This paper considers an unavoidable feature of the school environment, class rank. What are the long run effects of a student's ordinal rank in elementary school? Using administrative data from all public school students in Texas, we show that students with a higher third grade academic rank, conditional on achievement and classroom fixed effects,…

This case exemplifies the unintended divisive cause and effect dynamic that can occur as a direct result of a seemingly innocuous school board policy modification. A change in school board policy at a local school district in Laredo, Texas, was designed to facilitate the fulfillment of a foreign language requirement for high school students. A…

The College Board Advanced Placement Program allows high school students to take college-level courses and if an appropriate score on an exam is received, college credit is earned. While the program has had its detractors (access in rural and inner-city schools, lack of diversity, pre-selection of talented students, poor articulation with actual…

The purpose of this study is to develop a preadmission predictive model of student success for prospective first-time African American college applicants at a predominately White four-year public institution within the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. This model will use two types of variables. They are (a) cognitive variables (i.e.,…