and Native students.

This report, by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, finds that the U.S. has been underproducing college-going workers since 1980. As a result, the country is losing its edge as an economic world leader. We must add 20 million postsecondary-educated workers to the workforce to make this income inequality decline. We can do it if we make a concerted effort to improve levels of educational attainment.

The Pew Center's Pre-K Now project released a new paper making the case for "Pre-K as a School Turnaround Strategy." The paper urges members of Congress to look at state and local turnaround initiatives that use limited funds for proven early education programs as a way to improve student achievement. According to the report, "The evidence is clear and compelling: pre-K multiplies the impact of other reforms. Early investment is the best investment."