This study was a yearlong investigation over writing instruction with one class of ninth grade students in an urban, "underperforming" high school. Using qualitative methods with embedded quantitative features, findings revealed students benefited little from the writing instruction they received. In fact, most students showed virtually…

We estimate the longer-run effects of attending an effective high school (one that improves a combination of test scores, survey measures of socio-emotional development and behaviours in 9th grade) for students who are more versus less "educationally advantaged" (i.e., likely to attain more years of education based on 8th-grade…

Relational theories of gender conceptualize masculinity and femininity as mutually constitutive. Using a relational approach, I analyzed ethnographic and interview data from male and female black adolescents in Grades 8 through 10 enrolled in ''Diversify,'' an urban-to-suburban racial integration program ("n" = 38).…

This report describes a follow-up qualitative study, conducted in 2006 by the Annenberg Institute for School Reform, of a small group of New York City high schools that, according to 2001 data, were "beating the odds" in preparing low-performing ninth-grade students for timely high school graduation and college going. The thirteen…

This qualitative study explores large, urban, mid-western principal perspectives about cyberbullying and the policy components and practices that they have found effective and ineffective at reducing its occurrence and/or negative effect on their schools' learning environments. More specifically, the researcher was interested in learning more…

Improving the long-term life outcomes of disadvantaged youth remains a top policy priority in the United States, although identifying successful interventions for adolescents--particularly males--has proven challenging. This paper reports results from a large randomized controlled trial of an intervention for disadvantaged male youth grades 7-10…

Across the nation, urban school districts struggle to raise often abysmally low high school graduation rates. New York City, with a four-year graduation rate of 57 percent, is no exception. Yet, some high schools in New York, as elsewhere, succeed beyond expectations in bringing students with low academic skills and high needs to graduation in…

This "snapshot" illustrates how one school is managing to make a positive difference for ninth graders. It describes the Ninth Grade Success Academy, a school-within-a-school at Thomas A. Edison High School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which has a number of features specifically designed to help ninth-graders make successful…

Assessed the assignment of students in an urban system to ninth-grade mathematics courses against a meritocratic definition of fairness to determine whether the process denied access to students from particular segments of society. Results with 1611 students show that entrance to the gatekeeper mathematics courses was unfairly denied for low…

The response of one urban school community to the tension between excellence and equity in public education was to change the structure, curriculum, and educational practices of its ninth-grade English and history courses fundamentally. This report brings together qualitative and quantitative data to document the efforts of a large urban high…

The relationship between success on proficiency tests and poverty has been widely discussed. This study explores the use of a neighborhood indicator of socioeconomic status based on school lunch participation of elementary school students in that neighborhood, and examines the relationship of poverty to success on a high school proficiency test in…

An evaluation was done of a precollege intervention program that aimed at introducing ninth graders to the idea of going to college, and to challenge them to think about and make a commitment to attending college. The program brought 450 mostly Black and Hispanic ninth graders from an inner-city school district to visit a mid-sized rural…