Over the past decade, Americans have become increasingly concerned about the high numbers--and costs--of high school dropouts. The time is now to build a similar consensus around this less-recognized but equally urgent fact: The pool from which employers, colleges, and the military draw is too small, and still shrinking, because millions of…

Struggling adolescent readers need interventions that provide them with opportunities to read more and to read better. The authors examine two case studies of interventions at work and propose criteria on which to evaluate intervention programs. Their review of the evidence on these programs for struggling adolescent readers suggests that at least…

A summer employment and training project for high school dropouts was conducted at Florida's Pensacola Junior College (PJC) through the college's Adult High School. The program participants were economically disadvantaged teenagers who were eligible for Job Training Partnership Act funding. All but four of the 20 participants were high school…