Winooski City and School District Audit Winooski is one of the most racially diverse municipalities in Vermont and contains one of the only majority-minority school districts in the state. The City of Winooski and the Winooski School District partnered with ResearchEd and Opportunity Consulting to conduct an equity audit and explore areas where experiences in the City and WSD are inequitable and find the opportunities to adopt equity-focused policies and practices to address these inequities.

 To explore the role that community colleges play in supporting the vitality of rural communities, from October 2019 to December 2020 ACCT visited rural campuses and conducted interviews virtually and in person with over 500 individuals across five states.

Default does not impact all borrowers equally: students who have stopped out or who have completed some college credits but have not yet earned a degree or credential are especially at risk for default. Non-traditional age students, students of color, and low-income students are also at greater risk. Analysis of data from Valencia College demonstrates that loan defaults and their harsh penalties are also associated with poorer academic outcomes.

Community colleges provide an important entry point on the pathway to graduate and professional degree completion. Nearly 20 percent of 2016-17 master’s degree earners originally entered higher education in a community college, and nearly 12 percent earned an associate degree from a community college.

The dawn of the twentieth century marked an era of progressivism in education. This period brought about some positive advancements in the way people thought about teacher preparation and pedagogy, but it also marks a period during which teachers lost autonomy in the classroom. During this period there were two types of progressive reformers, those who attempted to change pedagogical practices, and those who were interested in changing the organization and functions of institutions.

The Federal Work- Study program was initially created to provide an opportunity for these low-income students to offset costs while in school by working. Federal Work-Study participants are 3.2 percentage points more likely to earn a bachelor’s degree than nonparticipants, and research shows that the outcomes for participants who are low income and/or attend public institutions are even better.