This study examined the correlation between school division graduation rates and the percentage of expenditures above the required local effort (PEARLE) for all 133 school divisions located within Virginia in the fiscal years 2015–2018. This study aimed to discover whether increased local government school funding beyond the required local effort had a significant impact on the terminal completion of student achievement in the form of on-time graduation rates. The researcher conducted the study using a correlational bivariate data analysis. Convenience sampling was utilized to attain needed data for the study by collecting funding and graduation rate archived data for each of the 133 school divisions from the Virginia Department of Education website. The researcher calculated z scores and eliminated outliers by comparing z-score calculations to scatter plots. The researcher looked for the classic cigar shape. After eliminating identified outliers, the researcher implemented the correlational research design utilizing Pearson’s correlation coefficient and analyzed PEARLE and on-time graduation rates using a ratio scale to measure the potential correlation between PEARLE and on-time graduation rates. The researcher failed to reject the null hypothesis for each fiscal year. Recommendations for future research include conducting the same study for fiscal year 2021 and beyond due to the elimination of the required local effort requirement and perform the same study both before and after COVID-19 in other states to compare to Virginia as each state collects the same data due to the passing of the Graduation Counts Compact.

Schools invest in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to prepare students for workplaces where technological skills have become essential. In 2009, policymakers in North Carolina developed a State School Technology Plan (SSTP) designed to enhance student achievement through the use of educational technology in the classroom. The plan was supported by North Carolina’s State Technology Fund, among other sources. While many studies address the relationship between educational technology and student achievement, few assesses the relationship between school technology expenditures and high school graduation rates in particular. This study helps to fill that gap by exploring the relationship between North Carolina public schools’ State School Technology Plan (SSTP) expenditures and their high school graduation rates, using school district-level data from 2014 to 2019 for 111 Local Education Agencies. My results provide evidence of a positive relationship when expenditures are measured contemporaneously, but a negative relationship when expenditures are measured cumulatively. The magnitudes of these estimates are relatively small, and I find no evidence of variation in this relationship between school districts with different student characteristics.

This study investigated the relationship of statewide high school graduation rates of student ethnic groups from 2002 to 2006 to the four policy pillars of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001: Accountability for Results; Expanded Flexibility and Local Control; Expanded Options for Parents, Strengthening Teacher Quality. The quantitative, non-experimental, multivariate, correlational design addressed four research questions and six hypotheses. The research population was composed of high school students in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The predictor variables were the four policy pillars themselves. Data were collected through archival reports from the Education Commission of the States (ECS) and State Accountability Report Workbooks provided by state departments of education to create an index of implementation to determine the extent to which the four policy pillars were implemented. The criterion variable was high school graduation rate split across student ethnic groups. Graduation rates of subgroup student populations were collected from the Average Freshman Graduation Rates archives for the ninth grade cohort entering in 2001 and exiting in 2006. Data were analyzed both by a one-factor correlational analysis of covariance with one covariate to determine the impact of each NCLB policy pillar, and by a four-factor analysis of covariance with one covariate to determine the impact of all NCLB policy pillars together. The study found that no significant relationships existed between any of the four NCLB policy pillars, singularly or between all four of the policy pillars together, and statewide high school graduation rates among any student racial or ethnic subgroups for the academic years covered in the study. Reasons for the lack of significant relationships are a source for further study. It is recommended that such studies examine the effect of policy implementation that currently allows: (a) each state to set its own test and measurement standards or its own criteria for teacher certification; (b) parents to keep their children in failing schools even if those children are also failing; and (c) each state to underfund mandates.

This is the first in a series of briefs examining the progress in raising high school graduation rates over the past decade. During this period, the prevailing belief has been that all students who wanted to or needed to graduate did so. However, it is now recognized that in every state there are too many communities and schools where high school graduation is not the norm. Moreover, a widespread national consensus developed that state and national graduation rates were far from where they needed to be to insure success in the 21st century. As awareness of the magnitude, scope and consequences of the nation's graduation challenge grew in the past decade, many states and communities responded with a call to action and a diversity of attempts to increase graduation rates. Has this made a difference? How far do we still have to go to graduate all students from high school prepared for college, career, and civic life? This first data brief looks at progress in raising graduation rates in the nation and its 50 states. It examines national and statewide progress in raising the high school graduation rate between 2002 and 2006. (Contains 3 tables.) [This document was produced by The Everyone Graduates Center, located at the Center for Social Organization of Schools, Johns Hopkins University.].