This paper reviews the literature on urban school dropouts and the experiences of superintendents in attempting to lower the dropout rate. The paper is divided into two major sections. Part I examines how a mixture of societal, community, family and other influences increase the chances that an at-risk student will experience little success in school, will have low educational aspirations, and will feel alienated from the worlds of education and work. The section also includes a discussion of some of the efforts made since the early 1960s to reform education. Part II describes policies and practices that superintendents have recently found effective in increasing school holding power. The discussion is organized around the following general points: (1) Schools are working to identify and track the student in danger of dropping out; (2) Districts are creating good school climates that generate optimism and self-esteem among both staff and students; (3) Urban educators are increasingly devoting their educational planning and resources to early intervention in the educational lives of the district's children; (4) As part of improving school climates, urban superintendents are creating ways of maintaining high performance standards, while helping students to meet them; (5) Organizing schools and providing a multiplicity of instructional programs for students with diverse educational needs has become an important strategy for reducing dropout rates; and (6) The task of lowering the dropout rate requires the joint efforts of schools and the community, who have a shared stake in increasing the holding power of the schools. (KH)