A fifth-year high school teacher recounts her experiences with her students and her sense of loss after their graduation. She describes her initial apprehensions about getting along with the new group and the way she accepted the new seniors without comparing them with her previous batch.

Policy makers really sounded off this spring about public education. State legislators derided No Child Left Behind (NCLB) for taking away state prerogatives in setting education policy and the National Governors Association essentially tell federal officials to stay away from repeating NCLB at the high school level. President Bush tried to move…

The focus of the paper is the development of a novel conceptual framework that aims to remedy a critical mis-specification in prior research on the impact of financial aid on academic outcomes: the blending of the effect of aid eligibility with the influence of aid amounts on academic outcomes. To assess the impact of aid amounts received on…

This study explored factors that lead alternative education program completers eventually to drop out of school. When compared with alternative school peers who went on to graduate, certain differences emerge. Those disengaging are more likely to be students of color with lower achievement scores who do not easily engage with school or prosocial…

There are many reasons a student may become disinterested in academics and many ways they can fail in school and in society. Most educators will quickly admit nothing is more fulfilling than seeing a troubled student succeed in school and earn a diploma. The state of Wisconsin recognized this, a full decade before the No Child Left Behind Act, and…

An increasing number of urban districts are scrapping traditional high school grade structures, changing their retention policies, and devising more flexible routes toward graduation to address high dropout rates. Educators in Baltimore, Boston, Houston and Rochester, New York say they are particularly focused on the 9th grade, a year when many…

This report provides information on the outcomes of the Intervention for College Attendance Program, a program of competitive grants awarded to postsecondary institutions, professional organizations and community-based organizations. Funded programs focus on increasing the access and success of groups traditionally underrepresented in higher…

The Denver Public Schools (DPS) provide a unique opportunity to study the dynamics of school segregation within the context of rapid demographic changes and key policy changes. This paper, the first of two reports, focuses on the dynamics of segregation, demographic changes, and implications for graduation rates in the Denver Public Schools. It…

This paper provides new information on what proportion of individuals spend their adult work lives in their childhood metropolitan area or state. I also examine how this proportion varies across different demographic groups, and with the size and growth rate of the metropolitan area. I find that the proportion of individuals who spend most of…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions Latino eighth grade students have of school and schooling factors as they transition to high school and the factors that may influence their self-perceived likelihood of graduating from high school. Middle schools are poised to help Latino students prepare themselves for a smoother…

High-school grades are often viewed as an unreliable criterion for college admissions, owing to differences in grading standards across high schools, while standardized tests are seen as methodologically rigorous, providing a more uniform and valid yardstick for assessing student ability and achievement. The present study challenges that…

THE STUDY WAS DESIGNED TO DETERMINE THE DEGREE OF ACADEMIC SUCCESS OF STUDENTS OF AVERAGE ABILITY WHO ENROLLED AS FRESHMEN IN A CALIFORNIA JUNIOR COLLEGE DURING AN 11-YEAR PERIOD. THE SUBJECTS WERE THOSE WHO (1) SCORED IN THE MIDDLE 20 PERCENT OF NATIONAL JUNIOR COLLEGE NORMS ON A COLLEGE APTITUDE TEST AND (2) EARNED IQ SCORES FROM 90 TO 110 ON…

It has often been suggested by economists and other social scientists that the educational system may conveniently be viewed as a production process. The primary output of this process is an increase in the student's stock of knowledge and skill, and the inputs to the process including the student's time (the productivity of which depends upon a…

The Search for Education, Elevation, and Knowledge (SEEK) program of the City University of New York provides special services to economically disadvantaged students. Graduation data for SEEK students are compared to those for students who were eligible for SEEK, denied admission by random procedures, and entered the college anyway. (Author/GDC)

The National League for Nursing's Division of Research presents its annual report on admissions, enrollments, and graduations in practical, diploma, associate degree, baccalaureate degree, and graduate programs in nursing. Data were obtained from State boards of nursing, schools of nursing, and a survey of colleges and universities. (MF)