Reducing Online Student Withdrawals Using DIISM Analysis. DIISM: The five variables that School Administrators must know to control students' retention and funding.

So what do the data reveal? The answer will not be heartening to obsessive parents: in this case, school choice barely mattered at all. It is true that the Chicago students who entered the school-choice lottery were more likely to graduate than the students who didnБЂ™tБЂ”which seems to suggest that school choice does make a difference. But thatБЂ™s an illusion. The proof is in this comparison: the students who won the lottery and went to a БЂњbetterБЂ«school did no better than equivalent students who lost the lottery and were left behind. That is, a student who opted out of his neighborhood school was more likely to graduate whether or not he actually won the opportunity to go to a new school. What appears to be an advantage gained by going to a new school isnБЂ™t connected to the new school at all. What this means is that the studentsБЂ”and parentsБЂ”who choose to opt out tend to be smarter and more academically motivated to begin with. But statistically, they gained no academic benefit by changing schools ...»