Every year 1.3 million U.S. high school students drop out of school with one quarter of female students failing to graduate on time. Female dropouts are more likely to be unemployed, to earn less when they are employed, to become pregnant before the age of 20, to become obese, to smoke, and to drink more heavily than their male counterparts. This…

The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 (ECLS-K), selected a nationally representative sample of approximately 22,000 kindergartners in the fall of 1998 and is following these children through the end of the fifth grade. Baseline data about these children, their families, and their kindergarten programs were collected…