Data from the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972 (NLS) including the 1976 follow-up were used to examine the effects of interrupting or delaying school attendance on the eventual educational attainment of white male students. Background variables include socioeconomic and other family characteristics. Achievement test…

The 1968-69 evaluation of Kentucky's Rural Child Care Project had 5 major objectives: to assess the relationship between a child's attendance in a Child Development Center and his subsequent intellectual performance and academic achievement in elementary school; to evaluate the impact of changes in the Child Development Program itself on…

The Georgia Prekindergarten Program was established in 1993 to provide the state's 4-year-olds with high-quality preschool experiences. Beginning in the 1996-1997 school year, a sample of 3,639 children enrolled in 1 of 203 randomly selected Georgia prekindergarten classes was selected for a 5-year longitudinal study. The study examined how…

This study was a follow-up to one that gathered baseline data on aspects of Grade 1 as part of the on-going Statewide Texas Educational Progress Study (STEPS). While the Grade 1 study was limited to teachers' perceptions of student performance, this follow-up focused on factors most related to actual end-of-year student status. The purposes of the…

This paper considers the economic impact to the K-12 education system in the state of Wisconsin and in the district of Milwaukee from expanding provision of pre-kindergarten, which is known in Wisconsin as four-year-old kindergarten (4K). The proposed investment would make 4K available to a significantly larger number of children in the state.…

Urban elementary school teachers completed a checklist designed to determine a profile of the most significant factors that caused students to be at risk. Results indicated there were eight important factors: academic risk, behavior and coping skills, social withdrawal, family income, parenting, language development, retention, and attendance. (SM)

This case study focuses on qualitative indicators, though a number of quantitative indicators will be included to provide context. Qualitative issues to be looked at will include: education policies and, more specifically, curriculum-related policies containing provisions aimed at gender parity and equality in all aspects of education; gender…

Portuguese schools in urban areas became multicultural during the 90s. Some students are quite distanced from the school culture. Many repeat grades. The curriculum emerges as a means of (re)organizing school practice, so that it is designed to foster inclusion. It is a tool for social mediation between the culture and knowledge of teenagers, and…

A study begun in a Texas school district in 1988 focused on families of Mexican origin, studying characteristics of their schools and studying what the families and schools did or did not do to promote graduation from high school. The sample of 100 15-year-olds labeled as "at risk" was fairly typical of Latino students in the school…

This 10-year study compared the achievement of 3 samples of students designated at-risk for school failure and 1 sample deemed not at risk, and followed a transitional first-grade school readiness program (SRP) population from prekindergarten through eighth grade to identify contextual factors associated with student progress. At-risk samples were…

Over the past 10 years, kindergarten classes have escalated their academic demands in order to prepare children to begin first grade. In tandem with curricular changes, many parents have elected to "hold out" their children from first grade for an additional year, and increasingly, schools are using kindergarten retention in response to…

Rate of retention in grade is a measure of the number of students who repeat the grade they were in the year before. This report of retention rates is produced annually for the Austin (Texas) Independent School District, but contains information produced after the beginning of the school year and data produced at the end of the school year…

The study reported here is an analysis of 100 seventh graders who were part of a 1989 and 1991 follow-up Phi Delta Kappa study on high risk students enrolled in general education. In 1989, 26 of the 100 students were identified as at risk. Approximately 39% of the at-risk students were identified as eligible for special education, the vast…

This report examines factors contributing to grade repetition in rural elementary schools in Honduras. Forty schools in four Honduran departments were randomly selected from lists of schools with the highest and lowest repetition rates. Subjects were 1,854 students in Grade 1 or 3 during the 1990 school year who were still in the school in March…

The cohort method was used to compute graduation and dropout rates for 82,935 New York City public high school students who entered grade 9 in 1984 and were expected to graduate in June 1988. Separate studies were conducted for the following: (1) a 1-year follow-up of the Class of 1987; (2) a 2-year follow-up of the Class of 1986; (3) a…