Giving Compass' Take:

• Chalkbeat examines a new report out of Chicago that shows how failing less academic classes such as gym can damage a student's chance at graduating just as much as doing poorly in math or science.

• Could this spur administrators and policymakers to take a more holistic look at education? How can we gear programs toward a more expansive view of achievement in high school?

• Here's how to bring more transparency to high school graduation options.

Failing a class like art or PE in the freshman year could be just as damaging to a student’s chance of graduating as failing English, math or science, a newly released study of Chicago schools has found.

That surprising discovery is among the findings in a series of reports by the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research that put the ninth-grade year under a microscope. The consortium’s previous research stressed how a freshman’s grade-point average and attendance impacts key outcomes, such as whether he or she graduates from high school.

Previously, that landmark research — which has been examined across the country as a way to boost achievement in poor urban districts — had looked exclusively at core classes such as math. Released Thursday, one new paper, titled “Hidden Risk,” takes a more expansive view.

“If you fail PE, your probability of graduating is a little bit lower than if you failed just algebra, or just English, or just biology,” said Jenny Nagaoka, the deputy director of the Consortium on School Research. “We tend to discount less academic classes, but they are as predictive of graduation as core subjects.”

Read the full article about the consequences of failing classes early in high school by Yana Kunichoff at Chalkbeat.