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Elaine Allensworth, Julia Gwynne,
Holly Hart & Joy Lesnick

Photograph of Elaine M. Allensworth, Ph.D. Elaine M. Allensworth, Ph.D.

Elaine Allensworth is the Interim Co-Executive Director of the Consortium on Chicago School Research. She has published widely on the structural factors that affect high school students' educational attainment, particularly the factors that affect graduation and dropout rates. Elaine is currently leading a mixed-methods study of the transition to high school, as well as several studies on the effects of rigorous curricular reforms on instruction, grades, test scores, high school graduation and college attendance.

Photograph of Julia Gwynne, Ph.D. Julia Gwynne, Ph.D.

Julia Gwynne is a Senior Research Analyst at CCSR. Her research interests include student mobility, curriculum policies, and special education.

Photograph of Holly Hart, Ph.D. Holly Hart, Ph.D.

Holly Hart is Associate Director for Survey Research at CCSR. Holly is currently conducting evaluations in areas of human resource development, including principal preparation and new teacher induction programs in Chicago.

Photograph of Joy Lesnick, Ph.D. Joy Lesnick, Ph.D.

Joy Lesnick is a Researcher at Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago and a Senior Research Analyst at CCSR. She is currently examining the relationship between reading on grade level in elementary school and future educational outcomes.

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Question 1: Describe the characteristics of students who are two or more years below grade level.

In this report, in addition to students with disabilities, we take a look at a group of students who are two or more years below grade level.  This group of students does not receive special education services but does have extremely weak academic skills. This group of students who entered high school two or more years below grade level had a prior achievement history similar to those of students with disabilities and, as a result, may face similar challenges in their freshman year courses.

Students who enter high school two or more years behind grade level but who do not receive special education services constitute about two percent of first-time ninth-graders.  We do not know why these students were not identified for special education, despite their clear unaddressed learning needs. We do know:

  1. In both the 2001 and 2004 cohorts, nearly all (95 percent) had never received special education services prior to ninth-grade.
  2. The majority of the students were not new to Chicago Public Schools (CPS).  Three-quarters of the students were attending CPS elementary schools five years prior to entering ninth grade.
  3. These students had higher mobility rates than the general population. Nearly half had changed schools at least once in the three years prior to entering high school, compared with 40 percent of all students and 34 percent of students without identified disabilities. The higher mobility rate of these students might account for why students were not identified as needing special education services in ninth grade, despite their very low achievement.  
  4. These students are not concentrated in certain schools. Rather, they tend to spread out across schools at both the elementary and high school levels, suggesting they may be “slipping through the cracks.”
  5. These students are more likely to be female. A possible reason for this imbalance may be that female students may not exhibit behaviors that demand the teacher’s attention. The teacher might be less likely to notice a well-behaved female student who has fallen behind academically if there are other students with frequent behavior problems or if the teacher has a challenging schedule. Future research is needed to investigate this topic further.
Our analyses indicate these students clearly require additional attention and support and merit additional attention from school and district practitioners.  Like students with identified disabilities, students who enter high school two or more years below grade level have poor freshman year performance and low graduation rates. Unlike students receiving special education services, however, prior achievement, background characteristics, class absences and school effects all failed to fully explain why these students failed more courses and had worse GPAs than other students. This lingering performance gap may be due to the fact that these students were not receiving special education services, despite their very low achievement. Additional research is necessary to determine whether or not these students were eligible for special education supports. Such information may aid in the identification and implementation of effective support programs early in the ninth grade year for extremely low performing students, regardless of their special education status.