The David School in rural Floyd County, Kentucky, is a small private nonprofit high school that has served high-risk students and returned dropouts for the past 22 years. All students receive job training in a practical field and do not graduate until they have a well-paying job or are enrolled in college or vocational training. (LP)

A comprehensive program for dealing with some of the key factors causing school dropout is described and evaluated. The Magic of the Mind program has four basic components, each addressing one of the following: (1) building self-efficacy in students; (2) teaching students learning skills; (3) teaching stress management to the students; and (4)…

In 1988, the United States Congress passed legislation that created the School Dropout Demonstration Assistance Program (SDDAP). The program provides funding for local educational agencies, community-based organizations, and educational partnerships to establish effective programs. This report, the second of two volumes, presents statistical data…

This evaluation of the 1989-90 Home-School-Community Agent (HSCA) Project in Columbus (Ohio) found mixed success. The role of the HSCA was to help disruptive pupils make positive adjustments to those elements in their lives that interfered with their success in school. Nineteen HSCAs were each assigned 60 "disruptive" students drawn from…

The One-Room-Drop-In-School (ORDIS) emerged as one of Tennessee's dropout prevention program innovations. A pilot ORDIS was started in Nashville (Tennessee), in a high density housing project where concentrations of poverty and illiteracy usually exist. A five-bedroom apartment in the housing project was set up as a school. A certified teacher,…

The exemplary high school dropout prevention programs funded by the federal Vocational Education Cooperative Demonstration Program that are profiled in this document reveal several elements necessary for success in an enhanced vocational education program: (1) highly qualified and emotionally stable staff; (2) curriculum and instruction that…

Institutional racism is responsible for the high Hispanic dropout rate in Michigan. The term "pushout" is more appropriate than "dropout" for these students who are systematically ignored and devalued until they become alienated and leave school. Negative expectations are broadcast to Hispanic American students as soon as they…

Very little attention has been given in Canadian education to "second chance" education to enable people to return to school to complete their educations. Education is a responsibility of the provincial governments in Canada; there is no Federal Government or unit specifically dealing with education. Although policy can vary greatly…

This paper describes a methodology for the evaluation of dropout prevention programs, for calculating dropout rates, and for comparing alternative programs equitably. A first step involves developing a hierarchy of criteria for evaluating programs. These criteria are used to obtain dropout risk probability for individuals and groups and types of…

For an ethnographic study of the personal and educational needs of Hispanic and Anglo adolescent mothers and the services affecting their decision to remain in school, researchers interviewed eight teenage mothers--four in a special high school teen parents' program and four who had dropped out of the program. Two young women in each group were…

Volume 6, the sixth of eight publications developed by the Intercultural Development Research Association as part of the "Texas School Dropout Survey Project," focuses on program responses to the dropout problem. It describes a survey conducted to identify and evaluate in-school and out-of-school programs designed to address the dropout…

Lowering dropout levels would not necessarily make society better off and, consequently, student aid policy should not be evaluated by its effects on dropout. Analysis of the model of postsecondary enrollment and completion developed in this paper results in two striking findings. First, making reduction of dropouts the policy goal yields the…

This report presents data from 25 school districts in Connecticut that were involved in dropout prevention planning programs in grades kindergarten through twelfth for the 1987-88 and 1988-89 school years. Each of these districts addresses the problems of both accounting for the dropout rate, and developing an effective and reliable method for the…

From September through November 1986, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) conducted a follow-up survey of Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) 8% program participants in the 1985-86 school year. The DPI is responsible for administering half of the JTPA 8% Education Coordination and Grants for economically disadvantaged youth, ages…

This casebook has been compiled in response to the expressed need of administrators, counselors, and teachers of occupational education in New York State to share knowledge about programs and initiatives that are successful in helping at-risk students remain in school and graduate with sound occupational skills. Each initiative described in this…