The Kentucky Board of Education is currently considering changes to Kentucky's high school graduation requirement policy to address concerns that Kentucky students are not graduating with the skills necessary to ensure their success after high school. A key component of this policy change would require students to pass a high school exit exam…

Over the past decade, SREB state policy-makers have focused on actions to reduce dropout rates and increase high school graduation rates. Some policy-makers have suggested that raising their state's compulsory attendance age (often called the dropout age) to require students to stay in school until age 17 or 18 is an important step. However,…

In the 2012-13 school year, Kentucky led the nation with an 85.4 percent high school graduation rate for low-income students and a one-percentage-point graduation gap between low-income and non-low-income students. In 2013-14 the state ranked fourth in the nation with a seven-percentage-point incomebased graduation rate gap. Even though Kentucky's…

Federal education funding has often been overlooked by districts in search of sources of support for prevention. This guide is intended to help school districts take advantage of those funds by identifying K-12 grant programs in the U.S. Department of Education (ED) that could be used to implement prevention efforts in elementary and secondary…

ICF International's white paper explores how implementation of social and emotional learning (SEL) has the potential to prepare students for workforce success and positively influence student engagement and academic performance while reducing dropout rates. Self-improvement and leadership development sections of bookstores are replete with texts…

Communities face powerful challenges--a high-school dropout epidemic, youth unemployment, teen pregnancy--that require powerful solutions. In a climate of increasingly constrained resources, those solutions must help communities to achieve more with less. A new kind of community collaborative--an approach that aspires to significant,…

Every step in a student's life is important for future success. Schools are building stronger frameworks of curricula, instruction and assessments to prepare students to move from one learning environment to another with maximum results as they journey toward adulthood. This issue of "High Schools That Work" contains examples of…

The first year of a high school dropout prevention program upgraded the academic achievement of its participants and markedly improved their classroom behavior. (CK)

The "National Dropout Prevention Newsletter" is published quarterly by the National Dropout Prevention Center/Network. This issue contains the following articles: (1) Policy Matters; (2) A Conversation With A State Policymaker (Stephen Canessa); (3) Policy Matters at the School Level (Steven W. Edwards); (4) EEDA: Promise or Peril? (Sam…

Discusses basis for Kentucky appellate court decision that state's no-pass, no-drive statute did not violate due-process and equal-protection clauses of the Kentucky and federal constitutions, but did violate the federal Family Education Rights and Privacy Act, but nevertheless did not invalidate the statute. Explains why the decision is…

Describes the revitalization of Evarts High School in a poverty-stricken area of rural Kentucky. Reforms included (1) adding 120 electives to the curriculum; (2) beginning a school news service; (3) producing a weekly video program aired on cable television; and (4) offering privilege cards for attendance, achievement, and participation in…

Describes 11 Appalachian Regional Commission funded projects designed to improve education in Kentucky, many of which focus on dropout prevention, including Laurel County Alternative School, Owsley County Dropout Prevention Program, ADOPT, Pine Mountain Settlement School, Technical Assistance Grant, potential projects, documentary on dropout…

The Kentucky Dropout Prevention Advisory Commission, appointed in 1984, found enough evidence to conclude that Kentucky's dropout problem is large enough to nerit the development of statewide dropout prevention efforts. Any such effort, the Commission states, will require a commitment from all Kentucky officials, educators, and citizens to educate…

Project VIII is an innovative behavioral science-oriented educational program for potential dropouts. It is designed to reduce the dropout rate in grades 9 through 12, increase attendance in grades 7 through 12, decrease discipline referrals and suspensions, increase reading and math achievement in grades 3 through 11, and improve the student's…

Donna Johnson teaches troubled, abused, and mentally disturbed teenage girls at Hope Hill Children's Home Alternative School. She also teaches students who earn credits toward a diploma through Providence High School, an online entity Johnson created from scratch last January. It seems like a mighty odd move for a 58-year old grandmother with no…