Great strides have been made by community school initiatives across the nation in their efforts to impact student achievement, attendance, student engagement, graduation rates, parent involvement and more. Data on community schools is growing and the authors encourage readers to review research reports and syntheses on results. The results…

Concerned about the persistently high dropout rates from big-city secondary schools, education leaders are trying a new approach to increasing the graduation rate--multiple pathways to graduation. Multiple pathways initiatives are relatively new and far from proven. Even the most advanced examples face significant issues, i.e., the need to…

Few people realize the impact that high school dropouts have on a community's economic, social, and civic health. Business owners and residents--in particular, those without school-aged children--may not be aware that they have much at stake in the success of their local high schools. Indeed, everyone--from car dealers and realtors to bank…

This paper examines the graduation/dropout crisis among American Indian and Alaska Native students using data from the National Center for Education Statistics. Data from 2005 is drawn from the seven states with the highest percentage of American Indian and Alaska Native students as well as five states in the Pacific and Northwestern regions of…

Summer Training and Education Program (STEP) is a summer employment, academic remediation, and life skills program intended to lower school dropout rates by reducing summer learning loss and preventing teen parenthood. The program is integrated into the federal summer jobs program and is offered during six-to-eight-week sessions in two consecutive…

This report explores two questions: (1) What can be done to recover and reconnect young people to opportunities for building useful lives in work, family, and citizenship? and (2) Who is doing what, and where, to reengage out-of-school youth while working to strengthen the communities in which they live? Focusing on the positive, the American…

According to the 2000 census, high school dropouts had a 52% employment rate, compared to 71% for high school graduates and 83% for college graduates. According to NCSE, the national dropout rate is 30% of which 80% had been chronically absent from school ("School attendance tracking: Challenges and effective practices"), which puts the…

This publication provides descriptive information about the 100 largest school districts in the United States. Almost one in every four public school students in this nation is served by one of these large districts. They are distinguished from the average district by characteristics, in addition to sheer size, such as pupil-teacher ratios, high…