Over a million of the students who enter ninth grade each fall fail to graduate with their peers four years later. In fact, about seven thousand students drop out every school day. Perhaps this statistic was acceptable fifty years ago, but the era in which a high school dropout could earn a living wage has ended in the United States. Dropouts…

Community colleges lose millions of dollars in potential revenue due to lackluster retention and graduation rates. It is time for change! Bergen Community College (BCC) has made a unique commitment to concentrate solely on this issue. Learn how the establishment of the Department of Retention Services, with its cutting edge initiatives, is…

In response to student requests, and to help celebrate the graduation of our physics majors, we have designed a graduation stole uniquely befitting physics. The design incorporates the four visible spectral lines of hydrogen--the Balmer series. Since the 2002 debut of the design, all our graduates have proudly worn their physics graduation stoles…

After years of debating the idea of national content standards, representatives from 37 states were set to convene in Chicago last week in what organizers hoped would be a first, concrete step toward common guidelines in mathematics and English language arts. The National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers--the…

"Perspective" is a monthly e-newsletter presenting news and views from Achieve. This issue includes a report describing how the American Diploma Project (ADP) Network selected Delaware and Tennessee from among 16 finalists as the winners of the first phase of Race to the Top (RTTT) grants. This issue also reports that: (1) The National…

This paper adds to the considerable literature on low completion rates for apprenticeships and traineeships by looking at whether the reasons given for not completing vary by how far the individual is into their contract of training. The approach the authors take is to calculate the probability of apprentices and trainees giving a particular…

Students who are deaf or hard of hearing and beginning their college years sometimes encounter challenges that, lacking special support, may result in their dropping out of school without any form of certification. Estimates for these students show that between two-thirds and three-quarters of those who begin their studies never graduate. From the…

Background. The demands of the current health-care system support the need for more nurses to be prepared at the bachelor's level (American Association of the Colleges of Nursing [AACN], 2007). However, only 28% of the registered nurse (RN) population in Florida holds a bachelor's degree in nursing (BSN), which may be the result of increased…

New Directions Alternative Education Center, Prince William County Public School's (PWCS) alternative high school, serves approximately 1000 students on a rolling-enrollment basis each year. The 2009-2010 school year marks the sixth year of operation for the center. The school program continues to develop and grow in exciting and "new…

It is well documented, that Indigenous students, compared with their non-Indigenous counterparts, attend school less frequently, and are more likely to develop anti-schooling attitudes leading to their early exit from school (Hayes et al., 2009; Gray & Partington, 2003; Hunter & Schwad, 2003). Although research does suggest that there has…

According to current estimates, more than a quarter of all students and over 40 percent of African American and Hispanic students do not graduate from high school on time. The vast majority of those young people who do not graduate with their peers drop out. The enormous costs to these individuals, their communities, and our society require us to…

In this article, the author shares how he was inspired to advance the cause of college completion in Maryland as he recently received the Carnegie Corporation Academic Leadership Award with $500,000 as award money. He shares how he intended to make use of the award money and mentions that it is in the spirit of making a positive difference that he…

The study provides information on African American accounting majors' views regarding 150-hr issues. The authors collected data from 152 students at two schools. Students at one school supported the requirement while those at the other school did not. However, students believed that the 150-hr requirement enhances the quality of certified public…

There are many approaches to solving the problem of underrepresentation of some racial and ethnic groups and women in scientific and technical disciplines. Here, the authors evaluate the association of a summer bridge program with the graduation rate of underrepresented minority (URM) students at a selective technical university. They demonstrate…

In this paper we investigate how participation in the Early Assessment Program, which provides California high school juniors with information about their academic readiness for college-level work at California State University campuses, affects their college-going behavior and need for remediation in college. Using administrative records from…