Contemporary Career and Technical Education (CTE) models have shifted from isolated courses to sequences of study that integrate academics and skills in high-demand sectors. Providing career pathways to high school students may reduce asymmetries about the available careers and strategies for attaining them but they may also catalyze students'…

There is a sizable number of English Language Learners (ELL) that are not succeeding in schools and are academically "falling through the cracks." The purpose of this thesis is to gather information that identifies reasons why students are not succeeding academically and which strategies individual teachers can implement to help these…

This article highlights San Diego's dropout problem and how much it's costing the city and the state. Most San Diegans do not realize the enormous impact high school dropouts on their city. The California Dropout Research Project, located at the University of California at Santa Barbara, has estimated the lifetime cost of one class or cohort of…

Kidsdata.org shows the California Department of Education's adjusted four-year derived dropout rate, which reflects the estimated percentage of public high school dropouts over four years based on a single year's data, and the grade 9-12 dropout count. Data also are provided by race/ethnicity. This paper presents the statistics on high school…

The customary perception is that students who drop out vanish from school enrollment rosters for good. This is an incomplete picture of the complex dropout story; dropping out is not necessarily a permanent high school outcome. Following the enrollment and course history of a district cohort of first-time 9th graders, this article documents the…

While educators have long argued that when local schools are successful, local communities benefit; there's now clear evidence that is the case. A new report, "The Economic Benefits from Halving the Dropout Rate: A Boom to Businesses in the Nation's Largest Metropolitan Areas," released in January by the Alliance for Excellent Education…

The purpose of this paper was to examine the impact of exit exams on the dropout rate. Data was gathered from several research articles. The most impressionable research revealed exit exams have a negative effect on minorities, especially black males. Results indicate by 2012, that exit exams in 25 states will affect 81 percent of minority high…

Recently the state of Missouri, through the Missouri Department of Higher Education, has started to work toward the goal of having 60 percent of state residents hold some type of postsecondary credential. This goal aligns with similar initiatives in other states as well as President Obama's objective for the nation. In order to reach this…

With the open door enrollment polices that community colleges have, diversity is increasingly present in community colleges. This diversity includes ability levels, ethnicity, and English as a Second Language learners (ESL). This raises a big issue of having a big gap in academic preparation among students within the same classroom. To solve this…

The percentage of students who graduate from high school within four years in the United States has remained between 65 and 70% since the late 1960s. Despite various educational reforms, the number of students who are at-risk of dropping out of high school has remained constant, increasing in some years and decreasing in other years. Two…

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…

The second year of college can be as important as the first year but far fewer studies have been conducted on second-year students. About 12% of students leave California State University - Fresno during or after their second year. In this report, we examined second year students to find the differences between those who graduate and those who…

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…