New In-Depth Analysis of High School Graduation Rates Reveals Progress is Real, But Slowing, Indicating Urgency to Double Down on Equity Gaps The ‘Building a Grad Nation’ Report’s First-Ever Secondary School Improvement Index Shows More Than Two Thirds of States Have Increased Graduation Rates and Other Measures Of Academic Achievement, Mitigating Concerns Around Diminished Graduation […]

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It is with a heavy heart that we are sharing some sad news. Late on Friday, May 29, 2020 Joanna Fox passed away unexpectedly due to ongoing health issues.  Joanna worked at the Center for Social Organization of Schools (CSOS) for over 15 years as a program developer and senior program officer, and was planning […]

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June 11, 20199:00am – 11:30am Alliance for Excellent Education1201 Connecticut Avenue NorthwestSuite #901 (Ninth Floor)Washington, DC 20036 REGISTER HERE The convening partners of the GradNation campaign—America’s Promise Alliance, The Alliance for Excellent Education, Civic, and the Everyone Graduates Center—invite you to learn more about the current state of high school graduation in our country. The […]

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April 10, 2019 Some believe that growing interest in social and emotional learning is just a distraction from the academic mission of schools, but Robert Balfanz argues that only by educating the whole child can schools prepare students for adult success. Today Marty West talks with Balfanz about why he thinks social and emotional learning […]

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Calls for schools to pay heed to children’s social and emotional learning have proliferated in recent years. Is the current enthusiasm for educating the “whole learner” a much-needed correction to the narrow concentration on academic skills in the modern reform era? Or is it a misguided retreat from academic rigor and an attempt to sidestep […]

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Report tracking Boston Public Schools students finds high GPA, MassCore curriculum and attendance are predictors of success after graduation. The latest report, College, Career and Life Readiness: A Look at High School Indicators of Post-Secondary Outcomes in Boston, by Robert Blafanz and Vaughan Byrnes in partnership with the Boston Opportunity Agenda and Boston Public Schools, […]

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Spring 2019Wednesdays, 8:30am – 11:30am Instructor: Robert Balfanz, 410-516-4272, rbalfanz@jhu.edu Course Description: In this class students will examine how state and federal education policy is made through an exploration of contemporary educational issues and current educational policy debates and actors.  The class is organized from the perspective of education policy practitioners. Course Syllabus: Please follow […]

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The Duplicity of Equality: An Analysis of Academic Placement in a Racially Diverse School and a Black Community is the latest study by researcher and associate professor Richard Lofton, Jr., of the Center for Social Organization of Schools at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education. This study explores how African American parents come to […]

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By Marcia H. Davis, Martha Abele Mac Iver, Robert W. Balfanz, Marc L. Stein, and Joanna Hornig Fox This study focuses on the implementation of an early warning indicator and intervention system in 20 southern high schools. This model included a team of teachers, counselors, and student support services personnel who analyzed ninth- grade student-level […]

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After more than a decade of progress in improving high school graduation rates, there remain about 1,300 traditional high schools in need of serious improvement and redesign, according to new research from the GradNation campaign. Among them are more than 800 low-graduation-rate high schools with an average graduation rate of 49 percent. From the inner […]

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