A legislative mandate requires the Texas Central Education Agency to submit a report each odd-numbered year that includes data collected on students retained in grade, including the reason for retention. This report presents current summary data on the retention rates of Texas students by grade level, age, gender, and ethnicity for 1992-93;…

Retention has been the answer to the problem of what to do with students who are unprepared for the academic and social demands of the next grade. Studies contend that children view retention as punishment and experience emotions such as fear, anger, and sadness when not promoted. Retention or nonpromotion can be defined as the practice of…

This paper argues that chaos theory may be a an appropriate framework for strategic planing in higher education and presents a brief case study of a strategic planning process underway at Blue Ridge Community College (BRCC) in Virginia where chaos theory is in use. Chaos theory holds that many seemingly random activities and systems evidence…

This book provides readers with an introduction to economics and cost-benefit analysis and will be particularly valuable to individuals who are, or plan to be, managers of information services in academic, public, or special libraries. Part 1 provides a rational for economic studies in librarianship, specifically, gaining understanding of consumer…

A report of retention rates is produced at the end of each school year in the Austin Independent School District (AISD), Texas. Information is gathered after the beginning of the school year to reflect counts of actual retainees from the previous year. Overall retention rates for the beginning of the 1993-94 school year are: (1) elementary, 0.5%;…

A study was done of pre-admission or early performance predictors of persistence versus academic failure among baccalaureate program nursing students. As part of a larger longitudinal research project, 155 students from four successive classes of students admitted to the program were studied, using multiple predictor and criterion variables. The…

This review examines the effects of three educational practices on children's readiness for first grade. The practices, kindergarten retention, developmental kindergarten, and transitional first grade, are intended to provide children with an early extra year to give them more time to prepare academically and socially for regular first-grade…

This document reports on the findings of the Fiscal Year (FY) 1992 evaluation of the Illinois Prekindergarten Program for Children At Risk of Academic Failure, initiated in 1985 through a statute authorizing the State Board of Education to implement and administer a grant program to public school districts to conduct preschool education programs…

This paper examines the plight of the child with a learning disability who enters a classroom to hear only a foreign language, to misunderstand the accompanying nonverbal signals, and to see only alien symbols written on the board. This child with a learning disability will have difficulty in the classroom unless the teacher applies the basic…

A project designed to improve the behaviors of high school students with chronic disciplinary problems is described in this practicum report. The target group consisted of 10 students in grades 10 through 12 (7 boys, 3 girls; 3 whites, 7 blacks) with high truancy and inschool suspension rates, low self-esteem, failing grades, and negative…

Research has specifically linked dropping out of school to reading disabilities and related problems. Research on reading as a cognitive task has focused on reading as an active process with three questions of concern: (1) How does the learner learn to identify the printed word?; (2) How does he or she discriminate one word from another word?; and…

This annotated bibliography represents literature on the phenomenon of American Indian students dropping out of school. The bibliography describes 31 titles, including research reports, reports from state departments of public instruction, national reports, action reports, and "how to" books. Of the 31 entries, 18 report on Indian student dropout…

Because studies have variously analyzed the effects of nonpromotion on elementary and junior high school students--with some studies selecting control groups from within the same school and others without, some from age-peers and others from grade-peers--this meta-analysis mathematically integrates the research findings to coordinate their…

The achievement locus of control of 64 Hispanic and 87 Anglo students enrolled in grades 9-12 in 2 high schools in a large school district in the Southwest was examined with the Multidimensional-Multiattributional Causality Scale (MMCS). Ethnic and sex differences in the attributions of academic success or failure to ability, effort, context, or…

The first phase of a longitudinal study conducted at the Fielding Institute investigated the circumstances or characteristics that lead to success for adults in an external graduate degree program, based on interviews with 16 faculty members. Respondents were given a set of cards naming students they knew well. The faculty sorted the cards into…