Original Research

Students who took Advanced Placement (AP) courses and passed the exams tended to have a higher probability of college graduation compared to students not participating in AP even after controlling for student’s 8th grade mathematics test score, free and reduced price lunch status, average test scores, and percent economically disadvantaged students in the student’s school. The percent of a school’s students who took and passed AP is the best AP-related predictor of the probability of students from that school to graduate from college.

This study from MDRC uses a large-scale, multisite, experimental design to determine the effects of Career Academies on a range of student educational, developmental, and work-related outcomes, including student achievement and student engagement. This report provides information on the implementation of Career Academies.

This report from the National Board on Educational Testing and Public Policy presents results of analyses of data on grade enrollment and graduation both nationally and for each state. These analyses illustrate how graduation rates have changed in recent decades and identify key transition points through which students progress or fail to progress toward graduation.

Based on data reported by state education agencies to the National Center for Education Statistics, this report presents on-time graduation rates for public school students in the school years 2002-2003 and 2003-2004. The U.S. Department of Education has identified this Averaged Freshman Graduation Rate (AFGR) as an important interim measure in response to a growing concern regarding the accuracy and compatibility of state-reported graduation data.

The Center on English Learning and Achievement (CELA) has been studying the characteristics of successful English programs in middle and high schools. This report discusses the findings of the first two years of their 5-year Excellence in English study and focuses on the educational practices that support student literacy as well as the characteristics of teachers' professional lives that accompany student achievement. The report addresses the issue of teachers' professional environments.

This randomized controlled trial study by MDRC examined the impact of Career Academies. Although Career Academies had some significant positive impact on high school outcomes, such as school engagement and participation in career awareness and work-related activities, they did not significantly make a difference on course content and classroom instructional practices, likelihood of graduating high school, college enrollment, and employment.

This study investigated the characteristics of instruction that accompany student achievement in reading, writing, and English. It focused on English language arts programs in schools that have been trying to increase student performance, comparing those whose students perform higher than demographically comparable schools with schools whose scores are more typical. The study took place in four states and included 25 schools, 44 teachers, and 88 classes studied over a 2-year period each.

This study from Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. evaluated 16 dropout programs for middle and high school students under the School Dropout Demonstration Assistance Program (SDDP). Analysis and discussion mostly focus on the aggregate impact of programs on middle schools or high schools, rather than on specific programs. The study found that middle school programs had a significant effect in reducing dropout only if they were implemented with high intensity. The programs, regardless of intensity, did not have an impact on student learning (e.g., grades, test scores).

This study assessed the impact on tenth grade students of attending high schools whose practices are consistent with the school-restructuring movement. Using data on a sample of 11,794 sophomores in 830 high schools from the first two waves of the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88), the authors evaluated restructuring effects on students' gains in engagement and achievement in four subjects and the social distribution of those gains.