Background: Research shows that educators can identify half of future high school dropouts as early as Grade 6--and three quarters or more of future dropouts by Grade 9--by monitoring readily available data on attendance, behavior, and course performance. These data have come to be known as the ABCs of dropout prevention, and the measures are some…

Background/Context: Research on data and evidence use suggest that productive use depends on interactive processes, including sustained interactions between educators and researchers. Recent research on research-practice partnerships (RPPs) has examined conditions under which these sustained collaborations support evidence use. Findings from these…

Background/Context: The passage of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002 and the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015 spurred changes in the way educators use data. On the one hand, the policies inspired educators' awareness of large gaps in achievement between subgroups based on gender, race, and socioeconomic status. On the other hand, the policies…

Background/Context: Emerging experiences suggest that research-practice partnerships (RPPs) can benefit both research and practice. As researchers and practitioners become part of the same social network, they also can become trusted sources of information for one another. By modeling the research use process, practitioners can incorporate what…

Engagement can prevent struggling students from dropping out, and re-engagement in learning can help struggling students who have dropped out return to school and graduate. This chapter presents a case study about a struggling student who dropped out and then came to Eagle Rock School and Professional Development Center, became engaged in her…

Background: Policymakers wish to know what changes must be made to the primary and secondary education system so that when students apply to college they are highly prepared, ready to perform at high levels, and likely to be successful in college. Purpose: The purpose of the current study was to investigate the significance of strong educational…

Background/Context: The academic success and failure of low-income youth, and Black and Latina/o youth in particular, has received significant attention in the educational literature, particularly in relation to school dropout. Over the last decade, several studies have demonstrated that student-teacher relationships, committed teachers, and…

Background: Bridging educational and social psychology, we examine the impact of positive intergroup relations in schools on minority and nonminority school careers. Purpose of Study: The study aims to estimate and explain the attainment gap between Turkish Belgian minority and Belgian nonminority students at four stages of their school careers,…

The author presents an overview of the dropout problem, pointing out that what is really a diverse set of problems requires multiple approaches. (MT)

The author considers the effect of raising school standards on the dropout rate. Research related to dropout prevention programs is reviewed in order to identify charactertistics of effective programs. The West German system of early student differentiation is examined. (MT)

Analyzes the performance contract and contractor while attempting to determine what makes a successful contract policy. (RK)

Used data from the National Educational Longitudinal Study to examine whether teachers provide students with social capital and whether that social capital increases students' likelihood of completing high school. Results show that teachers are an important source of social capital, which significantly reduces the probability of dropping out,…

New York's Dropout Prevention Initiative (DPI) is examined from the perspective of Dewey's educational philosophy. DPI employs an approach which "blames the victim" in contrast to the Deweyan approach which considers the social organization of schools as critical. Three components of DPI are critiqued: attendance incentives, career…

Investigates the informal curriculum of a state-funded after-school dropout prevention program for adolescents. The program's goal is to resocialize them into their schools and enable them to achieve academic success. The paper proposes that the program fails to achieve its goal because of its ideology, and it recommends an alternative perspective…