I’ve shared a lot of resources over the years about ninth-grade students and the importance of supporting – I’ve spent a lot of time teaching ninth-graders!

I thought it would be useful to bring together some of those resources into one post (let me know what you think I’m missing):

How More Meetings Might Be The Secret To Fixing High School is an NPR piece about a program called BARR that supports ninth-graders. It sounds very similar to what our school and others do with Small Learning Communities, but I need to learn more about their model.

Important Article — “Ninth Grade: The Most Important Year in High School”

Studies: Attendance & Passing Classes More Important Than Test Scores

Study: Ninth-Grade ‘Grades’ Predict Graduation & College Attendance

Some of those posts emphasize, in particular, the importance of Social Emotional Learning Skills.

A new report recently came from the Institute Of Education Sciences making that same point. It’s titled Understanding the role of noncognitive skills and school environments in students’ transitions to high school:

Here’s an excerpt:

 

New Study Shows Learning About Growth Mindset At Start Of Ninth-Grade Increases Resilience

Ninth grade can be hard. Here’s how to make it easier. appeared in the Houston Chronicle.

STATISTIC OF THE DAY: NINTH-GRADE IS VERY IMPORTANT

NEW STUDY FINDS THAT SPECIFIC NINTH-GRADE INTERVENTION VERY EFFECTIVE & IT’S REMARKABLY SIMILAR TO WHAT WE DO AT OUR SCHOOL

Why Is Ninth Grade a Critical Time for Students? A Researcher Explains is from the Gates Foundation. Here’s the money quote:

Course failures have an outsize impact on students’ likelihood of graduating. In the Consortium’s 2007 report What Matters for Staying On-Track and Graduating in Chicago Public Schools, we showed that one “F” in a year-long course in the ninth grade decreases the probability of eventually graduating by 30 percentage points, even if a student has strong test scores. Two “Fs” in ninth grade decrease the probability of graduating by over 50 percentage points (from 85 percent to 33 percent).

Impacting 9th Grade Educational Outcomes: Results from a Multisite Randomized Controlled Trial of the BARR Model is from Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness. I’ve previously written about BARR at New Study Finds That Specific Ninth-Grade Intervention Very Effective & It’s Remarkably Similar To What We Do At Our School.

New Research Again Says Maybe Test Scores Should Not Be End All Be All For High Schools