In today's economy, a quality public education is the key to economic prosperity for young people. When Superintendent of Public Instruction Denise Juneau took office in 2009, there were 2,272 public school students who dropped out of school, and Montana had a dropout rate of five percent. For a state with a school population as small as Montana,…

Gathering high school completer and dropout data and maintaining annual records provides longitudinal information on students which allows a district to observe its unique patterns of school dropouts. That information may assist schools to target prevention and intervention programs and policies that focus on local circumstances and address the…

When Superintendent Denise Juneau took office in 2009, there were 2,423 students who dropped out of school, and Montana had a dropout rate of 5.1 percent. Inspired by the early successes of the Graduation Matters Missoula initiative, Superintendent Juneau launched Graduation Matters Montana in 2010. Graduation Matters Montana is a statewide effort…

According to the Alliance for Excellent Education (AEE), nationally one-third of students, 1.3 million each year, fail to graduate. The AEE suggests that these low rates have for too long been "obscured... by inadequate accountability systems at state and federal levels." Montana's accountability system is a case in point. Dependent on…

This paper examines the graduation/dropout crisis among American Indian and Alaska Native students using data from the National Center for Education Statistics. Data from 2005 is drawn from the seven states with the highest percentage of American Indian and Alaska Native students as well as five states in the Pacific and Northwestern regions of…

This report analyzes the economic and social costs of the high school dropout problem in Montana from the perspective of a state taxpayer. The majority of the authors' analysis considers the consequences of this problem in terms of labor market, tax revenue, and public service costs. In quantifying these costs, the authors seek to inform public…

Graduation rates are a fundamental indicator of whether or not the nation's public school system is doing what it is intended to do: enroll, engage, and educate youth to be productive members of society. Since almost 90 percent of the fastest-growing and highest-paying jobs require some postsecondary education, having a high school diploma and the…

This report details the graduation rates for the class of 2003 for Montana High Schools. Sections include: Montana High School Completion and Graduation Rate Overview, and Montana High School Completion and Graduation Rates, 2002-03 School Year.

The magnitude of the dropout problem among Indians was illustrated by a study which followed students registered in grade 8 as of November 1962 through June 1967. Statistics were gathered by area, state, type of school, tribal group, and majority-minority position of Indian students in the 6-state area of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, South…

The Montana School Accreditation Standards (10.55.603, ARM) require schools to do follow-up studies of graduates and students no longer in attendance, therefore, dropout data is collected from all public and accredited (by the Montana Board of Public Education) nonpublic schools. Each fall, schools report dropout data for grades 7 through 12 by…