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Building on previous research showing how well ninth-grade student behaviors predict on-time high school graduation, this experimental study investigates the impact of a ninth-grade interve...

This study focuses on the implementation of an early warning indicator and intervention system in 20 southern high schools. This model included a team of teachers, counselors, and student s...

Following a 2008 report that documented the extent of chronic absenteeism in New York City's schools, the city organized an interagency task force to develop and implement a citywide effort to redu...

According to current estimates, more than a quarter of all students and over 40 percent of African American and Hispanic students do not graduate from high school on time. The vast majority of those young people who do not graduate with their peers drop out. The enormous costs to these individuals, their communities, and our society require us to invest in systems that accurately identify young people at risk of dropping out and provide the supports necessary to keep them on track to graduation. This chapter offers a framework for action that calls on communities to identify the scale and scope of the dropout problem and understand why students disengage from school; transform or replace low-performing schools; install early warning and multitiered response systems that provide comprehensive, targeted, and intensive supports to students in and out of school; establish supportive policies and resource allocations; and build community will and capacity so positive changes are deeply implemented and sustained.

This article considers the practical, conceptual, and empirical foundations of an early identification and intervention system for middle-grades schools to combat student disengagement and increase graduation rates in our nation's cities. Many students in urban schools become disengaged at the start of the middle grades, which greatly reduces the odds that they will eventually graduate. We use longitudinal analyses—following almost 13,000 students from 1996 until 2004—to demonstrate how four predictive indicators reflecting poor attendance, misbehavior, and course failures in sixth grade can be used to identify 60% of the students who will not graduate from high school. Fortunately, by combining effective whole-school reforms with attendance, behavioral, and extra-help interventions, graduation rates can be substantially increased.

This article examines the extent to which adequate yearly progress (AYP) is a valid and reliable indicator of improvement in low-performing high schools. For a random subsample of 202 high schools, the authors investigate the school characteristics and the federal and state policy contexts that influence their AYP status. Logistic regression models reveal that the strongest predictors of AYP status in low-performing high schools are the number of student subgroups for which schools are accountable and their No Child Left Behind improvement status. Analysis of state report card data further paints a confusing landscape in which improving low-performing high schools are sanctioned whereas similar schools showing less improvement are not.

Despite the growth of a variety of alternatives to the neighborhood high school, most students in big-city school systems still attend large comprehensive high schools that serve a particular residential area. The authors contend that the extreme concentration of educational need at these schools is often overlooked by policymakers, school reform programs, and even district personnel. To illustrate the challenges facing neighborhood high schools, this article examines key academic characteristics of 9th-graders in Philadelphia during the 1999-2000 school year. The authors find that a large percentage of 9th graders at neighborhood high schools have been 9th graders for 2 or more years. Many of the 1st-time 9th graders either are over-age, are 2 or more years below grade level in reading and math, or had weak attendance in 8th grade. These data suggest that large and sustained investments of human and financial capital are desperately needed in the many neighborhood schools that serve primarily, and often ...

The mathematics achievement levels of U.S. students fall far behind those of other developed nations; within the United States itself, the students who are falling behind come predominantly from high-poverty and high-minority areas. This article reports on a series of analyses that followed 4 cohorts of students from 3 such schools through the 5th to 8th grades, where studies have found the mathematics achievement gap to develop most rapidly. The cohorts followed in these analyses attended schools implementing whole-school reform models that incorporated research-based, proven curricula, subject-specific teacher training and professional development, multiple layers of teacher and classroom support, and school climate reforms. The research found that students at schools implementing the whole-school reform (WSR) models made greater progress in closing the mathematics achievement gap than at the other 23 high-poverty, high-minority schools in their district. Using the results from a Binary Logistic Regress...

Little is known about the feasibility and rapidity with which the academic learning of students who enter high school multiple years behind grade level can be accelerated. This study uses multiple regression analyses of standardized test and survey data from high-poverty high schools in two large urban districts to evaluate initial effects of the Talent Development High Schools (TDHS) ninthgrade instructional program in reading and mathematics. Pre-, post-, and match-control comparisons show that students in TDHS significantly outperformed students in the control schools in mathematics and reading. Supplemental surveys show a higher percentage of students in TDHS reported learning new skills, strategies, and concepts, and TDHS teachers indicated they were able to use a more varied set of activities during extended periods, use cooperative learning strategies, engage students in group projects, and have students present multiple solutions or methods and relate their academic work to real-world experiences and examples.

Big Math for Little Kids, a comprehensive program for 4- and 5-year-olds, develops and expands on the mathematics that children know and are capable of doing. The program uses activities and stories to develop ideas about number, shape, pattern, logical reasoning, measurement, operations on numbers, and space. The activities introduce the mathematical ideas in a coherent, carefully sequenced fashion, and are designed to promote curiosity and excitement about learning and doing mathematics. The program produces playful but purposeful learning of deep mathematical ideas, and encourages children to think about and express their mathematical thinking. Throughout the program, great emphasis is placed on the development of mathematical and mathematics-related language. Our observations suggest two broad questions for future research: What kinds of competence can children develop in the context of a rich mathematics environment? In what ways can mathematics learning promote language and literacy?

How many four-year-olds do you know who like to stomp, wiggle, and shout as they count to one hundred; go on a shape hunt to find examples of spheres, cubes, and rectangular prisms; help finish a story about a fantastic pasta maker by completing complex patterns; create and compare two towers of connecting cubes to figure out whose is taller and by how much; and use a map to locate objects in a room? Our answer is just about every four- and five-year-old we have observed over the past four years while developing the Big Math for Little Kids prekindergarten and kindergarten mathematics program. We began this process in the late 1990s because we were dissatisfied with the current state of early childhood mathematics. We observed teachers exposing young children to little or no interesting mathematics or instructing them to learn skills and concepts that they already knew (Greenes 1999). This observation contrasted with the wide range of mathematical ideas and skills that the children explored and employed during free play (Ginsburg 1999). We examined the historical record and learned that over the past two centuries, early childhood mathematics has gone through brief periods of richness followed by longer periods during which the mathematical interests and abilities of young children were seriously underestimated (Balfanz 1999). Aided by funding from the National Science Foundation, we decided to try to create an early childhood mathematics program that would build on the diverse mathematical interests and rich, implicit understandings of mathematics that young children hold.

This article discusses the need for comprehensive reforms in school organization, curriculum and instruction, and professional development in order to address the typical, serious problems of large, urban, nonselective high schools. The article describes the design, implementation, and effectiveness of the Talent Development High School with Career Academies, a comprehensive school reform model developed to meet these schools' needs. A plan is outlined for additional research, development, and evaluation activities to complete this model for the remaining core high school academic subjects and grades, and to provide technical assistance materials and support for further replicating the model in high schools across the nation.

The Johns Hopkins Talent Development Middle School model aims to transform high-poverty, urban middle schools into strong learning institutions that reliably provide every student with a standards-based education and every teacher with the training, support, and materials she or he needs to deliver it. Two of the model's developers discuss 10 lessons learned from implementing, refining, and evaluating this model in 5 high-poverty middle schools in Philadelphia and discuss obstacles they have encountered and breakthroughs they made in developing the knowledge base, materials, and infrastructure needed. Taken together, the lessons suggest that "improvement now" in curriculum and instruction and in student achievement is a realistic goal even in high-poverty, urban middle schools. However, such improvement requires multiple layers of sustained technical assistance and implementation support and also requires local partners who can help the model to become integrated into the fabric of the school district.

A case study of Patterson High School, a large nonselective urban school in Baltimore, describes the design and implementation of the Talent Development Model with Career Academies. Specific school organization and instructional reforms are phased in over 2 years to address the underlying problems of student anonymity, apathy, and diversity at the school. Qualitative and quantitative evidence is provided on significant improvements in school climate, student attendance, promotion rates, and test stores.

This study uses historical state-level schooling data, a direct measure of manufacturing productivity, and quantitative methods to examine the relationship between changes in the rate and distribution of public school expenditures, the organization of public schooling, and economic growth at state-level in the United States from 1880 to 1940. The determinants of public school expenditures at the state-level are examined and interstate differences in the growth and distribution of public school funds are detailed. The paper then explores if state differences in the growth of per student expenditures on teachers salaries and school infrastructure were related to later changes in manufacturing productivity. Significant and substantial effects for per student spending on school infrastructure are found.

This study is based upon a longitudinal analysis of data for a cohort of 181,897 Florida state students who were first time 9th graders in the 2000-01 school year and follows them trough to high school and post-secondary outcomes. Analysis of 9th grade suspension data finds that black students, students who are economically disadvantaged, and special education students are three demographics subgroups that are disproportionately suspended, both in the frequency of suspensions and the duration in number of school days lost. While poverty and ethnicity are themselves highly correlated, poverty alone does not explain the disproportionate suspension rates amongst black students. Further analyses show that out-of-school suspensions in the 9th grade year are also significantly and negatively correlated to later high school graduation as well as post-secondary enrollment and persistence. Thus demographic disparities in disciplinary incidents serve to further widen any academic achievement gaps. Closer analysis though shows though that disciplinary incidents are interrelated with other of indicators of student disengagement from school, such as course failures and absenteeism. Therefore, policies seeking to address these issues cannot focus on reducing suspensions alone, but must also address student attendance and course passing in a comprehensive and systematic manner.

As the twenty-first century opens, says Robert Balfanz, the United States is developing a deep social consensus that American high schools should ensure that all adolescents graduate from high school prepared for postsecondary schooling and training. Balfanz asks how well high schools are succeeding in this mission and whether they can ultimately fulfill it. Balfanz first surveys the structure and demographics of today's high schools. Forty percent of white students attend high schools that are 90 percent or more white, while roughly one-third of Latino and African American students attend high schools that are 90 percent or more minority. Minority students are also much more likely than white students to attend high schools that confront the challenges of concentrated poverty. In predominantly white, affluent suburban school districts, nearly every student arrives ready for high school work and then graduates. In all-minority inner city schools in high-poverty neighborhoods, most entering students lack a good middle school education and only half to two-thirds graduate. With only a third to a half of high school graduates today prepared to succeed in college, how likely is it that American high schools will succeed in their mission of preparing all students for additional schooling or training? Balfanz argues that reforms over the past twenty-five years offer some hope. The standards and accountability movement has made the American high school a more focused and academic place. College preparatory course-taking has increased substantially, as has standardized testing. Mandatory exit exams have been imposed. And during the past decade, in particular, reformers have made a concerted effort to improve the low-performing high schools that serve low-income and minority students. Investments by the federal government and by foundations have led to the development of several types of reforms that have been proven effective, thus raising hopes that the nation's lowest-performing high schools can better serve their students. Still, the American high school has a considerable way to go to be able to prepare all students for further schooling or training. To advance all its students, it must find a way to bring to scale the methods and mechanisms, conditions, and know-how that have enabled a few low-performing high schools to achieve this transformation.

This article explores the relationship between local (informal) knowledge, academic skills, and individual productivity. It argues that educational reform efforts often misinterpret and simplify this relationship in their attempt to improve the contribution of mass schooling to individual performance at work and as a citizen. As a consequence, many contemporary reform efforts inaccurately portray the productive capacity of the American public, propose curricular reforms and measurement strategies which are conceptually under developed, and may fail to realize their stated goals.

This article uses data from several elementary school classrooms in Chicago on how students learn to calculate, and reviews similar data from a number of developing countries to examine the strengths and limitations of using the mathematical knowledge which students develop on their own outside of formal schooling to increase the amount, range and power of mathematical knowledge which is acquired through formal schooling. In so doing it attempts to reconcile the views of those who believe that the key to improving elementary school quality lies in improving the technology of instruction and those who believe that it lies in a deeper understanding of the mental life of children. It concludes by arguing that the quality of elementary schooling can be improved through skilled management of the environmentally acquired knowledge which students bring to instruction, if this knowledge is transformed through pedagogic and curricular interventions into a set of portable intellectual skills.

Evidence-based observations of how the juvenile justice and educational systems can work more effectively together are presented.

It is often said that the best way to teach mathematics is to expand upon the knowledge and skills children bring to school. The question which needs to be answered then is what are these skills and knowledge? The specific approach adopted here is a cross-cultural survey of the early environmental mathematical experience of children and the effects this experience has on their school performance. The focus will be on the non-industrialized world. This approach was adopted because the environmental experience of children in non-industrial countries is perhaps richer and more varied than the early environmental experience of children from industrialized nations. Customs, economic systems, habitats, and culture differ considerably in non-industrial nations and children are often exposed to adult functions at an early age. The paper is organized in the following manner. The first section examines mathematical knowledge which is explicitly acquired outside school. The second section will deal with mathematical knowledge which is implicitly acquired or implicitly available through participation in environmental activities. The third section will examine the role of environmental experience in a range of supplemental abilities which influence mathematical cognition. A note of caution needs to be kept in mind while reading this paper. The most comprehensive work on early mathematical knowledge comes from two disparate parts of the world, West Africa and Papua New Guinea. While these areas reflect complex and varied environments, they do not capture the range of economic, geographic and cultural diversity which exists in the world. Different environments and different responses to those environments may well develop different types of mathematical knowledge. Thus the conclusions drawn from the data should not be generalized too far. Rather they should be viewed as indications and possible trends.