This report is third in a series of informational briefings developed as part of "The Guardians Initiative: Reclaiming the Public Trust," an effort to educate and engage trustees as advocates on key issues in higher education. The compact between American higher education and the broader society has always been multifaceted. Colleges and…

The U.S. Department of Education's (ED) National Center for Education Statistics defines dropouts as "16- through 21-year-olds who are not enrolled in school and have not earned a high school credential (either a diploma or an equivalency credential such as a General Education Development (GED) certificate)." According to the feds, the…

Efforts to improve educational attainment are hampered by the high school dropout crisis. At a time when governors are calling for changes to improve higher education access and success, more than 1 million youth ages 16 to 19 are not enrolled in school and do not have a high school diploma. Each year, an additional 390,000 youth drop out of…

The concept of student engagement is critical in the discussion of school reform. This issue is particularly important in dropout prevention programs such as the alternative high school, although little empirical work guides intervention efforts. In this qualitative research, ethnographic observations were combined with interviews with 24 students…

The school dropout rate in America is too high, especially for low-income students and those from nondominant racial or ethnic groups. For many students, the social-psychological and behavioral disengagement from school that leads to dropping out often begins in middle school. Research on early adolescents confirms that increasing the perceived…

Getting and keeping "all" young people engaged in learning and on track to graduate from high school ready for college and the 21st century workplace is going to require wider, deeper, and more systemic change. Recent policy focus on raising standards for high school graduation and aligning high school curriculum to college entrance requirements…

The merits of a public campaign can rarely be gauged fully in its early months or even in its initial year. Rather, the true measures of a campaign's successes are revealed over time: in its ongoing impacts on opinion or policy, and on the tangible results it achieves. On both accounts, Philadelphia's Project U-Turn campaign continues to make…

The present study describes students flows before and after the latest reform of upper secondary school in which a third year as well as a new grading system and new entrance requirements were introduced in vocational programmes. Published and unpublished data on student flows through upper secondary school before and after implementation of the…

"Straight A's: Public Education Policy and Progress" is a biweekly newsletter that focuses on education news and events both in Washington, DC and around the country. The following articles are included in this issue: (1) To Be Continued: Congress Passes Continuing Resolution to Keep Government Running, Buys Time to Pass Appropriations…

The accomplishments of continuation high schools" in California. (Author/RA)

Discusses how one rural community began an alternative school after concern mounted over the dropout rate in this conventional district's high schools. (DN)

In order to try to explain the success of street academies, descriptions of such schools from both the popular and professional literature are used to develop an analysis of typical program characteristics; suggest less obvious possible reasons for success which are usually not cited and speculate on one global program characteristic that may be…

THE AIM WAS TO DISCOVER WHAT KINDS OF PROBLEMS DROPOUTS FACE IN THE LABOR MARKET, THE KINDS OF TRAINING AND/OR GUIDANCE OF BENEFIT TO THEM AND WHETHER THE SCHOOL SYSTEM SHOULD PROVIDE SPECIAL TRAINING AND GUIDANCE FACILITIES. ONLY A FEW RESEARCH EFFORTS HAVE STUDIED IN DEPTH THE POST-DROPOUT EXPERIENCE OF SCHOOL-LEAVERS. FORTY-ONE BOY AND…

Two radical teachers set up a "free school" in Washington, D. C. to offer an alternative education to disaffected, rebellious, bored, middle-class high school students. Some of their ideas work, some of them didn't. Their story is told in this book from the separate perspectives of the two teachers. In their first-hand account of the school and…

The storefront school's value as change agent depends on its leaders attending to the key issues of ongoing funding, relationships with the public school system, cooperative arrangements with other alternative models, accountability, and power control. (JM)