Bøger af U S Department of Education

The transition to adulthood in the United States has changed in recent decades as many of the traditional milestones that mark adulthood have changed. Among these changes are increased participation and attainment in education; extenuation of educational completion and subsequent delayed participation in the labor force; and delays in child rearing. Accordingly, "America's Youth: Transitions to Adulthood" examines numerous aspects of the lives of youth and young adults, ages 14 to 24, in the United States over the last several decades. The report features status and trend data from multiple surveys on the distribution of youth and their family structure; on school-, employment-, and health-related factors; and on future plans.

Our nation's schools should be safe havens for teaching and learning, free of crime and violence. Any instance of crime or violence at school not only affects the individuals involved, but also may disrupt the educational process and affect bystanders, the school itself, and the surrounding community. Establishing reliable indicators of the current state of school crime and safety across the nation and regularly updating and monitoring these indicators is important in ensuring the safety of our nation's students. This is the aim of "Indicators of School Crime and Safety." This report is the fifteenth in a series of annual publications produced jointly by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), Institute of Education Sciences (IES), in the U.S. Department of Education, and the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) in the U.S. Department of Justice. This report presents the most recent data available on school crime and student safety. The indicators in this report are based on information drawn from a variety of data sources, including national surveys of students, teachers, and principals. Sources include results from the School-Associated Violent Deaths Study, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, the Depart¬ment of Justice, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; the National Crime Victimization Survey and School Crime Supplement to the survey, sponsored by the BJS and NCES, respectively; the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and the Schools and Staffing Survey and School Survey on Crime and Safety, both sponsored by NCES. The most recent data collection for each indicator varied by survey, from 2007 to 2011. Each data source has an independent sample design, data collection method, and questionnaire design, or is the result of a universe data collection. All comparisons described in this report are statistically significant at the .05 level. This report covers topics such as victimization, teacher injury, bullying and cyber-bullying, school conditions, fights, weapons, availability and student use of drugs and alcohol, and student perceptions of personal safety at school. Indicators of crime and safety are compared across different population subgroups and over time. Data on crimes that occur away from school are offered as a point of comparison where available.

Earlier research finds evidence of positive associations between participation in early care and education (ECE) arrangements and academic skills around the time that children begin kindergarten. Young children experience various types of early care and education environments the year before they enter kindergarten. Some children attend center-based arrangements such as preschools, childcare centers, or Head Start programs. Others are cared for in relatives' or nonrelatives' homes or are normally cared for only by their parents. This report explores relationships between children's primary ECE arrangements the year before kindergarten and their academic skills and learning behaviors at kindergarten entry, after accounting for child and family background characteristics.

Dropping out of high school is related to a number of negative outcomes: for example, a lower median income of persons ages 18 through 67, a loss of income over a person's lifetime, poor health conditions, higher percentages of the nation's institutionalized population, an effect on the economy due to lower tax contributions, higher reliance on Medicaid and Medicare, higher rates of criminal activity, and higher reliance on welfare. This report examines the characteristics and effects of high school dropout versus completion rates.

Dropping out of high school is related to a number of negative outcomes: for example, a lower median income of persons ages 18 through 67, a loss of income over a person's lifetime, poor health conditions, higher percentages of the nation's institutionalized population, an effect on the economy due to lower tax contributions, higher reliance on Medicaid and Medicare, higher rates of criminal activity, and higher reliance on welfare. This report examines the characteristics and effects of high school dropout versus completion rates. It presents estimates of rates in 2013, provides data on long-term trends in dropout and completion rates, and examines the characteristics of high school dropouts and completers.

In President Obama's first address to Congress, he challenged America to meet an ambitious goal for education: By 2020, we will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world. Meeting this goal is vital for securing our long-term economic security, because the country that out-educates us today will out-compete us tomorrow. We must work to ensure that all children and adults in America receive a world-class education that will prepare them to succeed in college and careers for rich and fulfilling lives in a vibrant and prosperous democracy. We often refer to the President's goal as the "North Star" for the work of the U.S. Department of Education as described in this fiscal year (FY) 2011-2014 Strategic Plan. A generation ago, we ranked first in the world in the rate of college degree attainment for 25- to 34-year-olds; now we rank 16th, and the global achievement gap is growing.1 Reaching the President's goal will require comprehensive education reforms from cradle to career, beginning with children at birth, supporting them through postsecondary education, and helping them succeed as lifelong learners who can adapt to the constant changes in the diverse and technology-driven workplaces of the global economy. Our youngest children must be in early learning environments that prepare them for success in kindergarten and beyond. We must continue to close the achievement gap and ensure that elementary and secondary school students are on track to graduate from high school ready for college and careers. Once students enroll in a postsecondary education institution-whether at a trade or technical school, community college, a liberal arts college, a state university, or a research university-we must provide support and assistance to help them complete their certificates and degrees, with grants, loans, tax credits, and work-study assistance. Doing this will equip them with the knowledge and skills to participate and engage in the nation's future. Finally, at every level of the education system, we must promote competency in the arts and sciences to promote our competitiveness in a 21st century economy. Our Strategic Plan sets specific objectives for each of these goals and explains what the Department will do to support youth, adults, families, and education professionals in meeting them.

This publication focuses on the use of the threat assessment process pioneered by the Secret Service as one component of the Department of Education's efforts to help schools across the nation reduce school violence and create safe climates.

Families trust schools to keep their children safe during the day. Thanks to the efforts of millions of teachers, principals, and staff across America, the majority of schools remain safe havens for our nation's youth. The unfortunate reality is, however, that school districts in this country may be touched either directly or indirectly by a crisis of some kind at any time. Natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes, fires, and tornadoes can strike a community with little or no warning. An influenza pandemic, or other infectious disease, can spread from person-to-person causing serious illness across the country, or around the globe, in a very short time. School shootings, threatened or actual, are extremely rare but are horrific and chilling when they occur. The harrowing events of September 11 and subsequent anthrax scares have ushered in a new age of terrorism. Communities across the country are struggling to understand and avert acts of terror. Children and youth rely on and find great comfort in the adults who protect them. Teachers and staff must know how to help their students through a crisis and return them home safely. Knowing what to do when faced with a crisis can be the difference between calm and chaos, between courage and fear, between life and death. There are thousands of fires in schools every year, yet there is minimal damage to life and property because staff and students are prepared. This preparedness needs to be extended to all risks schools face. Schools and districts need to be ready to handle crises, large and small, to keep our children and staff out of harm's way and ready to learn and teach. Taking action now can save lives, prevent injury, and minimize property damage in the moments of a crisis. The importance of reviewing and revising school and district plans cannot be underscored enough, and Practical Information on Crisis Planning: A Guide for Schools and Communities is designed to help you navigate this process. The Guide is intended to give schools, districts, and communities the critical concepts and components of good crisis planning, stimulate thinking about the crisis preparedness process, and provide examples of promising practices. This document does not provide a cookbook approach to crisis preparedness. Each community has its own history, culture, and way of doing business. Schools and districts are at risk for different types of crises and have their own definitions of what constitutes a crisis. Crisis plans need to be customized to communities, districts, and schools to meet the unique needs of local residents and students. Crisis plans also need to address state and local school safety laws. Experts recommend against cutting and pasting plans from other schools and districts. Other plans can serve as useful models, but what is effective for a large innercity school district where the population is concentrated may be ineffective for a rural community where schools and first responders are far apart.

The vast majority of the nation's students will complete their schooling without ever being touched by peer violence. Nevertheless, recent school attacks carried out by students have shaken the image of schools as reliably safe and secure environments in which the qualifications of teachers and the efficacy of the educational curricula are the most pressing concerns of educators and parents. Televised images of frightened and injured students fleeing school grounds have imprinted themselves on the American consciousness. "Columbine," the Littleton, Colo. high school that on April 20, 1999, was the scene of the most violent of the school attacks recorded to date in the United States, has entered contemporary vocabulary as a national symbol of the violence that claimed the lives of 14 students and a teacher on that day. Incidents of targeted school violence occurred in 37 communities across the country between December 1974 and May 2000. Compared to the other types of violence and crime children face both in and outside of school, school-based attacks are rare. While the Department of Education reports that 60 million children attend the nation's 119,000 schools, available statistics indicate that few of these students will fall prey to serious violence in school settings. However, highly publicized school shootings have created uncertainty about the safety and security of this country's schools and generated fear that an attack might occur in any school, in any community. Increased national attention to the problem of school violence has prompted educators, law enforcement officials, mental health professionals, and parents to press for answers to two central questions: "Could we have known that these attacks were being planned?" and, if so, "What could we have done to prevent these attacks from occurring?" For example, what should happen when a student comes to attention for saying something or behaving in a manner that causes concern, as in the following instances? - "The kids are saying that Johnny told his friends not to go to the cafeteria at noon on Tuesday because something big and bad is going to happen." - Marty, who has appeared withdrawn and irritable the past few weeks, handed in a story about a student putting a bomb in an empty school. - Sandy brought bullets to school to show friends. - Rafael, who got pushed around again after gym class, stormed out in tears, shouting "You're all going to pay!" - Casey, who was suspended last year for bringing a knife to school, left a "hit list" on his desk. - Terry submitted an essay in which an assassin blew up the school, attacked the governor, and then killed himself. Given the enormous concern about targeted school violence, these reported statements and behaviors cannot be ignored. But how should school officials and other responsible adults respond? This publication, Threat Assessment in Schools: A Guide to Managing Threatening Situations and to Creating Safe School Climates, is the product of an ongoing collaboration between the U. S. Secret Service and the U. S. Department of Education to begin to answer these questions. Its focus is on the use of the threat assessment process pioneered by the Secret Service as one component of the Department of Education's efforts to help schools across the nation reduce school violence and create safe climates. As developed by the Secret Service, threat assessment involves efforts to identify, assess, and manage individuals and groups who may pose threats of targeted violence.

There are over 4,000 two-and four-year public and private institutions of higher education (IHEs) in the United States totaling over 15 million students and several million staff, faculty, and visitors (U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics, 2006). Each of these institutions has a commitment to ensure the safety and general welfare of those on their campuses and to provide appropriate policies, procedures, and strategies to maintain a safe campus. Because of recent violent crimes, natural disasters, and other emergencies or crises, colleges and universities are convening committees and task forces to reexamine or conduct a comprehensive review of policies, procedures, and systems related to campus safety and security. As with many critical areas on the agendas of administrators, campus safety requires building support and conducting a thorough and systematic process to produce a quality plan to prepare for and manage emergencies on campus. IHEs have many challenges in practicing emergency management that are related to the distinctive structure and environment of higher education. College and university campuses often cover large geographic areas, and sometimes even resemble small towns with the full extent of services in their vicinity (i.e., medical centers, sports complexes, residential centers, businesses). The campus population changes from day to day, semester to semester, and year to year. Many IHEs operate complex enterprises in addition to their academic programs. Hospitals, research and development facilities, performing arts venues, athletic complexes, agriculture centers, residential complexes, food services, and transportation systems all present a unique set of circumstances that must be considered when designing emergency management plans. These structural and environmental characteristics pose challenges for access control, monitoring movements, defining boundaries for facilities and grounds, standardizing procedures and decision-making processes, and prioritizing resource allocations. IHE governance is also highly varied, complex, and often widely dispersed. Decentralized organizational structures and academic departments may be located in different buildings and have differing decision-making methods. The nature of higher education institutions, with faculty involvement in the governance process, is much different than the hierarchical structure of corporate entities or governmental agencies. Decision-making in such an environment can be slow, and hinder campus response to a crisis. The need for clear lines of authority and decision-making are all the more important at IHEs. Responsibility for developing, testing, and implementing an emergency management plan should be shared and communicated across all departments and functions. This Action Guide for Emergency Management at Higher Education Institutions has been developed to give higher education institutions a useful resource in the field of emergency management. It is intended for community colleges, four-year colleges and universities, graduate schools, and research institutions associated with higher education entities, both public and private. This action guide may be used in a variety of ways: As a starting point in researching the topic of emergency management for those needing an overview of the subject; As a resource for an initiative to develop and implement an emergency management plan at a higher education institution; or As a reference and resource for colleges and universities looking to evaluate their emergency management programs to identify potential areas needing enhancement.

In 2005 we published The Handbook for Campus Crime Reporting, a compendium of U.S. Department of Education (ED) guidance on complying with the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act (Clery Act). Since that time, the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA) was signed into law, amending the Clery Act and adding a number of safety- and security-related requirements to the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended (HEA).This new legislation necessitated writing The Handbook for Campus Safety and Security Reporting-an updated and expanded version of the previous handbook. This new version of the handbook will familiarize you with the amended Clery Act and the new regulations that were added by HEOA. Similar to the 2005 version, this handbook takes you step by step along the path to compliance and explains what the regulations mean and what they require of your institution. It also includes new examples and enhanced explanations of many topics based on questions asked of our Campus Safety and Security Help Desk over the past several years. What hasn't changed is the handbook's emphasis on compliance as a whole system of developing policy statements, gathering information from a variety of sources and translating it into the appropriate categories, issuing alerts, disseminating information, and, finally, keeping records.

The 2010 edition of the Digest of Education Statistics is the 46th in a series of publications initiated in 1962. The Digest has been issued annually, except for combined editions for the years 1977-78, 1983-84, and 1985-86. Its primary purpose is to provide a compilation of statistical information covering the broad field of American from prekindergarten through graduate school. The Digest includes a selection of data from many sources, both government and private, and draws especially on the results of surveys and activities carried out by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). To qualify for inclusion in the Digest, material must be nationwide in scope and of current interest and value. The publication contains information on a variety of subjects in the field of education statistics, including the number of schools and colleges, teachers, enrollments, and graduates, in addition to data on educational attainment, finances, federal funds for education, libraries, and international comparisons. Supplemental information on population trends, attitudes on education, education characteristics of the labor force, government finances, and economic trends provides background for evaluating education data. Although the Digest contains important information on federal education funding, more detailed information on federal activities is available from federal education program offices. In addition to updating many of the statistics that have appeared in previous years, this edition contains new material, including: children's reading, mathematics, and fine motor scale scores at kindergarten entry, but age of child and selected characteristics; average number of Carnegie units earned by high school graduates in advanced mathematics and advanced science and engineering courses, and percentage distribution of graduates by number of units earned, by selected student and school characteristics; total fall enrollment in private for-profit degree-granting institutions, by attendance status, sex, and state or jurisdiction; retention of first-time degree-seeking undergraduates at degree-granting institutions, by attendance status, control, and type of institution; percentage of the population 25 to 64 years old who completed high school, by age group and country; and percentage of the population 25 to 64 years old who attained selected levels of postsecondary education, by age group and country.

Littleton, CO; Springfield, OR; West Paducah, KY; Jonesboro, AR. These communities have become familiar to many Americans as among the locations of those schools where shootings have occurred nationwide in recent years. In the aftermath of these tragic events, educators, law enforcement officials, mental health professionals and parents have pressed for answers to two central questions: "Could we have known that these attacks were being planned?" and, if so, "What could we have done to prevent these attacks from occurring?" This publication, The Final Report and Findings of the Safe School Initiative: Implications for the Prevention of School Attacks in the United States, is a recent product of an ongoing collaboration between the U. S. Secret Service and the U. S. Department of Education to begin to answer these questions. It is the culmination of an extensive examination of 37 incidents of targeted school violence that occurred in the United States from December 1974 through May 2000. The findings of the Safe School Initiative suggest that there are productive actions that educators, law enforcement officials, and others can pursue in response to the problem of targeted school violence. Specifically, Initiative findings suggest that these officials may wish to consider focusing their efforts to formulate strategies for preventing these attacks in two principal areas: - developing the capacity to pick up on and evaluate available or knowable information that might indicate that there is a risk of a targeted school attack; and, - employing the results of these risk evaluations or "threat assessments" in developing strategies to prevent potential school attacks from occurring. Support for these suggestions is found in 10 key findings of the Safe School Initiative study. These findings are as follows: - Incidents of targeted violence at school rarely were sudden, impulsive acts. - Prior to most incidents, other people knew about the attacker's idea and/or plan to attack. - Most attackers did not threaten their targets directly prior to advancing the attack. - There is no accurate or useful "profile" of students who engaged in targeted school violence. - Most attackers engaged in some behavior prior to the incident that caused others concern or indicated a need for help. - Most attackers had difficulty coping with significant losses or personal failures. Moreover, many had considered or attempted suicide. - Many attackers felt bullied, persecuted, or injured by others prior to the attack. - Most attackers had access to and had used weapons prior to the attack. - In many cases, other students were involved in some capacity. - Despite prompt law enforcement responses, most shooting incidents were stopped by means other than law enforcement intervention.

Crises affect schools across the country every day. While natural hazards such as tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes may be thought of more commonly as emergencies, schools are also at risk from other hazards such as school violence, infectious disease, and terrorist threats. Through the vulnerability assessment process, schools can take steps to prevent, mitigate, and lessen the potential impact of these risks by developing customized district and school emergency management plans in collaboration with community partners. Vulnerability assessments are integral to, rather than separate from, the ongoing emergency management activities of school districts and schools. Vulnerability assessment is the ongoing process for identifying and prioritizing risks to the individual schools and school districts. It also includes designing a system of accountability with measurable activities and timelines to address risks. As schools continue to plan and prepare for critical events that could have severe consequences, identifying the appropriate vulnerability assessment tool(s) is an important step for helping schools to understand what they are at risk from and just how seriously they could be affected. Schools need to use appropriate tools to capture the relevant data needed to inform the development and maintenance of customized plans. This guide is intended to be a companion piece to Practical Information on Crisis Planning: A Guide for Schools and Communities, originally published by the U.S. Department of Education in 2003 as a guide for schools and districts to prepare for a variety of crises. This guide emphasizes a valuable part of emergency management planning-ongoing vulnerability assessment-and is intended to assist schools with the implementation of an effective vulnerability assessment process, to include choosing an appropriate vulnerability assessment tool. Vulnerability assessment tools may vary from one school site to another, depending on variables such as: location, environment, size, and structure, and even student population and school culture. For example, schools may be located in urban or rural environments, may have limited or greater resources, or may have specific populations with their own unique needs. As a result, vulnerability assessments must be customized on an individual district and school basis, taking all of these factors into consideration. This guide is not intended to be prescriptive or to give step-by-step instructions for conducting assessments, rather it is intended to describe the key elements to be considered when selecting an assessment tool appropriate for school environments and provide guidance for conducting an assessment that will inform school emergency management activities.

Twelve years after the first charter school was launched, the charter school movement is now entering its adolescence. Like many pre-teens, it's had its share of growing pains, but I am confident that it is about to hit a growth spurt. That is because charter schools are enormously popular with their primary clients --parents and students-- and because they are starting to show promising results in terms of student achievement. The basic tenets of charter schools-give them room to be innovative, hold them accountable for results, and let parents decide if they meet the needs of their children --are perfectly aligned with the historic No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), which also focuses on accountability for results in return for more flexibility, and with providing more options for parents than ever before. One of the promises of charter schools is that they can serve as laboratories of innovation --they can be public education's "R&D" arm. Because they have greater autonomy than traditional public schools, and since they tend to attract pioneering educators, they can try out new approaches to education that, if proven effective, can be transplanted back into the larger public education system. It is in this spirit that we highlight eight of the most successful charter schools in the United States. These schools were chosen after an exhaustive national search. They were primarily selected because they have demonstrated success over time in boosting student achievement. Surely many more charter schools could have been identified, and these should not be considered "the best" charter schools in the nation. Nevertheless, they are among the best, and each has much to teach other charter schools --and traditional public schools-- about teaching and learning, management strategies, staff development, and many other topics.