On July 17-18, 2008, the National Education Association hosted the NEA National Summit on gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) Issues in Education in Chicago, Illinois. The purpose of the Summit was to gather leading researchers, scholars, and practitioners on GLBT issues in education to assess the status of GLBT students in the United…

This 2009 KIDS COUNT Data Brief features highlights of the enhanced, mobile-friendly Data Center; data on the 10 key indicators of child well-being for all U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and many cities, counties, and school districts; and a summary of this year's essay, which calls for improvements to the nation's ability to design and…

Using data to track and manage student enrollment is steadily becoming a standard practice on both two-year and four-year campuses. Data mining enables colleges to create predictive models for identifying behaviors that put students at risk for dropping out, flag students who engage in these behaviors, and help identify practices that work in…

The Student Mobility Index is designed to be a highly sensitive statistic of classroom disruption. The idea behind the statistic is that any student entries or exits to and from a classroom during the year, over however many days, contribute to a disruption of instructional continuity and obstacle to institutional organization. This kind of…

High school is a time when most gay, lesbian, and bisexual (GLB) youths experience a great deal of distress related to the stigma attached to being gay. Many try to avoid stigmatization by concealing the fact that they are GLB. This brief report presents a descriptive, multidimensional approach to understanding GLB stigma concealment as a…

Describes a situation in which a middle school child with poor attendance due to medical problems was denied a place in the school's show choir. She subsequently became depressed as her mother fought for her right to participate and the school actively excluded her. The paper examines the mother's complaint under the Americans with Disabilities…

This case study describes the use of a daily raffle to increase attendance in a socialization center for approximately 75 adults diagnosed with mental illness. Specifically, the relationship between signing in, which was a measure of attendance, and the odds of winning points which could be exchanged for tangible and edible items was examined. An…

Latinos are the youngest and fastest growing ethnic group in the United States. It is imperative that institutional leaders and decision makers have a better understanding of Latino students today in order to shape the policies and practices to serve college students in the future. Currently, disparate statistics about Latino students in higher…

This paper presents the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs' Bureau-Wide Annual Report Card for 2008-2009. This report, covering 186 schools provides data tables on: (1) Enrollment; (2) Average Daily Attendance Rate, Graduation Rate and Dropout Rate; (3) Student Achievement; and (4) High Quality Teachers.

Although academics and safety continue to rank as high-priority issues in public schools, educators and administrators are beginning to recognize the importance of student health on school success. This move toward a holistic approach suggests that efforts to improve a student's physical, social, and emotional well-being are as important as…

General education classrooms provide a common milieu for understanding and appropriating results of classroom research projects, which are typically viewed as having little application outside their original contexts. Here, results of an investigation into the "sophomore slump," where grades and class attendance rates typically suffer, are…

Related a high school district's attempt to reduce absenteeism through use of an autodialing machine. Explains the mechanisms of the system and proposes additional uses for it. Indicates that improved attendance rates occurred after its incorporation. (ML)

This brief summarizes the findings of the larger study, "Just Learning: The Imperative to Transform Juvenile Justice Systems into Effective Educational Systems. A Study of Juvenile Justice Schools in the South and the Nation." With awareness growing that schools are disciplining and suspending minority students at alarming rates, the…

The high school dropout problem has been called a national crisis. Educators, researchers, and policymakers continue to work to identify effective dropout prevention approaches. One important element of such prevention efforts is the identification of students at highest risk for dropping out and then the targeting of resources to keep them in…

This report provides an estimate of college going rates by county for all 93 Nebraska counties for the high school graduating class of 2005-2006. Included are graduates of both public and private high schools. The report provides best-available data on graduates who attended Nebraska institutions (including public, independent, and for the first…