The aim of the study is to identify variables that explain students' academic performance, determine their relative importance, and consequently, develop an index to distinguish advantaged and disadvantaged schools in pursuit of educational equality. By using this index, we intend to build a model for evaluating schools' overall performance based…

A randomized control trial was conducted to study whether providing 10th grade students with information about the returns to upper secondary and tertiary education, and a source of financial aid for tertiary education, can contribute to improve student performance. The study finds that the intervention had no effects on the probability of taking…

Evidence points to associations between the socioeconomic composition of neighborhoods and children's and adolescents' development. A minimal amount of research, however, examines how timing of exposure to neighborhood socioeconomic conditions matters. This study used longitudinal data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development…

This qualitative study examined the perceived career options of 10 White adolescent young women who experienced social class privilege in their families of origin. The model of contextual privilege and career selection for adolescent White women emerged from the data, and it describes how social class privilege, gender, achievement expectations,…

This study examines the distribution, change, and impact of the Index of Teacher Academic Capital (ITAC) in all Illinois public schools from 2001 to 2006. The ITAC is a school-level composite of five measures: teacher ACT Composite and English scores, teacher Basic Skills Test results, teacher certification status, and teacher undergraduate…

President George W. Bush signed into legislation one of the most influential and controversial educational reforms--the 2001 "No Child Left Behind Act" (NCLB). The purpose of the NCLB is to "ensure that all children have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education and reach, at a minimum,…