Exit rates from Limited English Proficiency (LEP) for students who enter the Wake County Public School System (WCPSS) as LEP students vary by when students enter WCPSS (based on students entering in kindergarten, grade 6 or 7, or grade 9). Based on our 2008-09 cohorts, students entering in grades 6 or 7 were most likely to exit LEP status after…

Retention means repeating one or more courses in high school, rather than a full grade. Over 3,500 high school students were retained in 2011-12 in Wake County Public School (WCPSS), with the largest numbers in grades 9 and 10. Some students enter high school below grade level. In 2011-12, half the WCPSS high schools had greater than 30% of…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate two alternative programs in a North Carolina and South Carolina (SC) public school district to determine if they are effective in delivering constructive interventions that modify student behavior once students have left the programs and have returned to their regular learning environments. This…

Many African American students have different learning styles than their Caucasian and Asian American counterparts. This distinction makes differentiated instruction a vital teaching strategy, as it allows teachers to tailor curriculum and teaching to meet the needs of individual students, especially those with different learning styles. This…

Adolescents are at increased risk of HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in the Southern states of the USA, where rates among youth are higher than in the rest of the nation. This paper reports on findings from a pilot study of an HIV prevention intervention that uses interactive theatre to educate young people about sexual health. The…

Early college high schools are a new and rapidly spreading model that merges the high school and college experiences and that is designed to increase the number of students who graduate from high school and enroll and succeed in postsecondary education. This article presents results from a federally funded experimental study of the impact of the…

This paper discusses the implementation of the Tri-Squared Test as one of many advanced statistical measures used to verify and validate the outcomes of an initial study on academic professional's perspectives on the use, success, and viability of 9th Grade Freshman Academies, Centers, and Center Models. The initial research investigation…

This report provides a first look at selected findings from the first follow-up of the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09). HSLS:09 focuses on understanding students' trajectories from the beginning of high school into higher education and the workforce. The core research questions for the study explore secondary to postsecondary…

This paper discusses the implementation of the Tri-Squared Test as an advanced statistical measure used to verify and validate the research outcomes. This type of statistical measure is ideal for teachers professional development as educators can create and validate instruments for educational settings. The initial research investigation published…

The purpose of this mixed-design study was to use quantitative and qualitative research to explore the effects of High School Success (a course for at-risk ninth graders) and its effectiveness on student achievement, attendance, and dropout prevention. The research questions address whether there is a significant difference between at-risk ninth…

The purpose of this study was to examine the stability of mothers' perceptions of the negative impact of having a child with ASD in a sample of African American and Caucasian families as their children transitioned to early adolescence. Participants were mothers and children participating in an ongoing longitudinal study of children referred for…

Over the past decade, national initiatives have shifted States' attention to the challenge of turning around low-performing schools. The lack of consistent, dramatic improvements in the lowest-performing schools reflects the severity of the school turnaround challenge, but also suggests the need to continuously evaluate and refine turnaround…

Background: Although males are often the initiators of teen sexual activity, pregnancy prevention programs generally target females. To address this deficiency, the Wise Guys Male Responsibility Curriculum was developed to be delivered to adolescent males in weekly classroom sessions. Methods: Seventh grade participants (n = 124) in the Wise Guys…

Background: Cluster-randomized experiments that assign intact groups such as schools or school districts to treatment conditions are increasingly common in educational research. Such experiments are inherently multilevel designs whose sensitivity (statistical power and precision of estimates) depends on the variance decomposition across levels.…

Unlike in elementary school, high-school teacher effects may be confounded with both selection to tracks and unobserved track-level treatments. I document sizable confounding track effects, and show that traditional tests for the existence of teacher effects are likely biased. After accounting for these biases, high-school algebra and English…