Introduction The Pell Grant program is the largest federal need-based grant program available to postsecondary education students. In 1998–99, the federal government spent $7.2 billion on Pell Grants for more than 3.8 million students (U.S. Department of Education 1999). Students can use a Pell Grant at almost all 2and 4-year public and private not-for-profit institutions, as well as several thousand private for-profit institutions. Pell Grant program eligibility is based primarily on the student’s and/or parents’ income for the previous year, with awards made primarily to low-income students. Among undergraduates who enrolled in postsecondary education for the first time in 1995–96, 87 percent of Pell Grant recipients were either dependent students whose parents’ incomes were under $45,000 (59 percent) or independent students with incomes under $25,000 (28 percent). Other factors are also taken into account in awarding Pell Grants, such as student and parent assets and other family members who are concurrently enrolled in college.
Explores the relationship between black-white differences in educational achievement and black-white differences in a variety of educational and economic outcomes. Using data from the late 1970s through the early 1990s, the study finds that, for children and young adults with similar mathematics and reading test scores, the subsequent educational and economic performance of blacks relative to whites was substantially greater than the performance of blacks relative to whites as a whole. While blacks had lower levels of educational achievement, educational attainment, and earnings than whites, these disparities were frequently smaller, and were sometimes nonexistent, for individuals with similar levels of education.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 1998 Civics Assessment measured students' knowledge, their intellectual and participatory skills, and their civic dispositions at the 12th-grade level. This publication describes 12th graders performance on 38 questions from the 12th-grade assessment. Thirty-one of the thirty-eight questions were multiple choice. The remaining seven were constructed response questions that required students to write their answers. The goal of the NAEP 1998 Civics Assessment was to measure how well U.S. youth are being prepared to meet their citizenship responsibilities. The framework for the 1998 Civics Assessment specifies three interrelated components which, taken together, reflect broad civic competency: knowledge, intellectual and participatory skills, and civic dispositions.. The questions required 12th graders to read and answer questions based on a variety of materials. The assessment was designed to evaluate student ability to recall specific information, make inferences, or perform more analytical/ evaluative tasks, such as distinguishing opinion from fact or defending a position. (Author/BT) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. Civics: What Do 12th Graders Know, and What Can They Do? National Center for Education Statistics (ED), Washington, DC. Office of Educational Research and Improvement (ED), Washington, DC.
