Youth Opportunities Unlimited (YOU), a program operating on funds from the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA), was initiated at Arkansas State University in 1989. The 60-day program is targeted to economically disadvantaged 14- and 15-year-olds who are on grade level and have been identified as being likely to drop out of high school, but are not…

This document presents recommendations to the Texas state legislature for meeting a 1997-98 goal of reducing the projected longitudinal and cross-sectional state dropout rates. Data for 1986 indicate that approximately 86,000 students were dropping out of Texas schools every year. The recommendations presented here were determined: (1) by tracing…

Indiana University of Pennsylvania provided a federally funded program at two area vocational technical schools (AVTSs) to alleviate the student dropout problem in northwest Pennsylvania. Two programs of different emphasis were arranged--a program for out-of-school youth aged 16 to 21 at Indiana County AVTS and a program for in-school growth at…

One hundred individuals who dropped out of high school in Lawrence County, Alabama, during the 1986-87 school year were studied in order to help formulate ways schools could prevent students from dropping out and ideas on how to create advertising about available adult education to which such dropouts would be receptive. A former in-home adult…

The Valued Youth Partnership of San Antonio (VYP) has been dramatically successful in improving educational opportunities for the highest risk students. In school districts with dropout rates of over 40%, the highest risk students over a 4-year period averaged dropout rates of 2.5%. This booklet provides program results for VYP for the period 1984…

This paper discusses issues pertaining to at-risk students at the primary level, suggesting what can be done to keep pupils in formal schooling with an optimal achievement level. Topics discussed include: (1) probable at-risk primary pupils; (2) the domestic and societal causes of high risk in primary pupils; (3) approaches to guiding pupil…

This paper identifies and assesses factors that may characterize students at risk of dropping out, based on a ninth grade class of Cincinnati (Ohio) public school students which was followed for five years, from 1984-85 to 1988-89. The paper aims to develop a quick, easy, and reliable method that teachers, counselors, and principals can use to…

This study explores instructional and interpersonal factors policy issue is discussed in this digest. The school in school rather than dropping out. These students had failed, two or more times, that portion of Florida's State Student Assessment Test which was required for receipt of a high school diploma. Data for this study were collected in…

Student attrition is a major problem for American colleges and universities because an increasing number of enrollees fit the demographic and socioeconomic profile of "high-risk" students, who consist in general of minorities, the academically disadvantaged, the disabled, and those of low socioeconomic status. Declining enrollments leave…

This paper offers four recommendations for alternative school educators and others who work with at-risk students: (1) The real "experts" are those who work directly with at-risk youth in classrooms. (2) Schools should not provide students with choices while forsaking their obligation to teach them how to actively participate in the culture. If…

Students who drop out of high school before graduating are of concern to families, educators, and policymakers. To obtain information on the scope of the dropout problem, three sources of national data were reviewed: (1) the Bureau of the Census' Current Population Survey; (2) the Center for Statistics' Common Core of Data; and (3) the Center for…

The San Diego City Schools collected statistics about grades 9-12 students who withdrew from school during the 1979-80 school year. The study's purpose was to determine how many of these former students did not enroll in schools elsewhere and, therefore, should be considered school leavers. The following generalizations may be made from the…

Students who left school entirely during the 1984-85 school year, and others who withdrew from regular school and subsequently returned to the district's High School Diploma Program (HSDP), completed questionnaires providing information about their educational values, reasons for leaving school, perceptions of their academic abilities,…

Of the 110 public high schools in New York City, 11 are alternative high schools serving students who have been identified as "high risk," particularly dropouts and potential dropouts, as well as students who would benefit from learning environments and options not offered in comprehensive high schools. In 1984, the Curriculum…

This study assessed the educational status of 284 students displaced by the closure of the Intermountain Inter-Tribal School (IIS), a majority of whose students had been referred because they were difficult to serve. Educational status was gauged by the holding power of the schools to which the students were sent, dropout and expulsion rates, and…