Nationally, more than one in four high school freshmen does not graduate in four years; in the 50 largest U.S. cities, the dropout rate is closer to 50 percent. Although many of these young people eventually seek to continue their education, a sizable number of dropouts (and many high school graduates) become seriously disconnected from both…

To serve adults with disabilities without a high school diploma, the federal government and states have funded adult education and literacy programs that provide services to accommodate the needs of those adults. In addition, the Tests of General Educational Development (GED Tests) provide adults with disabilities with testing accommodations to…

Recently released government data show that in 2006, the U.S. teen birth rate began to increase, marking the end of a 14-year period of decline. More specifically, these data show that between 2005 and 2007, the teen birth rate climbed five percent. This trend reversal is a cause for concern, given the negative consequences of teen childbearing…

Older teens living in families receiving Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) face serious sociodemographic disadvantages. When combined with the characteristic risk-taking behaviors of adolescence, these disadvantages pose a threat to TANF teens' immediate and future physical, psychological, and emotional health and to their long-term…

We use data from the Texas Schools Microdata Panel (TSMP) to examine the extent to which dropouts use the GED as a route to post-secondary education. The paper develops a model pointing out the potential biases in estimating the effects of taking the "GED path" to postsecondary education. Lacking suitable instruments that would allow us…

This resource manual has been developed to assist both case managers and management staff in implementing a case management system as an infrastructure for delivering services that will facilitate the positive growth and development of youth and the achievement of individual and organizational performance goals. (The goal of case managers is to…

Discusses high school dropout rate, the reasons students give for dropping out, and the economic value of the General Educational Development (GED) certificate. Describes efforts to prevent dropouts among at-risk students or to offer dropouts another chance to succeed in school such as the Champion Charter School in Brockton, Massachusetts. (PKP)

Health literacy is important for all adults. Because lower health literacy is associated with lower educational attainment, many adult basic and literacy education programs increasingly provide health education to low-literate adults to improve their health literacy. Using data from the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL), this study…

A teacher who teaches General Educational Development preparation to at-risk teenagers in a nonprofit alternative education program called FutureWorks conducted a study to identify those elements of FutureWorks that keep students coming to the program. The study included the following data collection activities: a consensus-building activity to…

The effect of receipt of a General Educational Development (GED) certificate during incarceration on former inmates' rates of recidivism was examined by studying a group of 110 individuals who had been incarcerated in the Eastern Ohio Correction Center (EOCC) and were released during fiscal year 1995. Of the 110 individuals, 21 had obtained a GED…