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The disparity in absenteeism between kindergarteners with and without disabilities is a persistent phenomenon across schools in the United States and reflects ongoing systemic inequities that disadvantage young children with disabilities. Yet, evidence of factors underlying this disparity remains less well understood, limiting the ability for schools to transform how they support students with disabilities in ways that could help narrow the disparity. In our study, we investigate how a set of factors, grounded in a socioecological framework of absenteeism, correlates with chronic absenteeism in kindergarteners with and without disabilities. Importantly, we examine the extent to which distributional differences in these factors between children with and without disabilities explain the attendance disparity. Our study draws upon a nationally representative sample of N = 13,860 kindergarteners (52 % male, 48 % female, M age = 5.5 years, n = 1240 with disabilities) from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey Kindergarten Class of 2010–11. We analyze our data using multiple logistic regression to identify significant factors that correlate with chronic absenteeism and leverage the Kitagawa-Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition method to describe how distributional differences in those factors contribute to absenteeism disparities. Results show that internalizing behaviors in students with disabilities and their parents’ health are significantly associated with chronic absenteeism as well as help explain the disparity (12 % and 3 % of the disparity, respectively). Importantly, since differences in internalizing behaviors can be generated, in part, by school practices and policies that treat early elementary students with disabilities inequitably, our work suggests that reducing gaps in early absenteeism may require schools to reduce exposure to experiences that can lead to internalizing problem behaviors in young children with disabilities.

We leverage nationally representative data and statewide data from Washington to investigate trends in occupational career and technical education (CTE) participation for students with and without disabilities. Consistent with prior work, we document declines in occupational CTE participation since the early 2000s, but we provide the first evidence that this decline can be explained by movement out of courses that are no longer considered CTE. Under the definitions operating at the time, though, we show that participation by students with disabilities in applied science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medical/health (STEMM) CTE courses has increased over time, both nationally and in Washington. These trends are encouraging given prior evidence linking applied STEMM-CTE participation to better long-term outcomes for students with disabilities.

Taking the school bus has long been an integral part of the school experience in the U.S. However, not much is known about how school transportation relates to getting to school each day, particularly for students with disabilities. This study used ECLS-K: 2011 to explore two issues. First, we examined what characteristics are associated with taking the school bus, comparing students with and without disabilities. Second, we evaluated the link between taking the school bus and absenteeism for these groups. In the first set of findings, school bus taking is differentiated by student and family characteristics, as well as by urbanicity. We find no major differences in characteristics associated with taking the bus between students with disabilities and students without. As for the second set of findings, students with more common disability diagnoses had fewer absences compared to both students without disabilities as well as those with lower incidence diagnoses, suggesting that taking the bus is related to better attendance behaviors for some students with disabilities. Implications are discussed.

Recent educational policies in the United States have fostered the growth of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) career-focused courses to support high school students' persistence into these fields in college and beyond. As one key example, federal legislation has embedded new types of "applied STEM" (AS) courses into the career and technical education curriculum (CTE), which can help students persist in STEM through high school and college. Yet, little is known about the link between AS-CTE coursetaking and college STEM persistence for students with learning disabilities (LDs). Using a nationally representative data set, we found no evidence that earning more units of AS-CTE in high school influenced college enrollment patterns or major selection in non-AS STEM fields for students with LDs. That said, students with LDs who earned more units of AS-CTE in high school were more likely to seriously consider and ultimately declare AS-related STEM majors in college.

Encouraging school engagement is crucial to promoting positive outcomes for high school students. One potential means to promote school engagement may be through career and technical education (CTE) coursework, which is specifically designed to be educationally engaging, particularly for vulnerable populations such as those from low-income backgrounds. Yet, little is known about whether these courses do in fact link to higher school engagement. Through analysis of the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009--a nationally representative data set--we explored the link between STEM-focused CTE (STEM-CTE) coursetaking and school engagement for low-income students. To do so, we employed an instrumental variable estimation technique and found that taking STEM-CTE courses related to higher school engagement for low-income students. We conclude with a discussion of implications for students, practitioners, and policymakers.

Increasing and improving the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) educational pipeline has been a point of emphasis for decades, and federal policy in the United States has urged high schools to embed new types of STEM courses into the curriculum. As one example, applied STEM courses--one growing branch within career and technical education (CTE)--are designed to reinforce traditional academic STEM content and to motivate students' interests and long-term pursuits in STEM areas. That said, little is known about who takes these courses, and applied-STEM-CTE enrollment in these courses has not been explored in the research for students with learning disabilities. Using the High School Longitudinal Study (a nationally representative data set of high school students), we asked whether CTE coursetaking differed for students with learning disabilities compared with those without disabilities, and whether there were specific coursetaking differences in applied-STEM-CTE. We found that students with learning disabilities were more likely to earn more units in CTE courses compared with students without disabilities. Yet, when looking at applied-STEM-CTE courses, we see that although students with learning disabilities earn more CTE units than students without disabilities, students with learning disabilities do not take different amounts of applied-STEM-CTE courses. Implications are discussed.

Research Findings: The purpose of this study is to advance our understanding of student-teacher ethnoracial matching in early elementary school by exploring two executive function outcomes -- working memory and cognitive flexibility. Drawing on nationally-representative, longitudinal sample of kindergartners (N = 18,170) from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study -- Kindergarten Class of 2011, we relied on a fixed effects methodology and found student-teacher ethnoracial matching benefits on working memory skills, though not on cognitive flexibility. Observed associations for working memory are of similar size to those for academic achievement outcomes and are largest for Black and Latinx students. Policy or Practice: The benefits of student-teacher ethnoracial matching on academic outcomes--ranging from academic achievement to postsecondary attainment--are well documented. Yet, we know far less about the role of student-teacher ethnoracial matching on human development. This study helps to address this missing understanding of the importance of teacher diversity in supporting students' outcomes.

With increased tensions and political rhetoric surrounding immigration enforcement in the United States, schools are facing greater challenges in ensuring support for their students of immigrant and Latino/a origin. This study examined the associations between deportations near school districts and racial/ethnic gaps in educational outcomes in school districts across the country. With data from the Stanford Educational Data Archive, the Civil Rights Data Collection, and the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, this study used longitudinal, cross-sectional analyses and found that in the years when districts had more deportations occurring within 25 miles, White-Latino/a gaps were larger in math achievement and rates of chronic absenteeism. No associations were found for gaps in English language arts achievement or rates of bullying. Implications for researchers, policymakers, and school leaders are discussed.

The ink from the reauthorization of the Perkins Act -- the federal policy governing career and technical education (CTE) -- in the summer of 2018 is still fresh. This much-needed update builds upon some of the major tenets of the 2006 version, including emphases on increasing the participation of low-income students in CTE and encouraging CTE coursework that focuses on building math and science skills while also providing technical skills for participation in high-skill, high-demand careers. Using two nationally representative datasets, in between which the 2006 Perkins Act was reauthorized, we explore whether there were any observable differences in participation in these math and science based CTE courses by low-income students over time. Implications are discussed. [The article was published in "Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk" (EJ1256486).]

Competing in today's workforce increasingly requires earning a college degree, yet almost half of all enrolled undergraduates do not graduate. As the costs of dropping out of college continue to rise, instructor-student relationships may be a critical yet underexplored avenue for improving college student outcomes. The present study attempts to replicate and extend a prior study that improved teacher-student relationships at the high school level in a college setting. In this registered report, we test whether an intervention that highlights instructor-student commonalities improves similarity, instructor-student relationships, academic achievement, and persistence for undergraduate students in a large, diverse public university. We found that the intervention increased perceptions of similarity but not downstream relational or academic outcomes. Our exploratory analyses provide one of the first investigations suggesting that instructor-student relationships predict an array of consequential student outcomes in college. These findings show a notable relationship gap: instructors perceived less positive relationships with certain student groups, but on average, students perceived equally positive relationships with their instructors.

Student absenteeism is a barrier to learning and an issue that requires policy intervention. Students with disabilities are of particular concern, as they miss school more often than students in any other demographic group. Affecting a key attribute of school structures, policies promoting full-day kindergarten began as an effort to improve opportunities for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, but no studies have provided causal evidence as to whether full-day kindergarten enrollment relates to school attendance. No studies have examined whether effects exist for students with disabilities in the long term. Using a nationally representative sample of children with disabilities in the United States (N = 2,120), we employed an instrumental-variable strategy that capitalized on state-level policy shifts of full-day kindergarten offerings as an exogenous source of variation. We found that full-day kindergarten structures related to a sharp increase in absenteeism for children with disabilities in kindergarten and first and second grades. We found no relationship to absenteeism for these children in later years of primary schooling. We discuss policy implications of these findings.

Teachers of color increase school success for students of color. Yet, little attention has been paid to whether school attendance behaviors also increase from same race and ethnicity matches. To address this, our study used administrative data provided by a California high school district for the school years 2014 to 2018. We explored student absenteeism at the date and class period levels. Using this rich, longitudinal data set, we employed grade, school, class period, student, and date fixed effects models to examine the association between student-teacher matches and student absenteeism. Student-teacher race and ethnicity matches were associated with fewer unexcused absences for Latinx students. The results also indicate that associations were strongest for Latinx students in 11th and 12th grades--the age group in K-12 that has the most individual agency when it comes to getting to school. Furthermore, we found no evidence of declines in excused absences, which reflect health.

Educational dialogue has emphasized that math and science courses be more meaningful and engaging in high school. One way in which this has materialized has been through the introduction of applied STEM courses (i.e., information technology and engineering). In these courses, traditional math and science concepts are to be more educationally engaging by addressing practical challenges that reach beyond high school. Thus far, research has examined if taking applied STEM courses in high school boosts math achievement, advanced math or science coursetaking, or choosing a STEM college major. Using data from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002, this study examined if taking applied STEM courses in 9th or 10th grades linked to high school completion and college-going behavior. The results suggested a positive association of this early applied STEM coursetaking on all end of high school and college-going measures, though the results were not differentiated by individual- or school-level characteristics.

Recent federal education policies and initiatives in the United States have emphasised the importance of college and career readiness and showing up in school. The Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Improvement Act provides federal funding for career and technical education (CTE) in the country, and key pieces of the act focus on increasing participation in career training coursework related to high demand and high paying careers, with a specific emphasis on maths and science fields. Additionally, the act highlights the need to increase participation in CTE work for 'special populations' -- including low-income and under-represented minority (URM) students. With regards to attendance, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) allowed for states to individually decide upon a less traditional measure of school success. In response, 36 states identified chronic absence as that measure. Using an instrumental variable estimation approach, we explore the relationship between applied STEM career and technical education (AS-CTE) and absence from school. We explore this relationship broadly, as well as for low-income and URM students more specifically. We find that participation in AS-CTE is predictive of fewer absences as well as reduced probability of excessive absences. Implications are discussed.

Researchers suggest that parental involvement is important for parents of students with disabilities. While some research has examined parental involvement in the special education process, no research has investigated how general forms of parental involvement changes once a child begins to receive special education services. We consider various forms of parent involvement to exist within microsystems (e.g., home-based involvement) and mesosystems (e.g., school-based involvement) and how these actions are shaped by different factors of exosystems (e.g., neighborhoods) and the overarching macrosystems (e.g., poverty). With this framework, we consider the extent to which parental involvement changes for parents of students with disabilities following the assignment of the child's Individualized Education Program (IEP). Specifically using the ECLS-K: 2011, we exploit variation in home-based involvement, school-based involvement, and home-school communication based on children who have an IEP in one year but not the year before or after. Findings suggest that parents increased their home-based involvement actions following IEP assignment, though this was especially pronounced for parents from historically disenfranchised backgrounds. Findings also suggest that parents of English-language learners and second-generation students and parents in urban areas were more likely to increase their school-based involvement actions following IEP assignment.

Data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten Class of 2010-2011 were used to examine the implications of preschool and full-day kindergarten enrollment for the subsequent school absences of 2,056 children with disabilities. Results suggest that children with disabilities who went to preschool were absent less frequently in kindergarten, but these benefits did not persist through the end of first grade. Conversely, children with disabilities who attended full-day kindergarten programs were absent more frequently during the kindergarten year as compared with children in part-day programs, but these children experienced a sharper drop in absenteeism throughout the following school year resulting in no differences in school absences in first grade. No multiplicative benefits emerged for attending both preschool and full-day kindergarten. And even though these aforementioned benefits of preschool diminished rapidly, there were lingering academic benefits through the end of first grade because of improvements in earlier school attendance. [For the corresponding grantee submission, see ED586804.]

School leaders, teachers, and parents have been concerned about students missing large numbers of school days, even prior to the pandemic. Nationwide, approximately 20 percent of students miss 10 percent [...]

This study compares mathematics instructional practices in classrooms that do and do not contain students with high-incidence disabilities (HIDs). To do so, we examined a national data set of responses from kindergarten teachers about instructional practices. We do find that in classrooms with students with HIDs, teachers reported different frequencies of math activities as well as skills instruction. These differences depended on type of HID. There were no differences in the frequency of time spent on math, meaning that classrooms with and without students with HIDs reported the same amount of math instruction per week. Differences in these findings arose based on teacher qualifications. Implications for policy are discussed.

With the rise in the availability of absenteeism data, it is clear that students are missing a staggering amount of school. Policymakers have focused efforts on identifying school programs that might reduce absenteeism. This study examined whether implementing the program "Breakfast After-the-Bell" (BAB) might reduce school absenteeism. Exploring longitudinal statewide datasets (Colorado and Nevada) containing school breakfast information linked to national data on chronic absenteeism rates, we used sharp and fuzzy regression discontinuity designs to examine the effects of BAB. Our findings suggest that schools serving BAB experienced declines in chronic absenteeism. The strongest effects were experienced by high schools, schools with higher rates of breakfast participation, schools serving universally free meals, and suburban schools. Implications are discussed.

In this study, we synthesized the literature on how informal contexts, namely friends and family social groups, shape high school students' likelihood of pursuing advanced math and science coursework. Extending scholarly understandings of STEM education, we turned to the body of literature with three guiding questions: (1) What influence do friends have on advanced math and science coursetaking? (2) What influence does family, particularly parents, have on advanced math and science coursetaking? (3) Do the effects vary by gender among each social group? By synthesizing existing literature on the influence of family and friends on advanced math and science coursetaking in high school, we find that both friends and families can influence the number of advanced math and science courses students complete, but the amount of advanced coursework students complete also varies based on the gender of the individual student, the gender of his/her friends, as well as by mother or father. Implications and limitations are discussed.

Of all elementary school years, absenteeism is at its peak during kindergarten. Although much has been established about the effects of missing kindergarten school days on achievement, nothing has yet been established on absenteeism and executive function (EF) skills. Yet developing EF skills early in school is critical, and missed in-school time might have long-term implications. To explore this link, we asked whether absenteeism in kindergarten was linked to both short- and long-term EF skill development. Using nationally representative data (N = 14,370) and employing fixed-effects modeling, we found that kindergarten absenteeism was linked to lower working memory and cognitive flexibility outcomes. The patterns varied based on definition of absenteeism, though our evidence does suggest long-term declines on EF skills seen through at least third grade.

This study attempts a two-part shift in educational research narrowly fixated on the socioeconomic determinants of student test-score performance. First, we focus on variations in how to measure wealth. Second, we move beyond achievement and focus on the wealth determinants of adolescents' social-emotional competencies. Using data from a nationally-representative sample of US eighth graders, we find that the correlation between wealth and social-emotional competencies varies according to how the partitions among the upper class, the middle and working classes, and the poor are defined. By emphasizing wealth in the production of classed social-emotional competencies not captured by test scores, our findings suggest that the growth of household wealth has a more salient effect for lower- and middle-class adolescents than the highest class which appears to have the least to gain, in terms of social-emotional competencies, from an increase in household wealth.

Nationally representative data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten Class of 2011 (n = 14,370) were used to examine the grade-level and cumulative outcomes of school absenteeism between kindergarten and fifth grade for students' school performance in the United States. Students who were more frequently absent in any year of elementary school demonstrated lower academic, executive function, and socioemotional outcomes. Although there was little variation in the magnitude of associations across grade levels, there was evidence of cumulative associations. Specifically, students who were consistently absent throughout elementary school tended to have lower outcomes across developmental domains in the long-term. The negative links between absenteeism and outcomes were larger for Black than White students, but few other subgroup differences emerged.

Over the past decade, identifying how schools might reduce student absenteeism has moved to the forefront of education policy. Yet little research has examined whether school type itself is important. We focus on the influence of Catholic schools using data from the past decade--the most relevant policy context for addressing absenteeism. The research that exists has acknowledged the limitation of omitted variable biases. Thus, the signature contribution of this study is the use of propensity score matching layered with exclusion criteria to account for bias in unobserved variation that confounds estimates. Using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study: Kindergarten Class of 2011, we present several model specifications, all of which indicated that students in Catholic school missed fewer days of school compared to students in other types of schools. However, estimates from the adjusted matching models using the exclusion criteria indicate that OLS and classical matching estimates were downwardly biased.

This article used a rich longitudinal data set from four school districts in California to study absenteeism patterns among students classified as an English learner (EL). We looked at absence patterns overall and disaggregated by EL classification, grade level, and pre/post COVID-19. When their demographic and school-level factors are considered, ELs have fewer absences and are less likely to be chronically absent than non-EL students. This finding is evident for all EL classified groups, although the differences in absenteeism for long-term EL (LTEL) and newcomer EL students are markedly smaller than for other EL subgroups. The negative absenteeism patterns for ELs shifted after the COVID-19 pandemic. EL-classified students experienced higher absenteeism rates during the pandemic even when holding other factors constant. This rising absenteeism trend is most evident for current ELs and LTELs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report on an articulated fossil boxfish (Tetraodontiformes, Ostraciidae) recently recovered from the Pliocene of the North Island of New Zealand. The specimen was collected from the Tangahoe Formation, a mid-Pliocene (c. 3.0-3.4 Ma) shallow marine deposit, at Waihi Beach, South Taranaki. The fossil boxfish measures 10.7 cm in standard length, with an estimated total length of c. 13–14 cm (the caudal fin is not preserved). The fish is preserved in right lateral view, lying on its side, and has an intact body covering of fused hydroxyapatite plates that rigidly encase the fish, as is characteristic of boxfishes. The plates are hexagonal to subhexagonal in shape and largest close to the dorsal midline. Fossil boxfish have previously been recorded from Northern Hemisphere sites ranging in age from Palaeocene to Quaternary, but not from the Southern Hemisphere. Recent reports note that boxfishes and several other tropical Pacific fish species are now being seen off of northern New Zealand – the Pliocene boxfish from Taranaki, as well as an intriguing addition to New Zealand's paleohistory, may also reflect how the ongoing impact of climate change will return New Zealand to a warmer marine ecosystem – similar to what prevailed during the Pliocene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Demand for engineering‐interested and proficient high school graduates continues to grow across the nation. However, there remains a severe gap in college participation and employment in engineering fields for students with learning disabilities (SWLDs). One potential way to encourage SWLDs to consider engineering as a profession and promote the development of key science attitudes may be through engineering and technology career and technical education (E‐CTE) coursework. In this study, we address the following research questions: Do SWLDs take E‐CTE courses in the early years of high school at different rates compared to students without learning disabilities? What is the relationship between early E‐CTE coursetaking and science attitudes (self‐efficacy, utility, identity), and does this differ for students with and without learning disabilities? How do specific engineering career expectations change with respect to enrollment in early E‐CTE coursework, and do these differ for students with and without learning disabilities? We utilize the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS) to respond to the research questions through moderation models and a student fixed effects methodology. Ultimately, we found no evidence of SWLD underrepresentation in E‐CTE in high school. However, SWLDs were expected to benefit more than the general population from E‐CTE participation with respect to higher levels of science self‐efficacy and science identity. Implications from these findings include how to encourage persistence along the engineering pathway, the growth of career pathway policies at the state level, and how to incorporate E‐CTE practices in academic courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a sample of pre-K attendees from 11 states in the United States (n = 2,966), we examined whether early childhood educational experiences contribute positively or negatively to later preschool absences. Although some of the most important predictors of absences were factors external to the school and classroom environment (e.g., poverty and household structure), there was some evidence to suggest that children who received any out-of-home care at age 3 had fewer absences during the following year with small to moderate effect sizes. However, experiencing multiple care arrangements or multiple years of the same care did not confer any additional benefits. Children who were exposed to higher quality instructional environments and more academic activities were also absent less frequently, although the effect sizes were small in magnitude. These results highlight malleable early educational experiences that can be targeted to help address the absenteeism epidemic.