School transportation may increase student outcomes by providing a reliable and safe means of getting to and from school. Little evidence of the effects of such policies exists. In this paper, I provide some of the first causal evidence of transportation impacts on student attendance and achievement using a rich panel of student-level enrollment…

Pressure to improve academic success for all students has been applied to the educational While school personnel create programs and implement innovative instructional pedagogy, such as personalized learning to prioritize students and improve their academic success, research demonstrates the essential role of students' attendance in these…

This study is a journey through the academic lives of 4th-grade Black males in one Central Arkansas school district. This study aimed to investigate certain behavioral variables that may impede the learning and achievement of fourth-grade Black males in Central Arkansas. In the study, groups were established by ethnicity and gender and their test…

Using administrative data from an urban school district, two series of predictive models were tested for their ability to project a student's high school graduation status. The models included student grades, attendance, behavior, demographic predictors, and school-level variables. Eighth and ninth-grade variables were tested for two graduation…

The purpose of this study was to understand if a STEM camp (Gear Up 4 STEM) offered during school breaks could improve science outcomes and engagement of elementary school students. This study followed two cohorts of students in Knox County Schools (grades 3, 4, and 5) over one school year and assessed their performance on the state administered…

The latest round of fiscal austerity in Ghana has meant that the feeding rate paid to the service providers of Ghana's school feeding programme is both frozen and unrealistically low. Accordingly, service providers adopt discretionary coping strategies. This qualitative case study, therefore, explores the impacts of austerity on children's school…

Research suggests that elementary school absenteeism can contribute to deficits in achievement. It is less clear how the timing and growth in rates of attendance shape early elementary school achievement. The present study examined the role of absenteeism in pre-K and early elementary school in the context of third-grade achievement, along with…

School-Wide Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports is a framework that aims to improve school culture and climate, students' behavior and attendance. As the program is largely spreading, comparative studies showing its efficacy on students' outside the United States are needed. In addition, there is a need for studies examining SWPBIS…

This sequential mixed methods study evaluated the impact of the Chicago Parent Program (CPP) in 12 Baltimore Title I PreK programs on parent engagement and student outcomes from kindergarten through 2nd grade. Phase 1 (quasi-experiment; N = 11,996) compared PreK students whose parents enrolled in CPP with those whose parents did not enroll in CPP…

While a controversial practice internationally, homeschooling is not uncommon in the United States' educational system. Although myriad reasons exist for choosing to homeschool one's children, a framework highlighting reactive versus proactive motivations has emerged to explain why some families choose to homeschool. Using prospective,…

Background: Since returning to in-person instruction after the emergence of COVID-19 schools have seen a dramatic increase in the number of students chronically absent, with data indicating a greater increase for low-income, Black, and Hispanic students. Given the role of school attendance in both promoting positive educational outcomes as well as…

Background: In this study, we aimed to determine how school attendance changed over time for children on Medicaid with chronic health conditions enrolled in a comprehensive care coordination program called Coordinated HEalthcare for Complex Kids (CHECK). Methods: Medicaid beneficiaries from one managed care organization were randomized into 2…

This study examines how affective (student-teacher relationships) and sociological factors (race) interact in educational settings to shape differential educational experiences for diverse subgroups. Studying these factors in isolation only partially explains the mechanisms that drive outcomes for students, especially those belonging to…

Attendance in kindergarten and elementary school robustly predicts student outcomes. Despite this well-documented association, there is little experimental research on how to reduce absenteeism in the early grades. This paper presents results from a randomized field experiment in 10 school districts evaluating the impact of a low-cost,…

Background: Among children aged 6-16, there is a clear association between attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms and academic attainment. We wanted to know whether this association was replicated in younger children. Aims: To explore the relationship between children aged 4-8 with probable ADHD and their academic attainment and…