Amostra

Students’ in-school age at the time of data collec tion ranged from 15 to 20 years (mean 18.2).The most frequently indicated in-school age was 19 (49.6%, SE 17.1), followed by 17 (15.9%, SE 6.2), 18 (13.6%SE5.3) and 20 (18.5%, SE 4.5).The least frequently in-school ages were 15 (4.4%, SE 2.4) and 16 (8.0%, SE 4.3). In terms of out-of school age (i.e. the age when post-school outcomes were assessed), the range was 17–23 (mean 21.5) with the most frequently indicated age of 23 (45.5%, SE 18.6).This was followed by 22 (17.1%, SE 6.4), 19 (11.3%, SE 5.1) and 21 (10.7%, SE 4.0). The majority of the students were enrolled in grade 13 or, in other words, ungraded (45.3%, SE 18.5). The frequency of student in a particular grade decreased as the grade level decreased: 27.5% (SE 10.2) reported being in 12th grade, 12.8% (SE 5.1) in11th grade, 11.0% (SE 5.1) in10th grade and 3.4% (SE 1.7) in9th grade.The majority of the students reported attending a suburban school (63.2%, SE 12.9), followed by an urban school (28.4%, SE 10.2) and rural (8.4%, SE 3.8). In terms of other demographics, the majority of the students were male (73.6%, SE 9.9) and African American (46.5%, SE 18.2). Caucasian was the next most frequently indicated ethnicity (41.3%, SE 14.3), followed by Hispanic (8.6%, SE 4.4) and Asian (2.5%, SE 2.3).The majority of the students reported a family (i.e. parents/guardians) income of over $50 000 a year (52.2%, SE 16.4), followed by under $25 000 (28.6%, SE 10.5) and then between $25 000 and $50 000 (19.8%, SE 8.1). About one third of the students in the study reported receiving free or reduced lunch services at school (32.1%, SE 12.4). In terms of ‘mental skills’– a variable coined in the NLTS2 database representing the sum of four skill assessments (i.e. telling time on a clock with hands, reading and understanding common signs, counting change and looking up phone numbers in a phonebook and using the telephone) and assessed on a four-point scale (4 being the maximum score) (Wagner et al. 2003), the average mental skill score across the population was 9.1 (SE 0.6). For students who received an academic cur riculum, the average mental skills score was 10.6 (SE 0.8) and for those who received a functional curriculum 8.3 (SE 0.7); no statistically significant differences existed in the mental skill scores between students who received one curriculum approach versus another.