Charter Schools represent a small share of the national education market: just 6.2 percent of all public schools and 4.6 percent of all students. But their rapid growth over the past two decades has captured an outsized measure of public attention, especially in communities where district and charter schools operate side by side. At New York…

Driven by a combination of concern for historically high suspension rates and substantial disproportionalities in suspension use, a recent wave of education reforms encourages schools to reduce their use of suspensions for student behavior management. Both academic and political discourse has focused on the extensive use of suspension for…

Driven by a combination of concern for historically high suspension rates and substantial disproportionalities in suspension use, a recent wave of education reforms encourages schools to reduce their use of suspensions for student behavior management. Both academic and political discourse has focused on the extensive use of suspension for…

The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of early preparation for postsecondary education and explore the effectiveness of Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP). This comparative case study included 836 students from two cohorts (GEAR UP and Non GEAR UP). We compared high school attendance,…

Ninth Grade Academies (NGAs)--also called Freshman Academies--have attracted national attention as a particularly intensive and promising approach for supporting a successful transition for high school freshmen. An NGA is a self-contained learning community for ninth-graders that operates as a school within a school. NGAs have four core structural…

We report the implementation and evaluation of a "peer assisted learning" (PAL) scheme designed to reduce the so-called "cooling off" phenomenon in undergraduate mathematics. "Cooling off" occurs when mathematics undergraduates lose motivation and interest in their studies, despite having previously actively chosen to…

As part of its ongoing efforts to raise the academic achievement of children from low-income families in Kansas City, Missouri, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation founded the Ewing Marion Kauffman School in fall 2011. The Kauffman School's mission is "to prepare students to excel academically, graduate from college, and apply their unique…

Students who received mental health services at a Linkages to Learning (LTL) site showed improvement on some measures of well-being and school engagement, including self-ratings of self-concept and attendance. Families who received case management services showed improvement on multiple areas of self-sufficiency, and large percentages of…

This policy brief presents initial findings of the impact of New York City's Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) on academic outcomes for public school students. Despite the broad appeal of providing summer jobs for urban youth, there is little research documenting the relationship between summer employment and educational outcomes for high…

(Purpose) This study contributes to the knowledge base about strategies for helping disconnected youth re-engage with schooling. The study presents findings of a rigorous impact evaluation of the Good Shepherd Services (GSS) Transfer School Model that is grounded in developmental theory positing that social and emotional factors are essential to…

Sixty-four federal Elementary and Secondary School Counseling (ESSC) program grants were awarded in 2009. One awarded school district implemented a comprehensive school counseling program based on the ASCA National Model at three high-needs elementary schools. This case study describes a district initiative that provided prevention education for…

This research study aimed to identify any correlation between participation in afterschool robotics at the high school level and academic performance. Through a sample of N = 121 students, the researcher examined the grades and attendance of students who participated in a robotics program in the 2011-2012 school year. The academic record of these…

The Portland Schools Foundation's (PSF) Ninth Grade Counts initiative is a network of more than twenty independent summer transition programs targeting Academic Priority (or "at-risk") students. These programs share a common focus on providing academic support, enrichment, and career/college exposure for students who show early warning…

Objective: To determine if a relationship exists between participation in a school breakfast program and measures of psychosocial and academic functioning in school-aged children. Methods: Information on participation in a school breakfast program, school record data, and in-depth interviews with parents and children were collected in 1 public…