The expansion of Advanced Placement (AP) programs to include students from underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities and those from less advantaged socioeconomic backgrounds has made it crucial to assess how effective AP courses and exams are for these groups. As AP programs become more popular, more high school students--especially freshmen…

School climate is one of the most important school level factors shaping children's developmental outcomes. More specifically, school climate has been found to contribute to school practices that promote or hinder students' academic achievement, academic engagement, and academic motivation with more positive reports of school climate improving…

Given their lower socioeconomic background and achievement, immigrants and their descendants have been shown to make more ambitious decisions regarding educational transitions. While previous research has extensively analysed transitions within and after compulsory education, research on late transitions is scarce. This study focuses on the…

Background and Context: Social-emotional skills contribute to psychological well-being and achievement (Durlak, et al. 2011), and also forecast long-term outcomes like high school graduation and earnings (e.g., Dweck, Walton, & Cohen, 2011). A recent national survey of 884 principals in PreK-12 shows that 98% of principals believe that all…

The focus of this special edition is students' literacy development over the school years. Drawing on data that includes classroom interactions, analyses of texts, and interviews with students, this edition builds on the seminal treatment of the question of literacy transitions provided in Christie and Derewianka (2008). This paper aims to…

Background/Context: Increasing evidence suggests a connection between racial differences in rates of exclusionary discipline (suspensions/expulsions) and academic achievement by (Losen & Martinez, 2020; Reardon et al., 2018). Black students receive out-of-school suspensions and expulsions at disproportionately higher rates, which is associated…

This study presents a framework that uses academic trajectories in the middle grades for identifying students in need of intervention and providing targeted support. We apply a set of academic college readiness benchmarks to rich longitudinal data for more than 360,000 students in 5900 schools across 49 states and the District of Columbia. In both…