Dropout

This report presents a review of improvement strategies and reforms that educators and policymakers can develop and implement to support low-performing high schools. The report explains the theories that drive each reform strategy, reviews the evidence supporting the strategies, and provides suggestions for implementing the reforms. Some of the reform strategies include dual enrollment, early college high schools, learning communities, career academies, and charter high schools. 

This brief discusses the barriers to community college completion faced by students, such as lack of preparation, financial aid, and competing obligations. The brief also offers solutions for improving community college student outcomes through implementing promising practices and strategies, some of which include curriculum alignment and student supports.

This study calculates high school graduation rates and the percentage of all students who left high school eligible to apply for college from 1991 to 2002. The study finds that during this period the graduation rate went from 72% to 71%, while the college readiness rate increased from 25% to 34%.

This study explored the relationship between career and technical education (CTE) course taking and high school completion rates. Data analysis was conducted with a longitudinal database of a nationally representative sample of nearly 9,000 students. Results show that for youth who are younger than 15 years when entering ninth grade, CTE combined with core academic course taking, may decrease the risk of dropout. The most favorable results are found when students take one CTE course for every two core academic courses. 

This study explored the benefits of career and technical education. The author examined dropout rates, academic achievement, and postsecondary outcomes. The four groups consisted of (1) academic concentrators, (2) CTE concentrators, (3) dual concentrators, and (4) neither academic nor CTE concentrators. The study found that academic concentrators had the highest 1992 achievement scores in reading, mathematics, science, and history, and CTE students scored the lowest.

This brief from Jobs for the Future outlines a model for engaging disconnected and at-risk youth through the development of aligned postsecondary pathways and academic supports. The brief presents an overview of the current attainment and skills gap and then outlines the Back on Track Through College model, including examples of successful implementation and policy recommendations that support implementation.

This paper focuses on strategies for creating postsecondary pathways for high school dropouts in order to close the skills gap as well as connect the talents of these youth to postsecondary skills and credentials. The paper argues that in order to improve educational and economical outcomes for high school dropouts, there must be alignment of secondary, postsecondary, workforce, and adult education systems and several actions must be taken.

This guide presents superintendents with a framework for how graduation rates can be increased at the district level. An approach that has been successful in several districts, referred to as Multiple Pathways to Graduation, is also highlighted. Districts that were able to close the graduation gap did so by: reframing the dropout conversation, analyzing the local dynamics of the graduation crisis, re-designing school and district operations to increase responsiveness, and strategicallly managing a portfolio of schools.