Dropout Prevention and Recovery
America’s massive school dropout problem is perhaps its most revealing moral, social, and economic crisis. Any glance at our shocking dropout statistics will expose deep-rooted consequences for the common American future. Fixing this problem will require systemic education reforms aimed at making each student feel valued, competent, and empowered. Policymakers and educators must take a hard look at why the system is losing so many students and then work on effective dropout prevention. They should also work together to create well-lit pathways back into education for the many young people who drop out of school.
What’s the Problem? Some Dropout Numbers
The overall national graduation rate remained steady at just over 70% from 1991-2000.[1] About one third of all students who enter the 9th grade do not receive a regular (standard) high school diploma in four years. Even looking outside of this traditional high school graduation path, the dropout numbers are equally upsetting. In 2004, 22% of all 18-24 year-olds had not completed high school,[2] and 15% of that age group was neither employed nor in school. This group of struggling young adults is growing. The percentage of disconnected young adults (15%) is the end result of an upward trend—from 2000-2004 the number of disconnected young adults grew by 700,000.[3]
Dropout figures for minority and low-income students are far more distressing. While white students and Asian-American students graduated at rates of 75% and 77%, respectively in 2001, the graduation rate for African-American students was only 50%; American Indians, 51%; and Latinos, 53%.[4] High school students from low-income families (the lowest 20%) were six times more likely to drop out than students from higher income families.[5] Ultimately, about one half of all dropouts never receive a high school credential.[6]
Why Is This A Problem? Dropout Consequences
The dropout problem presents a diverse set of challenges to American society. Three-quarters of state prison inmates and 59% of federal inmates are dropouts.[7] Moreover, dropouts are 3.5 times more likely than high school completers to be imprisoned at some point during their lifetime.[8] Raising the high school completion rate 1% for all men ages 20-60 would save the US $1.4 billion annually in crime-related costs.[9]
Dropouts earn less and require greater public assistance than high school completers. Compared to 11% for high school graduates, 25% of dropouts were unemployed for a year or more during the four year span of 1997-2001.[10] Between welfare benefits and crime, dropouts create an annual estimated cost of $24 billion to the public.[11] Moreover, scholars argue, the US would save $41.8 billion in health care costs if the 600,000 dropouts in 2004 were to complete one more year of schooling.[12]
Why Do Students Drop Out?
Students drop out of school for many reasons. In trying to isolate the most prevalent causes of this problem, research has shown a correlation between certain characteristics and a likelihood of dropping out of school. Some research has shown poor academic performance to be the strongest of these characteristics in demonstrating potential for dropping out. Other factors that signal a student is at-risk of dropping out include repeating one or more grades, coming from a low socioeconomic background, speaking English as a second language, becoming pregnant, being frequently absent or truant, and/or being physically or mentally impaired.[13]
It is important, however, to separate the question many studies ask—who is more likely to drop out of school—from the question of responsibility—why do students drop out. There are certainly factors that fall largely outside the control of schools such as pregnancy; but, according to the 2006 report, The Silent Epidemic: Perspectives of High School Dropouts (John M. Bridgeland et al.) many report having left school because their school was not interesting or challenging. Likewise, a 1995 Oregon Department of Education study reported the most frequent reason high school students gave for leaving school was “irrelevant coursework.” These same students also claimed their schools were at fault for fostering “teaching techniques that didn’t match their learning styles” and for a “lack of personal attention in class.” Echoed throughout a larger push for high school reform, these problems (relevance, personalization) make it clear that the education system and high schools in particular have plenty of room to improve when it comes to student persistence to graduation.
How Can We Prevent This?
E. Gregory Woods of the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory identified a universal set of successful dropout prevention practices: an effective administration and program design, a safe and orderly climate, a student-centered and flexible approach, a diverse and real-world-relevant curriculum, and a committed staff.[14]
Examples of Dropout Prevention at the Federal Level
Under the No Child Left Behind Act, Congress allocated $125 million for a national dropout prevention program. The program has distributed competitive grants to state educational agencies since 2001, supporting efforts such as professional development, reducing class size, and mentoring and tutoring for at-risk students. More specifically, grantees have characteristically tailored 15 prevention strategies by the National Dropout Prevention Center to fit their specific community needs. One example of the strategies in use are those of the Minnesota Department of Education, a 2005 FY grant recipient, which plans to “use inter- and intra-agency workgroups to manage project implementation, develop comprehensive and community-tailored guidance for dropout prevention programming, and to put into action individual student assessments and school environment assessments in seven selected high schools and their primary feeder middle schools across Minnesota.”
Examples of Dropout Prevention at the State Level
States have primarily funded their own dropout prevention efforts. Since 1999, the Pennsylvania Department of Education has used the most accurate predictor of dropout potential—academic performance—to implement a state-wide dropout prevention initiative. Sanctioned by Pennsylvania Act 49 of 1987 and targeted at districts with the highest percentage of students not meeting state levels of academic proficiency, this initiative has competitively allocated grant funds to help districts create, enhance, and, to a small extent, implement long-term strategies for dropout prevention. These plans satisfy strategic planning requirements under State Board of Education regulations and are developed by school representatives, parents, students, and community and business leaders. So far, strategies have included “academic support, parental involvement, school-business partnerships, community service, collaboration with social and human service agencies, career education.”
In California, state legislation and funds have spawned the K-12 Pupil Motivation and Maintenance Program (M&M). This program provides for a dropout prevention specialist in schools along with other strategies including positive attendance and discipline programs, Coordination of Service Teams, Student Success Team and resiliency-creating strategies. In total, the California initiative is an attempt at early identification of and involvement with students who show signs of school failure. What is distinctive about this effort and others that focus on the pre-high school years is that they endorse a positive culture wherein support services and incentives make students feel valued and therefore more willing to focus and succeed. Such systems help ease the crucial transition to high school by establishing uniform requirements and services.
Where the Pennsylvania project is in its infancy, results of the California effort are already apparent. According to the California Department of Education, “dropout rates in the high schools are down,” and the M&M program has also had “a significant impact on school-wide student achievement” with 13% more M&M schools meeting or exceeding their goals on the statewide Academic Performance Index.
An Example of Dropout Prevention at the District Level
A Berkeley County, South Carolina intervention plan uses attendance and truancy to target those students who are most likely to dropout. Starting in 2004, the district has tried to establish a uniform response to truancy in schools with the highest percentage of dropouts. Recognizing the importance of the transition to high school, the plan focuses on ninth graders and includes: “the development of a system for documenting unexcused absences, written contacts with parents, the creation of Attendance Intervention Plans, access to a parenting program…make up days at Saturday and Summer School and a mentoring program in collaboration with local churches.” Berkeley County’s personalized approach and administrative reforms reflect a growing trend in preventing dropouts—a trend that has also spurred high schools to explore service-learning, technology-based instruction, and other tools to make students feel connected and valued.
What about the Young People Who Do Leave School?
With roughly one-third of our young people dropping out of school, dropout recovery—not simply prevention-- must become a top priority of public school districts. Dropout recovery efforts are varied, including traditional public schools, specially-created recovery-focused schools, alternative learning centers, community-based non-profit schools and programs, for-profit schools, federal-, state-, and county-funded efforts, community colleges, the adult education system, and other social services.
Portland Public Schools (PPS) often receives praise for the variety and quality of its offerings for potential and actual dropouts. Unlike many urban school systems, PPS is explicitly charged with responsibility for recovering its out-of-school youth. To meet this statutory requirement, it created a broad array of programs of its own and works closely with community-based organizations and Portland Community College to offer unconventional educational options to retain and reconnect at-risk and out-of-school youth. This focused strategy of dealing directly with a population that most districts all but ignore also helps increase the number of students graduating from the Portland’s high schools.
The legal origins of Portland’s wide-ranging push to recover its dropouts stem from an Oregon state law stipulating that state residents have a right to a publicly-funded education until they receive a high school diploma or reach age 21 by the start of a school year. Oregon school districts may establish alternative educational options within their systems or contract with qualified private providers. Such programs, whether district- or privately-run, must meet the state’s common curriculum goals, academic content, and state testing requirements. State education funds follow the students as they move in and out of school districts or community-based organization-run schools. The district receives 100% of the state’s per student aid and contracts with an alternative education provider, whom it pays for actual program costs or 80% of the district’s per pupil expenditure, whichever is lower. Portland’s out-of-school youth thus have a range of state-backed options for returning to education and/or employment training.
Where Do We Go from Here?
According to our recent publication, Whatever It Takes: How Twelve Communities are Reconnecting Out-of-School Youth, dropout prevention and recovery efforts must go well beyond current models for standards-based high school reform. These models assume that what works well for the one-third of students who are well-prepared for college will succeed for the two-thirds majority. This is patently not the case. We need to learn from alternative educators about what works for students who are not on the college track when they enter 9th grade and then implement the changes necessary to reduce the number of young people dropping out of school. To meet the needs of diverse learners, both those in school and those who have left it, districts should work to create a portfolio of high school options offering multiple pathways to a recognized credential.
States can encourage the development of alternative education pathways, which reduce the number of students dropping out of school, while providing well-lit reentry points for those who do leave school before obtaining a diploma. This can be done through legislation that, for example:
- provides uniform measures of dropouts and student tracking mechanisms,
- mandates that districts provide alternative education options and engage in dropout recovery,
- allows districts the flexibility to award credit toward graduation based on demonstrated competency, not just “seat time,” and
- lays out a system for funds to follow students into alternative public education settings, including schools run by community-based organizations, community colleges, and charter schools.
The Federal Government could build on the demonstrated success of long-established national dropout recovery programs by expanding the National Guard Youth ChalleNGe program, currently in 25 states, and Jobs for America’s Graduates, currently in 29 states, to all 50 states and every territory. Similarly, we could increase the capacity of YouthBuild, Youth Service and Conservation Corps, Job Corps and OIC programs, particularly in those communities with the greatest incidence of youth dropping out of school. For more information on these programs and others, visit chapters 13-19 (p. 135-157) in Whatever It Takes: How Twelve Communities are Reconnecting Out-of-School Youth.
Community colleges hold great attraction and promise, particularly for older, out-of-school youth who seek ways to enter or reenter the worlds of education and employment. To encourage community colleges to participate in public school and CBO partnerships and intermediaries aimed at reconnecting out-of-school youth, state and federal funds could be made available to the colleges to extend their outreach and student counseling efforts.
Expanding funding for the federal Adult Education and Family Literacy Act would make it possible for youth who cannot participate in full-time dropout reconnection programs to partake of adult basic education and secondary school literacy programs in their local public schools, libraries, and community organizations. With the states’ matching fund contributions, this is an admirable way to expand this well-functioning partnership which now serves over one million youth annually.
Resources
Too Big To Be Seen: The Invisible Dropout Crisis in Boston and America
Why School Works for Alternative High School Students
National Dropout Prevention Centers
Whatever It Takes: How Twelve Communities Are Reconnecting Out-of-School Youth
Memo on Reconnecting Our Youth (Campaign for Youth)
U.S. Department of Education—School Dropout Prevention Program
National Dropout Prevention Center/Network—Effective Strategies
Northwest Regional Education Laboratory—School Dropout Prevention Program
Education Commission of the States—At-Risk Students and Dropout Prevention
North Central Regional Educational Laboratory—Forms of Dropout Prevention
Leave No Youth Behind: Opportunities for Congress to Reach Disconnected Youth
Learning from the Youth Opportunity Experience: Building Delivery Capacity In Distress Communities
Reconnecting Disadvantaged Young Men
National League of Cities Action Kits for municipal leaders on Reengaging Disconnected Youth and Improving Public Schools
15 Dropout Prevention Strategies
Pennsylvania Prevention Initiative
California’s Pupil Motivation and Maintenance Program
[1] Greene, J.P., & Winters M.A. (2005, February ), p. 1.
[2] National Center for Education Statistics. (2004). Digest of Education Statistics 2004. Washington, DC, Table 9; Greene, J.P. & Winters, M.A. (2005, February). “Public high school graduation and college readiness rates: 1991-2002.” Education Working Paper No. 8. New York, NY: Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.
[3] Annie E. Casey Foundation. (2004). Kids count data book. Baltimore, MD: Author.
[4] Orfield, G., Losen, D.J., Wald, J., & Swanson, C. B. (2004). Losing our future: How minority youth are being left behind by the graduation rate crisis. Cambridge, MA: The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University. See also: Losen, D.J. (2005, December). Racial inequity in graduation rates. Research presented during Connect for Kids and National Education Association conference call on the Dropout Crisis. Greene, J.P., & Winters, M.A. (2005, February) find the African American graduation rate in 2002 to be 56%, Latinos 52%, and Whites 78%.
[5] US Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2004). The condition of education 2004. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, Indicator 10, p. 11.
[6] Alliance for Excellent Education. (2004). A framework for an excellent education for all high school students. Washington, DC: Author.
[7] Harlow, C.W. (2003). Education and correctional populations, bureau of justice statistics special report. Washington, DC: US Department of Justice.
[8] Catterall, J.S. (1985). On the social cost of dropping out. Stanford, CA: Center for Education Research, cited in Alliance for Excellent Education. (2004, December). Measuring graduation to measure success. Washington, DC: Author.
[9] Moretti, E. (2005, October). Does education reduce participation in criminal activities? Paper presented at the symposium on the social costs of inadequate education, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, NY. Retrieved December 27, 2005 from http://www.tc.columbia.edu/centers/EquityCampaign/symposium/speakers.asp?SpeakerId=9
[10] Wald, M., & Martinez, T. (2003). Connected by 25: Improving life chances of the country’s most vulnerable 14-24-year-olds. William and Flora Hewlett Foundation Working Paper. Stanford, CA: Stanford University. Retrieved December 27, 2005 from www.youthtransitions.org
[11] Thorstensen, B. I. If you build it, they will come: Investing in public education. Retrieved December 27, 2005 from http://abec.unm.edu/resources/gallery/present/invest_in_ed.pdf
[12] Muenning, P. (2005, October). Health returns to education interventions. Paper presented at the symposium on the social costs of inadequate education, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, NY. Retrieved December 27, 2005 from http://www.tc.columbia.edu/centers/EquityCampaign/symposium/resourceDetails.asp?PresId=5
[13] Hess, G. A. Jr., et. al. (1987). Where’s Room 185? How Schools Can Reduce Their Dropout Problem. Education and Urban Society. 19/3, 330-355
Wood, L. A. (1994). An Unitended Impact of One Grading Practice. Urban Education 29/2 (1994): 188-201.
[14] Woods, E.G. (1995). Reducing the Dropout Rate. School Improvement Research Series 17 Portland, Oregon. Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory: Retrieved March 10, 2006 from, http://www.nwrel.org/scpd/sirs/9/c017.html
This American Youth Policy issue brief was written by Charles Stayton.
The American Youth Policy Forum (AYPF), a nonprofit, nonpartisan professional development organization based in Washington, DC, provides learning opportunities for policy leaders, practitioners, and researchers working on youth and education issues at the national, state, and local levels.
AYPF events and publications are made possible by a consortium of philanthropic foundations: Carnegie Corporation of New York, Ford Motor Company Fund, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, GE Foundation, William T. Grant Foundation, W. K. Kellogg Foundation, Lumina Foundation for Education, Charles S. Mott Foundation, and others.