NCSER releases training videos for NLTS2 users...

The National Center for Special Education Research has released video training modules for the National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (NLTS2). The NLTS2 data training modules are intended to be a resource to researchers who would like to use the NLTS2 dataset to conduct research addressing students with disabilities.
Links to all videos are here: http://ies.ed.gov/ncser/projects/nlts2/training.asp

Blackboard is learning to share...

Here's an excerpt from an article in today's (Oct. 19, 2011) Chronicle of Higher Ed...
"
Professors who use Blackboard’s software have long been forced to lock their course materials in an area effectively marked, “For Registered Students Only,” while using the system. Today the company announced plans to add a “Share” button that will let professors make those learning materials free and open online.
The move may be the biggest sign yet that the idea of “open educational materials” is going mainstream, nearly 10 years after the Massachusetts Institute of Technology first began giving away lecture notes online. Blackboard made the change after college officials complained that the company’s software, which more than half the colleges in the country use for their online-course materials, was holding them back from trying open-education projects."

New source of school district data

I will also add this to the Statistics tab of the Education research guide, although at this point, no Nevada data is included.
School Attendance Boundary Information System (SABINS)

Free aggregate census data and GIS-compatible boundary files for school attendance areas, or school catchment areas, for selected areas in the United States for the 2009-2010 school year. Includes:

• grade-specific school attendance areas for thousands of school districts
  in the United States
• 2010 Redistricting data for the school attendance areas
• crosswalks linking the school attendance areas to the National Center for Education Statistics' Common Core of Data

Developed by the Minnesota Population Center of the
University of Minnesota.

Updated longitudinal data on high school completion/dropouts (1972-2009)

"This report updates a series of NCES reports on high school dropout and completion rates that began in 1988. The report includes national and regional population estimates for the percentage of students who dropped out of high school between 2008 and 2009, the percentage of young people who were dropouts in 2009, and the percentage of young people who were not in high school and had some form of high school credential in 2009. Data are presented by a number of characteristics including race/ethnicity, sex, and age. Annual data for these population estimates are provided for the 1972-2009 period. Information about the high school class of 2009 is also presented in the form on on-time graduation rates from public high schools."
For the class of 2008-09, Nevada still leads the way with the lowest state averaged freshman graduation rates (AFGR) for public school students at 56.3% -- nearly 6% below the next worst performer, Mississippi.

Links to full report is here: http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2012006

Dropout prevention programs in public schools: 2010-11

A joint report from NCES and IES provides "national data about how public school districts identify students at risk of dropping out, programs used specifically to address the needs of students at risk of dropping out of school, the use of mentors for at-risk students, and efforts to encourage dropouts to return to school."
"The estimates presented in this report are based on a district survey about dropout prevention services and programs offered by the district or by any of the schools in the district during the 2010–11 school year."
The full report is linked here: http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2011037