Chicago ninth graders who earn As and Bs experience positive academic outcomes far beyond landing on the school honor roll. Freshmen who earn higher grades are more likely to graduate from high school, enroll in college, and continue their college education for a second year. Furthermore, students’ grades during the first year of high school predict the outcomes of these important academic milestones better than do their test scores, according to a new report from the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research (the Consortium). Unfortunately, few ninth graders are earning top marks. In 2013, only half of Chicago’s ninth graders ended their year with an A or B grade point average (GPA), with students of color far less likely to earn top marks than their white peers.
Between 2009 and 2011, more than 90 percent of the ninth graders who earned an A or B as their final GPA ultimately graduated from high school on time, according to The Predictive Power of Ninth-Grade GPA. By contrast, only 60 percent of D students and 18 percent of F students graduated four years later, as the graph from the report shows below...