The charter school sector has expanded beyond brick-and-mortar schools to cyber schools, where enrollment grew almost tenfold between 2015 and 2020. While a large literature documents the effects of charter schools on test scores, fewer studies explore impacts on attainment or postsecondary outcomes and there is almost no work exploring the…

Noncognitive constructs such as self-efficacy, social awareness, and academic engagement are widely acknowledged as critical components of human capital, but systematic data collection on such skills in school systems is complicated by conceptual ambiguities, measurement challenges and resource constraints. This study addresses this issue by…

We examine the effect of attending stand-alone technical high schools in Connecticut using regression discontinuity. Male students are 10 percentage points more likely to graduate from high school and have half a semester less time enrolled in college. Male students have 32% higher average quarterly earnings. Earnings effects may in part reflect…

The purpose of this study is to determine how home visits conducted by teachers from a diverse, urban high school impacted student success and relationships between parents and teachers. Participants were high school teachers who were invited to conduct home visits for rising ninth graders and the students visited at home. In this mixed methods…

Since 1988, 27 states have introduced No Pass, No Drive laws, which tie a teenager's ability to receive and maintain a driver's license to various school-related outcomes--most commonly, enrollment and attendance. Enrollment-Based No Pass, No Drive policies, in 21 states, target both enrollment and attendance, and have negligible effects on…

Racial disparities are evident across Washington's K-12 education system. This report provides an analysis of Washington K-12 education data and reveals that there are consistent opportunity gaps for students of color. The COVID-19 pandemic has emphasized the need to address racial disparities as communities of color have faced disproportionate…

Great City School districts that have embraced the challenge of educating America's urban children have recognized the value of benchmarking their performance and growth against the progress of others. This report presents a number of different ways that member districts can analyze the data themselves by disaggregating results, showing trends,…

Overall, Twilight credit recovery program student outcomes were positive during 2020-2021. The middle school students who participated in Twilight had a 60% success rate and high school students who participated in Twilight had a 77% success rate. In addition, 81% of the 12th graders who participated in Twilight graduated from high school. Lastly,…

We examine the effect of admission to 16 stand-alone technical high schools within the Connecticut Technical High School System (CTHSS) on student educational and labor market outcomes. To identify the causal effect of admission on student outcomes, we exploit the fact that CTHSS utilizes a score-based admissions system and identify the effect of…

The Washington State Board of Education (SBE) issues an annual report to the Governor, the Legislature, and the public, in accordance with the Charter School Act, RCW 28A.710.250. The statute requires the annual charter school report to include the following: (1) the performance of the state's charter schools during the preceding school year,…

In 2018, the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) developed an indicator for being "on track" at the end of a high school student's freshman year. As part of the district's overall strategy for improving graduation rates, school administrators currently use the Ninth Grade On-Track indicator as an early marker of progress towards…

Community asset mapping is an approach that school counselors can use to locate resources to meet the needs of families, schools, and communities. This article provides step-by-step instructions on how school counselors might use community asset mapping to address the needs of their population(s), illustrated with an example of implementation in a…

The move from eighth to ninth grade can be an emotional time. Students experience feelings of isolation and the fear of the unknown. In the transition, grade nine students experience a number of first times that challenge their abilities to manage their time wisely and stay focused. These first times include: (a) taking a class that counts towards…

This study used comparative interrupted times series analyses to assess the impact of a continuous improvement-focused family engagement intervention on ninth grade attendance and course passing rates. The intervention, conducted in an urban district, sought to improve middle and high school family engagement practices during the transition to…

Over the past decade, New York City's high school graduation rate has risen dramatically, yet roughly a quarter of each entering 9th-grade class still does not graduate on time. Some of these students permanently drop out in their first four years, but a much larger percentage actually stay enrolled (or reenroll after temporarily leaving school)…