With No Child Left Behind legislation permitting students to switch from so-called failing schools, key questions are whether parents will act to select another school and which schools they will choose. Long-standing school choice systems provide evidence about low-income parents' strategies to gather information and negotiate the application process. Interviews with parents of eighth graders in Philadelphia indicate that faced with little high-quality official information about schools, parents' social networks played an important role in the decision. Most parents were hungry for information about schools but lacked specifics on academic performance or children's chances of admission. The data suggest that more detailed school information and a district commitment to counseling parents are essential for making well-informed choices. Even so, in districts with few good school options for students, there are limits to parents'ability to find a school that represents a substantial improvement over the school their child already attends.
Despite the growth of a variety of alternatives to the neighborhood high school, most students in big-city school systems still attend large comprehensive high schools that serve a particular residential area. The authors contend that the extreme concentration of educational need at these schools is often overlooked by policymakers, school reform programs, and even district personnel. To illustrate the challenges facing neighborhood high schools, this paper examines key academic characteristics of ninth graders in Philadelphia during 1999-00. The authors find that a large percentage of ninth graders at neighborhood high schools have been ninth graders for two or more years. Many of the first-time ninth graders are either over-age, two or more years below grade level in reading and math, or had weak attendance in eighth grade. These data suggest that large and sustained investments of human and financial capital are desperately needed in the many neighborhood schools that serve primarily, and often almost exclusively, students with multiple risk factors for academic failure. AbstractDespite the growth of a variety of alternatives to the neighborhood high school, most students in big-city school systems still attend large comprehensive high schools that serve a particular residential area. The authors contend that the extreme concentration of educational need at these schools is often overlooked by policymakers, school reform programs, and even district personnel. To illustrate the challenges facing neighborhood high schools, this paper examines key academic characteristics of ninth graders in Philadelphia during 1999-00. The authors find that a large percentage of ninth graders at neighborhood high schools have been ninth graders for two or more years. Many of the first-time ninth graders are either over-age, two or more years below grade level in reading and math, or had weak attendance in eighth grade. These data suggest that large and sustained investments of human and financial capital are desperately needed in the many neighborhood schools that serve primarily, and often almost exclusively, students with multiple risk factors for academic failure. 2As school choice within the public sector has become more pervasive, high school students in the nation's largest cities confront an ever-widening array of schools from which they are free to choose, at least in theory (Hassell 1999;Kane 2000;Witte 2001). Nevertheless, the majority of high school students in big-city school systems attend large neighborhood schools that serve students living within specific geographic boundaries. In Philadelphia, about 70 percent of all students in non-charter public high schools are enrolled in neighborhood high schools; in Chicago, the figure is 83 percent; and in Baltimore, an estimated 67 percent attend these schools (Neild 1999; Consortium on Chicago School It is noteworthy that so many urban students attend neighborhood high schools because these institutions are often characterized by chronic student absenteeism, h...
Ninth grade, observes Ruth Curran Neild, marks a critical juncture in American schooling. Students who manage the academic demands of the transition to high school have a high probability of graduating four years later. But those who do not—who fail to earn as many credits as they should during ninth grade—face a substantially elevated risk of dropping out of high school. Neild examines four theories about why ninth grade poses difficulties for some students. The first is that ninth grade coincides with life-course changes, such as reduced parental supervision and increased peer influence. The second is that in moving to a new school, students must break the bonds they have formed with their middle-school teachers and peers. The third is that some students are inadequately prepared for high school. The final theory is that the organization of some high schools is itself a major source of students’ difficulty. Each theory, says Neild, suggests a particular type of policy response. The strongest evidence, observes Neild, points to inadequate preparation for high school and the organization of high schools. Reform efforts thus far have tended to address high school organization, with or without a focus on instructional quality or helping students to catch up on academic skills. Evaluations of these reforms, says Neild, suggest that both school organization and instructional improvement are necessary to keep ninth graders on track to graduation. Neild notes that school districts and state departments of education also are addressing the problem. In addition to supporting comprehensive school reform with a focus on ninth graders, districts have created accountability indicators of how well high schools are keeping ninth graders on track. States are helping districts to develop their capacity to maintain and analyze data on ninth-grade progress, including “early warning indicator systems” that identify students who are falling off track to graduation.
Evidence-based observations of how the juvenile justice and educational systems can work more effectively together are presented.
Recent reports have demonstrated that the United States has a dropout crisis of alarming proportions. In some large-city school systems, more than 50% of students leave high school without a diploma. A large proportion of these dropouts have not accumulated enough credits to be promoted beyond ninth grade. Using survey and student record data for a cohort of Philadelphia public school students, the authors find that ninth-grade academic outcomes are not simply proxies for student characteristics measured during the pre-high school years and that ninth-grade outcomes add substantially to the ability to predict dropout. An implication is that efforts to decrease the dropout rate would do well to focus on the critical high school transition year.
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