Teacher-student trust is associated with the social and emotional development of students, their school connectedness and engagement, and their academic achievement. However, few studies have examined how trust develops between teachers and students in ninth grade, a critical year in high school for students to start off on-track. Even less…

Chicago Public Schools (CPS) offers many options when it comes to high school enrollment. In fact, since the 2015-16 school year, about three out of every four incoming ninth-graders have chosen to attend a high school other than their assigned neighborhood school. Despite the widespread engagement in school choice, the high school application…

The study reviewed in this paper examined the effect of school choice on the criminal activity, academic achievement, and high school graduation rate of more than 2,000 male middle and high school students in North Carolina's Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district. For the 2002-03 school year, all district students were given the choice to either…

The School District of Philadelphia's tiered system of selective, nonselective, and charter high schools, and the process for high school choice, has created real variation in the degree to which high schools can successfully meet the needs of ninth graders. Research has shown that the ninth grade year is critical in determining a student's…

Magnet schools have been criticized for intensifying the concentration of disadvantaged, low-achieving students at neighborhood high schools. This article investigates the impact of academically selective magnet high schools on the average achievement of ninth graders enrolling in neighborhood high schools in a large urban school district. The…

Despite the growth of a variety of alternatives to the neighborhood high school, most students in big-city school systems still attend large comprehensive high schools that serve a particular residential area. The authors contend that the extreme concentration of educational need at these schools is often overlooked by policymakers, school reform…