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On-time high school graduation is an important topic in educational research, policy, and practice. However, no comprehensive meta-analyses had been conducted on this topic. The current meta-analysis reviewed 47 articles published from 1985 to April 2022 and aggregated the effect in four dimensions: student background, family support, school program and support, and school climate, with a focus on school-related practices, policies, and programs. Twelve factors along various dimensions had statistically significant positive or negative effects on on-time graduation. Implications of these findings are discussed.

In this article, we intend to illustrate the notion, practice, and evaluation methods and results related to building an effective, efficient, and equitable early care and education (ECE) system. We point out the dominant approach, in practice and evaluation, of focusing on a single ECE program to improve ECE, propose a model of developing an ECE system that is effective, efficient, and equitable, and illustrate how to use empirical evaluation data to facilitate and validate the building of such a system. Implications are discussed for improving ECE systems and ultimately child outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]