Hanging onto kids who might otherwise leave school is the mission of the Options Complex at Margaret A. Ireland School in Cleveland. Options Complex is a program for students in grades 6-12 who are behind in school by two or more years. Much of the concern about dropout rates has focused on improving high schools. Experts say that struggling…

From the 3rd grade to the 11th grade, Jorge Martinez walked out of his front door each day hating the prospect of going to school. For most of those days, Martinez, now 17, was a target of bullies. But that was only half of it. There was discord at home. He says he was lazy and unmotivated, preferring to spend his time in front of the television,…

The Montana School Accreditation Standards (10.55.603, ARM) require schools to do follow-up studies of graduates and students no longer in attendance. This report provides information on students who graduated or dropped out of Montana public, state-funded and nonpublic, accredited schools during the 2004-05 school year. Students who drop out of…

It used to be that students who dropped out were considered lazy and unmotivated. Some students were actually pushed out and encouraged to leave, as if this solves the problem! While teachers blame kids for dropping out, kids blame an educational system "gone bad." Dropping out is no longer viewed as solely a student problem, but rather a problem…

Data from a large school district in the southwestern United States were analyzed to investigate relations between student and school characteristics and high school freshman dropout patterns. Application of a multilevel logistic regression model to student dropout data revealed evidence of school-to-school differences in student dropout rates and…

The author combines principles of cooperative learning where older students at risk of dropping out are recruited to teach violence prevention to younger learners. The secondary students learn problem solving and conflict resolution skills while providing a positive model through cross age peer tutoring.

Since the beginning of the American experience, labels have been used to describe generations. Among them are the "Puritan generation," the "greatest generation," the "baby boomer generation" and the "MTV generation." Today, people are creating a new generation--the "lost generation." The lost generation represents a large and growing population…

This document contains a variety of materials from the Teen Outreach program, a school-based program begun by the Junior League of St. Louis (Missouri) and designed to decrease the incidence of teenage pregnancy and increase the number of at-risk teenagers who successfully complete their high school education. It is noted that Teen Outreach…

The Job Training Partnership Act (JPTA) Title-B mandates that some of its monies be used for remediation of basic skills and places new emphasis on literacy. The act also requires that a system be developed to evaluate the effectiveness of the remediation program. In West Virginia the summer implementation program for JPTA eligible students that…

Nine distinct programs aimed at reducing the dropout rate and bringing "at-risk" students back into the educational mainstream are described in this publication. The document first notes the social and economic costs to the nation of students dropping out before completing high school. The report then describes changes in Wisconsin's attendance…

Across Canada almost 40 percent of youth drop out and do not finish high school. Young people feel they can drop out of school and find a job tomorrow that will pay them enough so they can continue the lifestyle to which they are accustomed. However, unemployment rates for individuals between the ages of 15 and 24 are high. There are people who…

Large numbers of school age youth in Ohio are not in school, sometimes because they lack motivation, in other cases because of misbehavior or attendance problems. This report examines school motivation and discipline problems and describes how a small sample of Ohio schools have worked to create orderly schools where children are motivated,…

This paper contains a study of student attendance problems in the New York City school system. The goals of the study were to determine the degree to which the chancellor's attendance program had been implemented at the school level, to explore some attendance-related issues, and to make recommendations for action by the board of education.…

Pittsburgh is responding to the concern about dropout prone youth by creating an initiative to prepare all youth for careers. Vocational education is at the heart of the enterprise. (JOW)

Chicago Public Schools' Bureau of Vocational Support Services provides assessment screening, peer tutoring, specialized services for the disabled, an academic resource center, and vocational aides in schools needing bilingual services. During the 1985-86 school year, only two percent of students served by the program dropped out of high school.…