Chronic absenteeism spiked during the pandemic and remains a serious problem. Drawing on the American Enterprise Institute's Return to Learn Tracker chronic absenteeism data collection, which includes district-level data from 44 states, this report documents modest progress: National chronic absenteeism fell to 25.4 percent in 2023 and to 23.5…

This report documents chronic absenteeism over the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on the American Enterprise Institute's Return to Learn Tracker Chronic Absenteeism Data Collection, it shows that increases in chronic absenteeism were widespread during the pandemic. More worrisome, using the most recent data for the 2022-2023 school year, even after…

Leveraging achievement data measured in the fall and spring of kindergarten through eighth grade for 840,000 students attending 8,800 public schools, we report novel evidence on how achievement and growth patterns differ between rural and nonrural schools. Rural students start kindergarten slightly ahead of nonrural students but fall behind by…

Every two years, the Educator Licensing Division of the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) is tasked with producing a report on the supply and demand of teachers. By statute, that report must contain data collected by surveying Minnesota public school districts, charter schools, and teacher preparation institutions. This report presents…

Substance use is a leading cause of preventable morbidity and mortality, and it is in large part why people in the U.S. have the highest probability among 17 high-income nations of dying by age 50. Substance use is also an important contributor to many social ills including child and spouse abuse, violence more generally, theft, suicide, and more;…

Monitoring the Future (MTF), now in its 35th year, has become one of the nation's most relied-upon sources of information on changes taking place in licit and illicit psychoactive drug use among American adolescents, college students, young adults, and more recently, middle-aged adults. During the last three and a half decades, the study has…

Monitoring the Future is a long-term program of research being conducted at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research under a series of investigator-initiated research grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Now in its 34th year, the study is comprised of several ongoing series of annual surveys of nationally…

For the year 1987, 24.4 % of American households were touched by crime. A household is considered touched by crime if during the year it was affected by a burglarly, auto theft, or household theft or if a household member was raped, robbed, or assaulted or was a victim of personal theft, no matter where the crime occurred. These offenses, which…

Long-term poverty rates among nonmetro Blacks have fallen dramatically since the early 1970s. Associated with that improvement are higher levels of education among young adults and smaller family size. Despite improvements, poverty levels are still much higher for Blacks than for Whites in both metro and nonmetro areas. (Author/KS)

Monitoring the Future is a long-term program of research being conducted at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research under a series of investigator-initiated research grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Now in its 33rd year, the study is comprised of several ongoing series of annual surveys of nationally…

Nonmetro educational attainment increased substantially between 1970 and 1990; however, nonmetro areas continued to lag metro in both high school and college completion rates. The metro-nonmetro gap in high school completion rates narrowed, whereas the gap in four-year college degree completion rates widened. Compares completion rates by region,…

Between 1959 and 1979, the economic status of nonmetropolitan Black, Mexican-American, and Native American families improved substantially, but nonmetropolitan Black and Mexican-American family incomes deteriorated significantly from 1979 to 1986. Labor force commitment reduced family poverty more effectively than public assistance for all groups.…

This study is an empirical analysis of urban employment changes in the United States between 1980 and 1984. The paper follows other recent work on the economics of urban and regional employment growth. Particular attention is paid to the effects on employment of schooling attainment and per pupil schooling expenditures. In addition, the effect of…

In the higher education sector most students enrol in a course with the intention of obtaining a qualification. In the vocational education and training (VET) sector many students tend to complete only some units of competencies or modules of a course. This study analysed the progress until 2000 of students who commenced a TAFE course in 1997, and…

This report focuses on the education and work experiences of rural youth during the emerging adult years (age 20 to 24), as they make the transition from adolescence to adulthood. It documents how rural emerging adults combine work and school and experience idleness, closely examines their educational attainment, and compares their experiences…