Culturally and linguistically diverse students with learning disorders (LD) and emotional or behavioral disorders (E/BD) have higher school dropout rates than their peers with and without disabilities. The primary purpose of this study was to determine how early potential dropouts could be identified. Research questions included the following: (a)…

This study contributes to the field by identifying a broad range of traditional and newer middle grade policies and practices, and determining in California which of these differentiate higher- from lower-performing schools serving similar student populations, with performance measured by the state's standards-based tests. Based on a sample of 303…

In the 2008-09 school year researchers from EdSource and Stanford University conducted a large-scale study of 303 middle grades schools in California. The team surveyed 303 principals, 3,752 English Language Arts (ELA) and math teachers in grades 6-8, and 157 superintendents of the districts and charter management organizations that oversee the…

North Carolina has a dropout crisis--only two thirds of North Carolina high school students graduate. One reason this crisis has not received the attention it deserves is because the state was reporting badly inflated graduation rates (supposedly as high as 97 percent) until it finally adopted a more realistic reporting method earlier this year.…

Research has documented a crisis in South Carolina's high school graduation rate. While state officials report a graduation rate above 70 percent, researchers from South Carolina and elsewhere place the rate just above 50 percent, with rates among minority students lower than 50 percent. South Carolina's graduation rate is the worst of all 50…

This report summarizes Austin ISD's state-funded Optional Extended Year Program activities for the 2006-2007 school year.

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Where High Turnover Meets Low Performance: New Initiatives Target the Special Problems of Hard-to-Staff Schools (Alexander Russo); (2) Parents as Partners in School Reform:…

This comprehensive review of 16 nationally representative public opinion polls conducted between 2000 and 2006 provides insight into how teachers, school administrators, parents, and the general public view the teaching profession. It looks specifically at issues of teacher availability, recruitment, and retention for at-risk and hard-to-staff…

The U.S. Department of Education's Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse and Violence Prevention publishes "Catalyst," a newsletter covering current Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse and Violence (AODV) prevention issues at institutions of higher education. "Catalyst" discusses emerging issues and highlights…

No Child Left Behind is one of several factors motivating more and more high schools to work with their students to stay on track to graduating within four years. Unfortunately, research shows that neither by themselves works especially well: retention and social promotion are expensive failures. They are ineffective in improving student learning…

Today and every day, in neighborhoods and communities throughout Philadelphia, young people are making decisions that will change their lives forever. Some will decide to stay in school, graduate, and prepare themselves for college and careers. Others, who left school without a diploma, will summon the courage to seek out educational programs they…

This report summarizes evaluation results for the AISD 2001-2002 Optional Extended Year state-funded grant program.

This report summarizes evaluation results from AISD's federally-funded Title I supported activities at facilities for neglected youth and facilities for delinquent youth during 2002-2003.

Mentoring programs are increasingly popular as preventive and/or supportive interventions for youth with various needs. A meta-analysis of mentoring program effects conducted by DuBois, Holloway, Valentine, and Cooper (2002) suggests that youth from backgrounds of risk (defined broadly) have the capacity to benefit from mentoring, especially when…

This short-term longitudinal study examined relations between emotion knowledge and social functioning in a sample of low-income kindergarten and 1st graders. Individual differences in spontaneous emotion naming and emotion recognition skills were used to predict children's social functioning at school, including peer-nominated sociometric status,…