Dropouts have become an international problem, and it is useful to examine the solutions arrived at by other countries. A major difference is in vocational education. The United States, for example, uses vocational education mainly as a means to motivate uninterested students. Countries with low dropout rates have vocational education and training…

About 15% of the nation's high schools produce more than "half of its dropouts" and close to "75% of its minority dropouts." Half of these schools are found primarily in the cities of the North, Midwest, and West. The other half are found throughout the South and Southwest in urban, suburban, and rural areas. If only a very few students were not…

This article presents a speech that Senator Barack Obama delivered in Thornton, Colorado, in May 2008, summarizing his education beliefs and proposals. One of the highlights of Obama's education proposal is fixing the broken promises of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). As President, he will work with the nation's governors and educators to create and…

Miami-Dade County Public Schools invested in an intensive, three-year program to improve the learning of students in its 39 lowest-performing schools. Known as the Zone, these schools experienced mixed success, with elementary schools reducing the gap between various groups of students while middle and high schools were less successful. However,…

Although dropout rates in virtual school courses are typically quite high, some virtual programs have very low course dropout and failure rates and better passing rates on key criterion tests (e.g., AP tests) than do traditional school programs. Directors of five successful virtual schools agreed to share their "formulas for success" in…

Low achievement and high dropout rates among poor and minority students continue to plague U.S. society. While much attention over the past quarter century has focused on reforming the schools these students attend, little or no progress has been made in actually closing the achievement gaps or reducing the number of dropouts. Why? Aren't…

Recent studies have argued that there is a dropout crisis in the U.S. But the authors in this article, find that this contention is based on flawed analyses of inadequate data. Using a much wider range of sources, they conclude that the situation is not nearly so dire as is commonly believed. (Contains 14 endnotes.)