Taking the school bus has long been an integral part of the school experience in the U.S. However, not much is known about how school transportation relates to getting to school each day, particularly for students with disabilities. This study used ECLS-K: 2011 to explore two issues. First, we examined what characteristics are associated with…

Moving can be a stressful and disruptive event for children, but the associations among the type of move, accompanying neighborhood characteristics, and children's development are less well understood, particularly for elementary school children. In the current dissertation, I developed and tested components of a conceptual model that uses…

Research Findings: There is growing evidence that home learning stimulation that includes informal numeracy experiences can promote math-related learning in school. Furthermore, national studies suggest that children who start kindergarten with stronger math skills are more likely to succeed in high school. This study used a large sample of…

As school choice options have evolved over recent years, it is important to understand what family and school factors are associated with the enrollment decisions families make. Use of restricted-access data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study allowed us to identify household location from a nationally representative sample of students and…

The purpose of the current study was to investigate the association between fathers' involvement and the presence of later symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children. A community-based, nationally representative sample of children from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort was utilised. Using a…

The effects of geographic variations in cost of living and family income on children's academic achievement and social competence in first grade (mean age = 86.9 months) were examined, mediated through material hardship, parental investments, family stress, and school resources. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten…

Given the recent rise in childhood obesity, the School Breakfast Program (SBP) and National School Lunch Program (NSLP) have received renewed attention. Using panel data on more than 13,500 primary school students, we assess the relationship between SBP and NSLP participation and (relatively) long-run measures of child weight. After documenting a…

There is a strong relationship between students' socioeconomic status and their levels of academic achievement. Although educators should be held accountable for improving the performance of all students, including those living in poverty, schools alone can't eliminate the negative factors associated with poverty that lead to a large achievement…

Utilizing data on approximately 16,000 children from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey-Kindergarten Cohort and a rich set of mediating factors on 16 immigrant groups, this paper examined the associations between children's immigrant generation status and their academic performance. The changes in academic achievements during kindergarten and…