Solving California's Dropout Crisis

Synthesizes ongoing CDRP research to outline the scope, the causes, and the costs of the state's high school dropout crisis. Proposes a policy agenda to raise the graduation rate, with separate recommendations for the state, districts, and schools

Student and School Predictors of High School Graduation in California

Based on surveys of tenth-grade students, teachers, principals, and parents, identifies alterable factors that predict high school graduation, including the student's ninth-grade performance, engagement in sports, and the school's academic climate

Ethnic and Gender Differences in California High School Graduation Rates

Presents data on the disparities in graduation rates among African-American, Asian, Latino/Hispanic, and white students as well as between boys and girls within each group

Why Students Drop Out of School: A Review of 25 Years of Research

Reviews research on the underlying causes of the high school dropout crisis -- individual and institutional characteristics that predict whether a student is likely to drop out of high school. Discusses student engagement, deviance, and other models

Preschool Participation and the Cognitive and Social Development of Language-Minority Students

This study examined participation in preschool and its relationship with the cognitive and social development of language minority students. Although there is a large body of research that demonstrates the cognitive and social benefits of attending preschool (Barnett, 1995; Gorey, 2001; National Research Council, Committee on Early Childhood Pedagogy, 2000; Vandell, 2004), very little of this research has included language minority students, or at least those who do not speak English. Either non-English speaking families are not included in the design of the study, such as with the widely cited National Institute for Child Health and Development (NICHD) Early Child Care Study, or the studies are based on cognitive and social assessments that are only conducted in English (e.g., Magnuson, Meyers, Ruhm, & Waldfogel, 2004). Consequently, little is known about participation in and outcomes of preschool for the growing population of language minority students

Are Immigrants Paid Less for Education?

This paper is on measuring the gap in returns to education between foreign-born and native workers in France, Germany, and Austria and investigates the extent to which this gap can be explained by a mis-match between the actual and the years of schooling typical for a given occupation. The return to usual years of schooling across different occupations is found to be higher than that for actual years of education. In the case of correctly matched workers who have the 'typical' education in a certain occupation, there is no additional reward in earnings for natives compared to foreign workers. Immigrants, however, have significantly lower wage returns in being over-educated than natives but are penalized less for being under-educated