What Matters for Staying On-Track and Graduating in Chicago Public Schools

presented by John Q. Easton, January 2009

John Easton, Executive Director of the Consortium on Chicago School Research, amplified the importance of ninth grade for students’ graduation success. He and his colleagues have found that being on-track for graduation in ninth grade means a student is four times more likely to graduate than a student who is off-track—despite previous academic achievement. In addition to developing a Freshman On-Track Indicator, Easton and his colleagues have found that attendance is a key factor in graduation, showing a direct correlation between increased absences and class failures and declining graduation rates. In comparative studies of schools with similar demographics, Consortium researchers isolated school culture, specifically student-teacher trust, as a strong factor in student success.

Approximate run time: 20 minutes