A survey of 14 colleges and universities gathered information on the activities of trustees, including frequency of meetings, trustee assignments, meeting attendance rate, cumulative hours spent in meetings, additional committees, travel to meetings, and percentage of governing board members who held faculty appointments. (MSE)

Examined career academy student outcomes for 18 cohorts of entering students enrolled in 8 urban schools nationwide, analyzing attendance, grades, and graduation status. Compared to what would have been expected of the same students in the same schools' general academic programs, career academy students had higher first-year grade point averages,…

The aim of this study was to identify and re-present the experiences and views of a sample of children who have been 'missing' from education, and those of their parents/carers. Access to this hard to reach population has been possible as a result of an innovative interventionist tracking system, responding to pupil mobility, developed by the…

In this paper, the author discusses the recent National Center for Education Statistics study of students from the 1998 eighth-grade who had dropped out. The study found a surprisingly high percentage of these students had managed to obtain further education. The study defined a dropout as a student absent from school for four consecutive weeks or…

A major problem for large-enrollment, introductory college courses in natural resources and life sciences is poor attendance. To ameliorate this problem, we designed a hybrid course (part online, part face-to-face) to incorporate the advantages of online learning while retaining benefits of face-to-face instruction. We taught a hybrid introductory…

While initial access to education is increasing in many countries, drop out rates continue to be high. This seriously affects MDG and EFA goals around educational access. This briefing paper looks at the issue of dropping out from school. It is based on the CREATE Pathways to Access Research Monograph, "Dropping out from school: a cross…

Charter schools are publicly funded but operate outside the regulatory framework and collective bargaining agreements characteristic of traditional public schools. In return for this freedom, charter schools are subject to heightened accountability. This paper estimates the impact of charter school attendance on student achievement using data from…

The District conducts a "cross-sectional" analysis of student dropouts annually; it examines dropout rates among students enrolled in various grades at one point in time. A "longitudinal" analysis, also conducted annually, tracks a group of students in the same grade or cohort over a period of several years. Each method…

Using data from Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count, this issue examines the differing developmental needs and enrollment and persistence patterns of Achieving the Dream students by gender, with a focus on male students of color. The data show females in Achieving the Dream colleges, regardless of race, were less likely than males to…

Education Resource Strategies (ERS) works with school and district leaders to help them more strategically use resources--people, time, and money--to improve student performance. They have found that many school districts begin creating small high schools without a clear sense of how much they will spend or how to ensure that small schools…

Little research has examined the links between role status changes during the transition to adulthood and sexual behaviors that place African Americans at risk for sexually transmitted infections. Moreover, the mediating processes that explain these links, or protective factors that may buffer young adults from risky sexual behavior, are unknown.…

Background: Nearly 10% of students enrolled in US public schools are absent daily. Although previous research has shown associations of school absenteeism with participation in risk behaviors, it is unclear if these associations vary by whether the absence was excused. The purpose of this study was to examine the associations of health risk…

Objective: To examine acceptability, attrition, adherence, and preliminary efficacy of mobile phone short message service (SMS; text messaging) for monitoring healthful behaviors in children. Design: All randomized children received a brief psychoeducational intervention. They then either monitored target behaviors via SMS with feedback or via…

Decline in church attendance in England is well documented, though explanations vary. One explanation is that worship services themselves may be unattractive; even when Christian belief (of some kind) continues, there is no perceived need to express this through worship. Religious experiences of former attenders are not easily accessible; here the…

This document provides an overview of the student absentee problem in Canada. It extrapolates the principles and components from the vast range of intervention strategies and projects, and offers a strategy for improving school attendance. Literature on absenteeism written after 1985 demonstrates a shift of focus from the student as truant to the…