Integrated Diverse Enrichment for Academic Learning (Project IDEAL) was an Elementary and Secondary Education Act Title VII-funded project in its first year of operation at Walton High School in the Bronx (New York). Project IDEAL served 192 students of limited English proficiency in 1992-93 with instruction in English as a second language (ESL),…

The Chapter 188 Dropout Prevention Grant Program funds school districts with high percentages of low-income students and school dropouts to enable them to implement dropout prevention initiatives in grades 7 through 12. The emphasis in funding is on long-term school change in school policy, curriculum, governance, scheduling, programming, support…

The Syracuse Stay In School Partnership Project, an alternative to the deficit-remedial dropout intervention model, is described in this report. The collaborative project undertaken by district middle schools and Syracuse University (New York) is based on an inclusive approach to dropout prevention, seeking to modify the school experience for…

The primary objective of a pilot study was to investigate the educational motivation of rural native Appalachian eighth grade females in terms of educational attitudes, educational decisions, and educational self-concept. Results from the study (sample size: 27) indicate strongly that female Appalachian adolescents, about to enter womanhood, do…

The Military Applicant Profile (MAP) was developed to serve as an applicant screening instrument to reduce attrition in the all-volunteer Army. Since 1979, it has been used operationally to screen 17-year-old non-high school graduate males. The Army Research Institute was asked to explore the extension of MAP to older (above 17) nongraduate males,…

Early interventions and educational expectations that promote access, quality education, and the right to career options are necessary parts of any dropout prevention program. This report suggests that preventing school failure and empowering students to succeed should be the goals of such programs. It discusses student underachievement and…

This report presents nine steps, followed by work plans, for administrators when implementing a dropout prevention initiative. These nine steps are: (1) conduct a needs assessment to establish a database that identifies students who leave school early; (2) draft descriptors that identify elementary students who are at risk of dropping out later;…

A study was conducted to determine the types of training and educational levels desired for entry-level employees in Tennessee and to obtain employer ratings of entry-level work skills for Tennessee vocational education graduates as compared to nonvocational education graduates. Additionally, 61 Tennessee employers identified by school districts…

The West Virginia Department of Education created and implemented a computer-assisted summer remediation program for Job Training Partnership Act-eligible students who were academically deficient. The curriculum had four components: mathematics computation, reading comprehension, personal guidance, and career exploration. Sites in 12 county school…

In 1988, a telephone survey was conducted of students at Prince George's Community College (PGCC) who were enrolled in fall 1987, but who were not registered for spring 1988. The purposes of the study were to ascertain students' reasons for not returning to PGCC and to determine what the college could have done to influence the non-returning…

This report attempts to demonstrate that dropouts follow a path inverse to the one that students follow to academic excellence by presenting a review of literature pertaining to dropouts and students at risk. It examines the process by which at-risk students are separated from academic excellence, and attempts to understand the factors behind…

A study examined why fewer than 4 percent of local unemployed adults enrolled in the Open Door program at Britain's Gloucestershire College of Arts and Technology during 1986-1989. The program allows unemployed adults to enroll in any Gloucestershire local educational agency college. A questionnaire was sent to Open Door students and interviews…

Many at-risk student intervention programs are not affordable for small rural schools. The Cooperative Alternative Program (CAP), a cooperative dropout prevention program administered by six western Texas rural school districts, is described in this report. The program is designed to meet graduation requirements, teach vocational skills, provide…

This report discusses the improvement initiatives in Boston (Massachusetts) middle schools triggered by the work of the Boston Compact to promote education-business collaborations to improve the public schools and provide better job and college-going opportunities for Boston students. Section 1 describes a study that was initiated to learn whether…

A study examined the extent of and the causes for student attrition in vocational education health careers programs in California. During the ten-month study, researchers utilized the following methods of data collection: analysis of data on enrollees, leavers, and completers that were gathered from California State Department of Education records…