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…

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…

"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)

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…

Members of the educational community are increasingly concerned that the dropout rate is too high. However, concerned educators and researchers do not agree who should be included in the data to determine the dropout rate. National definitions are needed so that accurate comparisons can be made. There is also a need to assess the effectiveness of…

Vocational education is one of the strategies most frequently cited as a dropout prevention measure, and some schools can document such program outcomes as increased student attendance, retention, and graduation rates. Disadvantaged youth who take vocational courses are less likely to be unemployed and more likely to obtain better-paying jobs.…

The Street Academy is a program designed to meet the dropout as an individual--to assist, help and support him continually in his daily life. The academies operate from store-fronts located in neighborhoods where there are large concentrations of school dropouts. They are staffed, at the minimum, by a project director, a street worker, and a…

Discusses the efforts of Malawi to "vocationalize" general academic education to help alleviate the unemployment problems of secondary school leavers. Given the costs of vocational education and the number of unmet basic human needs in the country, concludes that vocational training should be left to specialist institutions outside…

The study, which compares a group of high school dropouts to a group of lowest quintile graduates, shows similarity in most areas of comparison regarding academic ability, character traits and family background. Findings show that the decision to drop out is based on a complex network of reasons with the problem of poor attendance most often cited…

Early school leaving within the first five years of secondary education was studied in the Netherlands using a sample from the national Educational Priority Policy study. Over 5,000 students were selected initially. Some 4.7% appeared to have dropped out without the educational system's basic qualification by the fifth year for a variety of…

This document presents recommendations to the Texas state legislature for meeting a 1997-98 goal of reducing the projected longitudinal and cross-sectional state dropout rates. Data for 1986 indicate that approximately 86,000 students were dropping out of Texas schools every year. The recommendations presented here were determined: (1) by tracing…

In October 2006, a collaborative of cross-sector leaders launched Project U-Turn, a citywide campaign to bring much-needed attention to Philadelphia's dropout crisis and to build the collective will to resolve it. In addition to increasing public awareness of the issue in a variety of ways, Project U-Turn's work has resulted in significant…

Presented in this annotated bibliography of 12 publications on students at risk are descriptions of (1) a study of 100 Austin, Texas, dropouts that identifies characteristics and conditions of high-risk students; (2) a study recommending a variety of programs to improve the progression of high-risk high school and college students; (3) a manual…