Retaining people no longer credited toward college completion--a group known in academic parlance as "stop outs"--is a core concern among administrators seeking to remove barriers to education. Preventing stop outs from becoming stay outs means re-enrolling students beset by debt, or targeting vulnerable demos close to graduation.…

Nearly half of students who enter college do not graduate. The majority of efforts to increase college completion have focused on supporting students before or soon after they enter college, yet many students drop out after making significant progress towards their degree. In this paper, we report results from a multi-year, large-scale…

In 2019, MDRC launched the Scaling Up College Completion Efforts for Student Success (SUCCESS) project to improve college completion rates for traditionally underserved students, such as students from low-income backgrounds and students of color, at community and broad-access colleges (those that have open or minimally selective admissions…

According to a recent What Works Clearinghouse review, the most effective dropout-prevention strategy is to directly connect schoolwork to students' career aspirations. Towpath Trail High School in Akron is a real life embodiment of that strategy. Author Lyman Millard of the Bloomwell Group offers a fascinating look at a school that engages…

After a tumultuous reception, the Biden administration's regulations for the federal Charter Schools Program (CSP) were finalized in July. Although the Administration backpedaled partway on issues related to community demand and racial integration, its final rules cracked down on so-called "for-profit charters," in line with the…

Colleges and employers are demanding greater knowledge and skills from our graduates than ever before. As Ohio continues to help students in meeting higher expectations for what they should know and be able to do, student achievement is higher statewide. From 2016 to 2017, every subject area had an increase in first-time test takers scoring…

In partnership with the Midwest Dropout Prevention Research Alliance the study team used student-level data and a five-step process to identify the most accurate indicators of students' failure to graduate from high school on time. Student-level data came from attendance records, transcripts, and discipline records of grade 8 and 9 students in…

This study analyzed data on students in three Ohio school districts who had completed grades 8 and 9 to determine which data elements were the most accurate indicators of students' failure to graduate from high school on time. The most accurate indicators varied by district and grade level, which underscores the importance of having school systems…

Out-of-school factors can significantly impact students' readiness to learn and thrive in school. Preventing dropout is a challenge because students fail to complete high school for a myriad of reasons that involve factors inside and outside of schools. This article describes City Connects, an intervention implemented in schools in Massachusetts,…

In 2009, President Barack Obama announced the 2020 College Completion initiative. The goal: By 2020, the United States will have the greatest proportion of citizens who are college graduates, compared with the rest of the world. On a national level, however, the average six-year completion rate hasn't changed much in the more than five years since…

Ohio is raising its expectations for what their students must learn and their schools must accomplish. Ohio's School Report Cards are one good way to determine if they are meeting their goals. There are many changes on this year's report card, changes that reflect the increased expectations Ohio has for its students and schools. So this year's…

There is a new endangered species in this country--the black male. The education of the black male in the United States has recently garnered much-needed national attention. Two national reports in 2010 have heightened the awareness of the fact that the black male student is not successfully navigating our public school systems, often dropping…

The Ohio School Report Cards for the 2014-2015 academic year give every school and district A-F letter grades on up to 10 measures of education quality. The measures fall under six areas of school responsibility, including student learning progress, graduation rate and reading mastery for our youngest students. The report card's easy-to-follow…

Every community has individuals or groups who manage to find better solutions to problems than their peers, although everyone has access to the same resources and challenges. Those are the positive deviants.

The 2014 Ohio School Report Card grades schools on more measures, offering Ohioans an even clearer picture of how well their schools and districts are doing. With its new data, this year's report card shows parents where their schools need to improve. It includes grades of A through F for up to nine measures, depending on the school or district.…