We study the relationship between parental job loss and children's academic achievement using data on job loss and grade retention from the 1996, 2001, and 2004 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation. We find that a parental job loss increases the probability of children's grade retention by 0.8 percentage points, or around 15…

The "2014 Comprehensive Biennial Report on Texas Public Schools" describes the status of Texas public education, as required by §39.332 of the Texas Education Code. The report contains 15 chapters on the following topics: (1) state progress on academic performance indicators; (2) student performance on state assessments; (3) performance…

"No Child Left Behind" (NCLB) dictates students in Grades 3, 5, and 8 pass state tests to be promoted. Accordingly, most state education codes require students to pass reading and math exams for promotion. The majority of those who fail, however, appear to be promoted anyway. This article addresses core questions concerning the paradigm…

Using historical test data from the standardized testing program (LEAP, iLEAP) in the state of Louisiana, this sequential mixed methods study utilized hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) and a logistic regression method to test alternate measures of school performance (student achievement model, growth model, and transition to 9th grade) applied to…

We study the relationship between parental job loss and children's academic achievement using data on job loss and grade retention from the 1996, 2001, and 2004 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation. We find that a parental job loss increases the probability of children's grade retention by 0.8 percentage points, or around 15%.…

Numerous studies have examined how grade retention can impede the academic success of those retained students. One uncharted line of research is the spillover effect that retained students may exert on their classmates. The purpose of this study is to evaluate this relationship for students in urban elementary school classrooms. To do so, this…

The study investigates the influence of teacher competence on the academic achievement of sixth grade students in Uganda. The investigation is based on data sourced from the 2009 Southern African Consortium for Monitoring Education Quality (SACMEQ) survey comprising 5,148 records of sixth grade students enrolled in primary schools in Uganda. The…

In the Southwest, politicians, legislature, and voters have devised and instituted a plan originally known as House Bill 2732, voted into law A.R.S.15-701§ A (2) & (3), which declares that all third grade students, beginning in the 2013-2014 school year, must receive a score that demonstrates their competency as approaching or above their…

In an era of increasing access to secondary education in the Caribbean, it becomes critical that we understand the effect that Universal Secondary Education (USE) has had on our education systems in order to inform current educational reform efforts and future educational planning. This study explores the experience of the country of Grenada with…

We investigated whether children's reading and mathematics growth trajectories from kindergarten to fifth grade inter-related, and to what extent disability and minority status interacted to predict their achievement trajectories. We conducted secondary data analysis based on a nationally representative sample of 6,446 U.S. schoolchildren from the…

For over 100 years, retention has been an intervention used with students who are not performing at expected levels. Despite the lack of evidence that retention is an effective means of improving academic outcomes, retention continues to be used today. Response to Intervention (RTI) is a strategy to provide support to struggling students in an…

This study attempts to measure the perceptions of preservice teachers concerning the use of grade retention. Findings suggested preservice teachers had an overall positive view of grade retention because they believed it prevented future failure, helped maintain standards, and assisted students who struggled with language arts. This was especially…

Charter schools--public schools of choice that are operated autonomously, outside the direct control of local school districts--have become more prevalent over the past two decades. There is no consensus about whether, on average, charter schools are doing better or worse than conventional public schools at promoting the achievement of their…

Using data from Birth to Twenty, a cohort of South African urban children, the current paper investigates the relationships between residential and school mobility and a set of educational outcomes. The findings provide some evidence of a positive association between changes in residence and numeracy and literacy scores, and school mobility was…

Research suggests that the academic achievement of deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) students is the result of a complex interplay of many factors. These factors include characteristics of the students (e.g., hearing thresholds, language fluencies, mode of communication, and communication functioning), characteristics of their family environments…