For the 1982-83 school year, the Austin (Texas) Public Schools adopted a high school attendance policy allowing a maximum of 10 absences per semester for course credit to be earned. Under this policy, Austin's high school attendance rose to an all-time high of 93.5 percent in 1983-84. In 1984-85, education reform mandated by the Texas Legislature…

Absenteeism is expensive in terms of academic achievement, economic loss to school districts, and teacher efficiency. Most importantly, however, truancy is expensive because it is a lost opportunity to rehabilitate a large number of distressed youngsters. A number of studies have demonstrated that schools are not equipped in either organization or…

This paper describes a program intended to increase student attendance in a Savannah, Georgia, inner city high school. The author maintains that shifting the accountability for attendance to the students through peer pressure was perhaps the most significant reason for gains in attendance. He believes that a successful attendance increase program…

The principal purpose of this project was to find what, if any, early indicators exist to identify incoming students whose academic performance in high school would be high. The corollary objective was to consider what types of intervention strategies might be designed to assure that students so identified would fulfill their early promise. An…

The present study examines the impact of the Direct Instruction (DI) program on the high school careers of the economically disadvantaged students who participated in the DI model of Project Follow Through. The study involves six sites: East St. Louis; New York City; Flint, Michigan; Williamsburg County, South Carolina; and Uvalde, Texas. A…

The Montgomery County (Maryland) Public Schools Suspension Project has evolved into three distinct studies: (1) the Discipline Monitoring System (DMS); (2) the experience and behavior of students suspended multiple times in Junior and Senior High; and (3) school suspension rates. This paper reviews/summarizes the findings from the first two…

This study examined the extent to which the relative influence on college investment decisions of economic, academic, structural, social, and cultural capital varied by racial/ethnic group. Data from the third (1994) follow-up to the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 were used. The adjusted weighted sample included 11,933 individuals…

This study examined the college enrollment decisions of Black and Latino students, focusing on factors that influenced their decision to attend college. Data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988-1994 were used, namely a sample of 11,879 seniors who completed high school in 1992, including 1,181 Blacks and 1,505 Latinos. The study…