The 1950 Census of Florida shows that only 24.3 per cent of all white residents of the state twenty-five years of age and over had completed high school. A study made by Marshall of the 1952 class at Leon County High School, Tallahassee, Florida, disclosed that 77.1 per cent of the students who entered the seventh grade in 1946 for the first time continued to graduation or one year after class had graduated. This is a higher percentage of graduating students than in many other high schools of the state. It is assumed desirable to have these young people stay in school the allotted time and to provide for them an educational program appropriate to their needs and to the needs of the society in which they live. Drop-outs, for one reason or another, are being thrust into an adult world to face adult problems before they have successfully coped with the problems of teenagers. / Typescript. / "May, 1956." / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts." / Advisor: Edward K. Hankin, Professor Directing Paper. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 39-40).

Recent literature on high school graduation and drop out have shifted the focus from identifying causes of drop out to identifying students who are at risk of dropping out. The Early Warning Systems (EWS) used to identify students seek to use existing data to predict which students have a greater risk of dropping out of school so that schools can intervene early enough to reengage students. Despite widespread attention to individual indicators, there is no defined system of indicators proven to be generalizable across grade levels, specifically at the elementary grade levels. Drawing on the tenets of Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) Ecological Systems Theory, the purpose of this quantitative research study was to determine to what extent the State of Florida’s EWS model can predict on-time cohort graduation in grades 3-8. Using a retrospective longitudinal sample, this study first established that Allensworth and Easton’s (2005) grade 9 on-track indicator was predictive of dropout, finding that 92.2% of students who were on-track in grade 9 graduated on time. Using this grade 9 indicator as a proxy for graduation, this study then examined the effectiveness of the Florida EWS at predicting on-track status. Through this a priori link to graduation, this study was able to shed light on predictive indicators in the elementary and middle school years without the temporal distance between the predictor grade levels and graduation typically associated with longitudinal studies of this nature. The findings that the Florida EWS successfully predicted 71.6% of future on- and off-track status confirms its use as a predictive indicator of students at risk of not graduating. The academic, behavioral, and engagement indicators found in both Allensworth & Easton’s (2005) grade 9 on-track indicator and the Florida EWS were found to successfully capture the molar activities of students within the school ecological system and were successful at providing an indication of a student’s development in terms of being on track to graduate on time from high school. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2018. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection