@article{ref1,
title="The 9th grade shock and the high school dropout crisis",
journal="Social science research",
year="2012",
author="Pharris-Ciurej, Nikolas and Hirschman, Charles and Willhoft, Joseph",
volume="41",
number="3",
pages="709-730",
abstract="Retrospective questions on educational attainment in national surveys and censuses tend to over-estimate high school graduation rates by 15-20% points relative to administrative records. Administrative data on educational enrollment are, however, only available at the aggregate level (state, school district, and school levels) and the recording of inter-school transfers are generally incomplete. With access to linked individual-level administrative records from a very large &quot;West Coast metropolitan school district&quot; we track patterns of high school attrition and on-time high school graduation of individual students. Even with adjustments for the omission of out-of-district transfers (estimates of omission are presented), the results of this study show that failure in high school, as indexed by retention and attrition, are almost as common as on-time high school graduation. In addition to the usual risk factors of disadvantaged background, we find that the &quot;9th grade shock&quot;--an unpredicted decline in academic performance upon entering high school--is a key mechanism behind the continuing crisis of high school attrition.<p />",
language="en",
issn="0049-089X",
doi="10.1016/j.ssresearch.2011.11.014",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2011.11.014"
}