The Metropolitan Youth Education Center in Denver (Colorado) offers flexible scheduling, small classes, and a broad range of courses to help high school dropouts earn diplomas. (MLF)

High school students with disabilities who drop out are costly to society. Compared to those who graduate, they are more likely to be unemployed, dependent on public services, and involved in the criminal justice system. Consequently, helping students with disabilities graduate has become a prominent national concern. Students with disabilities…

Describes an alternative program designed to recapture dropouts and integrate them back into the regular school program. (IRT)

"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…

What started as a summer arts and crafts program in the predominantly Mexican-American lower west side of St. Paul, Minnesota, has developed into a "dropouts" school accepted into the public school system. The small school emphasizes strictness, caring, basic skills, and student responsibility. (SJL)

At Albuquerque's visually appealing New Futures School, which combines academics with parenthood training and day care services, approximately 75 percent of pregnant teens and teenage mothers enrolled obtain a high school diploma. Compared with traditional schooling, few rules apply, except required prenatal care and no fighting. The newborns also…

The purpose of this article is to review a partnership between a teacher education department and a dropout prevention program. The partnership developed from a variety of communities' needs, no less of which was that of reconnecting marginalized youth at a local dropout prevention school with their community through cultural and civic…

Reviews various alternative education programs. Argues that educators need to balance the alternatives offered within a school district, giving choices to a wide range of student abilities, not just to potential dropouts. (FL)

The principal of a Louisville, Kentucky, alternative high school uses a "come when you can" schedule, a promise of success, and a high school diploma rather than a General Education Development certificate to entice would-be dropouts and pushouts to finish their education. Highly individualized and computer-assisted programs make the…

Brief descriptions of what four school systems are doing to keep students in school or get them back once they have dropped out. The systems are located in Colorado Springs, Colorado; Washoe County, Nevada; Renton, Washington; and Central York School District, Pennsylvania. (MLF)

To improve its alarming dropout rate, a southwestern Texas school district instituted the PRIDE Center, an alternative high school featuring self-paced curricula and flexible timetables for beginning and completing coursework. School social workers formed an ancillary coalition of community, business, and family forces to support prevention,…

This article reports that education leaders in Los Angeles, faced with unrelenting pressure to raise anemic high school graduation rates, are turning to YouTube, MySpace, text messaging, and the radio waves to reach students at risk of dropping out of school and lure back thousands who have already left. The Los Angeles Unified School…

This is a guide for the North Carolina Extended School Day Program, an alternative education program which provides youth with the opportunity to complete high school in an environment conducive to meeting their needs. The extended school day program is an extension of the regular public school and is an integral part of the comprehensive high…

The purpose of the practicum described here was the development of a model for an alternative night high school. The plan called for a curriculum aimed at student interest and graduation requirements, a profile procedure for identifying potential candidates, and the operation of a prototype evening program during the summer of 1975 to test the…

Alternative schools for intermediate grade students should be small and located in a separate building, where students and teachers can develop their own sense of identity. Curricula for high risk students require three components: a vocational orientation, interdisciplinary team projects, and a mastery learning/continuous progress approach.…