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…

High school graduation is a pivotal milestone that can shape students' future, offering them opportunities for higher education and gainful employment. Because research shows grade point averages and course failures to be predictive of high school graduation, it is important for students' life outcomes that their teachers assign them equitable…

Purpose: Using a political economy framework, this paper examines the financing trend, by investigating three systematic spikes occurring between 2004 and 2016. The study aims to provide a useful review of the interaction of politics, financial decisions and educational outcomes. Additionally it provides a useful guide, especially to academics, to…

For more than two decades, there has been an increased emphasis on improving academic outcomes for K-12 students across Florida. Such emphasis has resulted in state reform efforts to enhance student academic performance and school accountability. High-stakes testing has been selected as one means for assessing student outcomes and measuring school…

With more than 290 Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs across 131 high schools, the NYC Department of Education (NYCDOE) oversees one of the largest and most diverse CTE systems in the country. In the last year, NYC's mayor and NYCDOE leadership have made a number of new investments in Career and Technical Education. The Research…

The evolving educational landscape of our students' needs post-Covid has highlighted that student response to intervention must be of concern to all educators. Our student population has experienced an event that is like no other in our shared educational histories and our response to the aftermath of this event and how we assist students who are…

The U.S. Department of Education introduced the four-year adjusted cohort high school graduation rate formula in 2008 to usher high school graduation in as a high-stakes accountability metric. This policy sought to address disparate graduation rates by student race but did not attend to systemic reasons why minoritized students had lower…

A push for attendance improvement in the state of Iowa is a push to improve student graduation rates and maximize student success after high school. The purpose of this study was to identify how principals' perceptions of their attendance policies and enforcement of these policies affect student attendance and outcomes toward graduation. A…

Context: From 2009 through 2017, the vast majority of states implemented major reforms to their teacher evaluation systems (Bleiberg & Harbatkin, 2016). State adoption occurred in part due to Race to the Top (Howell & Magazinnik, 2017), which rewarded states for implementing teacher evaluation systems under the theory that generating…

Internationally, there is a gap in high-school completion rates for Indigenous and non-Indigenous students. In Australia, gap estimates are commonly based on lag indicators, precluding examination of underlying mechanisms. Using two longitudinal representative samples of Australian youth, we explored differences in high-school completion between…

This report presents enrollment data for West Virginia Higher Education. The following topics of data are presented: (1) National Enrollment Trends, Undergraduate Enrollment; (2) West Virginia High School Graduate Projections; (3) College-Going Rate; (4) Student Persistence and Completion; (5) Credit Headcount Enrollment; (6) Fall 2024 Headcount…

In its regulatory attention on school-level graduation, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) continues what is historically a federal effort to define graduation and dropping out. These efforts rely on methodology which may not accurately represent the measured outcome. The purpose of this research article is to examine the historical accuracy of…

A continued gap exists in student achievement between Indigenous and non- Indigenous students in the British Columbia school system. This article analyzes the balance of success and failure of the Accountability Framework, a provincial program designed to increase graduation rates in the province. In order to understand the successes and failures…

"Educating for Purposeful Life" documents positive change within the Anaheim Union High School District, whose overarching mission is to prepare high school graduates who possess a clear sense of purpose and the capacity to achieve their goals. Superintendent Michael Matsuda and education consultant David Brazer lay out the district's…

Conventional definitions of "on-time graduation" and "college readiness" often place the needs of traditionally marginalized students (first-generation, low-income, immigrant and/or students of color) in a deficit light. This multi-case study explores how school leaders at two public high schools are redefining and reframing…