Improvement in student performance from educational reforms has driven current calls for changes in curricular, instructional, and assessment practices in higher education. Less research has addressed the possibility of such reforms aiding in resolving the well-documented inequities in educational outcomes between sexes and races/ethnicities in…

The number of days missed due to suspensions (DMS) was analyzed in a national sample of K-12 public schools in the U.S. In the 2017-2018 national sample, about 11 million days of school were missed due to suspension. Rates of DMS varied across the regions of the U.S., from state to state, and from school to school (greater in nonelementary and…

While the majority of college students use credit cards for educational expenses like textbooks, recent data reports that college students also use credit cards to directly fund their schooling by charging for at least some part of their tuition (Sallie Mae, 2009). Because credit cards carry a higher interest rate than student loans, and because…

An estimated 1,400 colleges and universities nationwide have invested in predictive analytics technology to identify which students are at risk of failing courses or dropping out, with spending estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars. How accurate and stable are those predictions? The authors put six predictive models to the test to gain…

African American males inequitably experience two to three times more out-of-school suspensions among other exclusionary discipline practices in comparison with other racial groups, which causes them to become academically disengaged, increases their association with deviant peers, makes them resent of school personnel, and leads them to…

In an era of accountability for educational performance, community colleges should know whether student success is influenced by hiring racially diverse employees. Student interactions with diverse individuals improve student achievement on key performance indicators. This correlational study expands the limited body of knowledge on the…

This research study provides campus-type specific insight into the graduation rates of students of color at a departmental (i.e., School of Business) level. With underrepresented student populations comprising up to a third of business school enrollment, there is institutional and departmental value in understanding how, and at what levels,…

Low educational attainment of four-year college degrees in America is a concern attributed to specific factors such as the ratio of family size to family income, driven by a dilution of resources. Also having a negative effect on educational attainment are nontraditional family structures such as single, divorced, separated, same-sex, cohabiting,…

We use novel data on disciplinary referrals, including those that do not lead to suspensions, to better understand the origins of racial disparities in exclusionary discipline. We find significant differences between Black and white students in both referral rates and the rate at which referrals convert to suspensions. An infraction fixed-effects…

This study analyzed the impact of athletics on the academic achievement of middle school students in the Lowcountry region of South Carolina. This study determined whether middle school athletics impact athletes' achievement more than middle school nonathletes. The study further analyzed achievement based on race and gender, and English and Math…

This causal-comparative study explored if or to what extent student math scores on the Smarter Balanced Assessment differ by students' race and level of technology utilization in seventh-grade students enrolled in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). Equity Theory was the theoretical foundation. Archival de-identified data sample of N…

Nearly 3.5 million American students (K-12) experience some form of ostracization from educational settings yearly in the form of In-School-Suspension (ISS), Out-of-School suspension (OSS), or expulsion. Impact research reveals that exclusionary practices correlate with negative outcomes for students including academic achievement (e.g., lower…

Some of the worst long-term outcomes of children are associated with the presence of both externalizing behavior and low academic achievement. Additionally, trajectories of externalizing problem behavior have shown that when children enter kindergarten with problem behavior, it tends to persist and is often associated with low academic…

In response to patterns of educational inequity, many schools implement system-wide behavioral frameworks to reduce exclusionary discipline. School-wide positive behavior supports (SWPBS) is one such framework that supports socially appropriate behavior by enhancing the capacity of schools to implement research-validated practices. However, there…

School discipline disparities within the U.S. P-12 public schooling system have been a staple issue for over four decades. The enforcement of out-of-school suspensions, in particular by inexperienced teachers, have traditionally impacted Black and Latinx students more than White students. Yet teachers are not the final decision-makers regarding…