The 4-year graduation rate for Colorado students in foster care decreased substantially from the 2015-2016 school year to the 2016-2017 school year, from 33.2% to 23.6%. This study examines trends in state-level child welfare and education data to uncover possible explanations for this decline. Students in the 2017 foster care cohort tended to…

In the fall of 2013, Fountain-Fort Carson High School implemented a new "Advisory Period" for all students at all grade levels. Incoming ninth-grade students were randomly assigned a faculty advisor and stayed with the advisor over the course of their 4 years of high school. School counselors wrote the Advisory programming which included…

Pursuant to State Law, the Colorado Department of Education, Office of Blended and Online Learning is required to prepare an annual summary report for submission. The passage of a later State House Bill repealed the annual requirement for the Summary Report and also the annual reporting mandates that were required of all online schools and…

The ambitious goal set by Colorado's governor to address the state's dropout problem is a model for the nation. Helping thousands of young people to receive their high school diplomas instead of leaving school without them is a crucial step in improving the quality of life for all Colorado residents. Accomplishing this goal will require focused…

The ambitious goal set by Colorado's governor to address the state's dropout problem is a model for the nation. Helping thousands of young people to receive their high school diplomas instead of leaving school without them is a crucial step in improving the quality of life for all Colorado residents. Accomplishing this goal will require focused…

Dropouts from rural school districts have not received the same scrutiny as given to those from urban ones. The reasons behind this lack of knowledge about the experience of rural school districts with dropouts are unclear. The purpose of the present study was to begin to close this knowledge gap. A first major study of rural dropouts in the…

Dropping out of school--and the concomitant failure to graduate with a high school diploma--form a "silent epidemic" in the United States today. "Nationally, research puts the graduation rate between 68 and 71 percent, which means that almost one-third of all public high school students in America fail to graduate" or drop out…

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 report examines high school education in Colorado, noting the high (and underreported) level of student attrition and the achievement of those who remain. Over 40 percent of Colorado's high school students never graduate. About 15 percent of this attrition can be accounted for by published dropout statistics. Actual attrition rates, however,…