Students across the nation are encountering more and more difficulties in their transition to high school. Not only are a significant number of students dropping out, but those who stay are also leaving high school without the skills they need to become productive citizens. Several intervention strategies are recommended to help students make a…

Oregon Department of Education staff spoke with principals from five Oregon schools that had low rates of chronic absenteeism compared to schools with similar demographics during the 2014-15 school year: Echo Shaw Elementary School, Free Orchards Elementary School, Dayton Junior High School, Valor Middle School, and North Marion High School. Each…

City Year is a learning organization committed to the rigorous evaluation of its "Whole School Whole Child" model, which trains and deploys teams of AmeriCorps members to low-performing, urban schools to empower more students to reach their full potential. A third-party study by Policy Studies Associates (PSA) examined the impact of…

Despite the introduction of Free Primary Education in 2003 by the Kenya government in its quest to increasing access, retention and equity in education provision, child survival rate in primary schools in Mbita Sub-county is still 85.2% and is below the national survival rate of 97.1%. It was due to this low retention rate that the study was set…

Seasonal influenza is recognized as a significant health burden to children and is a cause of excess school absenteeism in children. In 2008, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommended annual influenza vaccination for all children 6 months to 18 years of age. School nurses influence participation in this recommendation by…

Recognizing the importance of both keeping middle school students engaged and improving their math skills, Baltimore City Public Schools (City Schools) developed a summer school STEM program involving not only math and science instruction but also the experience of building a robot and competing with those robots in a city-wide tournament.…

Seven schools in an economically challenged area of an urban school district in central California implemented mentored peer mediation programs under the guidance of a university-K-12 partnership project, Mediator Mentors. Individual student outcomes for social-cognitive dispositions, perceptions of school climate, conflict strategy choices, and…

The purpose of this quantitative, nonexperimental study was to determine if and to what extent a difference existed in the percentage of African American students, percentage of economically disadvantaged students, and students' attendance rate in elementary schools that made adequate yearly progress (AYP) and those that did not make AYP in one…

Recent evidence suggests that the neighborhood context, particularly for urban youth, can influence a range of outcomes. This study makes contributions to the field by examining how the neighborhood context directly relates to missing school. To do so, this study employs a large-scale, longitudinal data set of multilevel observations for entire…

This study hypothesized that HISD prekindergarten participation consistently correlated with better educational outcomes for students. Taking into account students' age differences through kindergarten enrollment, propensity score matching controlled for students' background characteristics. Three cohorts of students in this study were eligible or…

The study examined the effectiveness of Philadelphia's Renaissance Schools Initiative after one year of implementation. The Renaissance Schools Initiative, which began in the 2010-11 school year, aimed at improving low-performing schools by providing new management, additional resources, and new educational strategies. The study reported that…

In lower- and middle-income countries, including Ghana, students in rural areas dramatically underperform their urban peers. Rural schools struggle to attract and retain professionally trained teachers (GES 2012; World Bank 2012). We explore one potential solution to the problem of teacher recruitment: distance instruction. Through a cluster…

This study examined the unique and combined associations of homelessness and school mobility with educational well-being indicators, as well as the mediating effect of absenteeism, for an entire cohort of third-grade students in Philadelphia. Using integrated archival administrative data from the public school district and the municipal Office of…

Truancy is an important issue facing U.S. school systems as it is known that students who are truant are more likely to participate in criminal activity later in life (Baker, Sigmon & Nugent, 2001; Henry & Thornberry, 2010). This study examines recent data from students at 21 schools within a large midwestern school district. Survival…

Over the last decade, high school dropout rates have declined to single digits nationally. However, the U.S. only ranks 22nd in high school graduation rates and 14th in college attainment among industrialized countries. Furthermore, graduation gaps persist among students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and minority racial groups. Reducing…