Massachusetts Dropout Prevention and Recovery Initiative Highlights Key Importance of Ninth Grade

January 15, 2009

The inaugural meeting of the Massachusetts Dropout Prevention and Recovery Initiative, held January 15, 2009, featured three powerful speakers in addition to opportunities for networking and action planning.

Mitchell Chester, Massachusetts Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education, opened with a focus on graduation rates for Massachusetts students. Despite a slight increase in graduation rates, he said, disaggregated data show that students with limited English proficiency, from low-income households, or in Special Education—and boys in all population groups— graduate at lower rates. Massachusetts will begin tracking students’ five- and six-year graduation rates, Chester said, citing a six-point increase in graduation when five-year figures are included. Pointing to the “ninth grade bubble”—students who are academically unprepared and end up repeating ninth grade, often more than once—he called for swift interventions for ninth graders who struggle.

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.

Paige Ponder, Director of Chicago Public Schools’ Graduation Pathways program, described her group’s systemic approach to improving student outcomes by simultaneously ramping up recovery systems for struggling students and building instructional leadership. Equipping school leaders with a range of “early warning” data tools allows schools and the district to track potential struggling freshmen by looking at student attendance, math and reading scores, and participation in a summer program for incoming freshman. A color-coded flagging system lets leaders see at a glance where more effort is necessary, how feeder schools are preparing students, and which individual students need greater support. Response from Chicago’s principals has been strongly positive.