Freshman grades relate to academic outcomes, yet limited research explores which students face the highest risk of course failure. With logit analysis using a five-year Arkansas dataset (n = 164,688), we find that economically disadvantaged ninth-grade students are more likely to fail a course than their more privileged peers. This disparity…

Research studies show that students' grades are more predictive than test scores of their future academic success, including high school and post-secondary outcomes. Chicago Public Schools (CPS) recognizes the importance of grades through its longstanding "Bs or Better" campaign. Yet within CPS, boys' grades are consistently lower than…

The purpose of this quasi-experimental, ex post facto study was to examine the effectiveness of school counselor check-ins on ninth grade on-track data, focusing primarily on at-risk students during the first semester of their freshman year. This study was designed to measure the effect school counselor check-ins delivered three times during the…

Reading motivation may help explain some discrepancies in higher education attainment among Latinx adolescents. Using a person-centered approach to understand underlying reading motivation profiles among N = 254 Latinx adolescents, results identified four ordered classes of reading motivation including, (a) a "High" class characterized…

Boys struggle academically and behaviorally more than girls and are more likely to have difficulty with social skills. It seems likely that boys and girls do not perceive social skills in the same light. Past research has not investigated this or its relationship to academic and behavioral performance. Using data from a cohort of 9th-grade…

In 2018, the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) developed an indicator for being "on track" at the end of a high school student's freshman year. As part of the district's overall strategy for improving graduation rates, school administrators currently use the Ninth Grade On-Track indicator as an early marker of progress towards…

This Statistics in Brief provides information about the occupational expectations of high school freshmen in 2009 and how their expectations changed (or did not) by the spring of 2012. The focus is on expectations for a career in a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) field, defined in this report as science, technology,…

This is the final report of a large-scale independent evaluation of the Building Assets and Reducing Risks (BARR) model in ninth grade in eleven high schools in Maine, California, Minnesota, Kentucky, and Texas. This sample of schools included large and small schools in urban, suburban, and rural areas, serving students from a wide range of…

The purpose of the study was to identify the student's perspective of the difficulties of transitioning from eighth grade to high school. The intent of gathering this information was to provide primary source data for additional study and development of effective transition experiences for students entering the ninth grade. The study identified…

This report presents the number of high school completers, the Averaged Freshman Graduation Rate (AFGR), and the dropout data for grades 9-12 for public schools in school year 2009-10. State Education Agencies (SEAs) report annual counts of completers, dropouts, and enrollments to the National Center for Education Statistics' (NCES) Common Core of…

This report presents the number of high school completers, the Averaged Freshman Graduation Rate (AFGR), and the dropout data for grades 9-12 for public schools in school year 2009-10. State Education Agencies (SEAs) report annual counts of completers, dropouts, and enrollments to the National Center for Education Statistics' (NCES) Common Core of…

Recent estimates suggest that of U.S. public high school freshmen in the fall of 2005 24.5 percent did not graduate on time in 2008/09 (Stillwell, Sable, and Plotts 2011). As states and school districts attempt to boost graduation rates, they face the challenge of identifying which students are at risk of not graduating on time. Early warning…

Since 1986, Intercultural Development Research Association (IDRA) has conducted an annual attrition study to track the number and percent of students in Texas who are lost from public secondary school enrollment prior to graduation. The study builds on the series of studies that began when IDRA conducted the first comprehensive study of school…

Despite increasing recognition that a high school diploma is a minimum requirement for success in the workplace, nearly half of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) students fail to graduate, and in some CPS high schools, more students drop out than graduate. Research on dropping out has shown that the decision to persist in or leave school is affected by…