In current Western societies, the number of students dropping out of school is high. At the same time, the importance of education leads to an increase in Second Chance Education (SCE) initiatives as an alternative way to obtain a degree. Little is known about the roles SCE can play as a learning environment for students "'dropping in'"…

This brief reports on the first year of a promising effort in Texas to deepen the postsecondary preparation that schools and programs offer. With support from the Greater Texas Foundation (GTF) and coaching and technical assistance from Jobs for the Future (JFF), five sites have begun using JFF's Back on Track: Postsecondary Success model and…

The National Guard Youth ChalleNGe program is a residential, quasi-military program for youth ages 16 to 18 who are experiencing difficulty in traditional high school. This report covers the program years 2018-2019 and is the fourth in a series of annual reports that RAND Corporation researchers have issued over the course of a research project…

This article is an overview of research underway which investigates early school leavers' experience of school exclusion and oppression. Augusto Boal's "Theatre of the Oppressed" has been implemented as a research methodology to provoke dialogue on this aspect of early school leaving, and to afford participants in second-chance education…

Purpose: This study aims to deal with the role of vocational training in developing social inclusion by analyzing the school-to-work transitional outcomes of early school leavers whose successful experience in vocational training was documented in previous works. Design/methodology/approach: The sample comprises 126 males who enrolled in and…

There is a critical need to identify solutions to the unemployment of high school dropouts. When a student prematurely leaves school, the economic, social, and political impacts result in negative consequences for the individual and the community. Of the nearly 2.2 million students who drop out of high school every year in the United States,…

Students' engagement at school has emerged as a critical factor across hundreds of dropout prevention and recovery programs in the United States. By supporting and improving academic, behavioral, cognitive, and emotional engagement, we can mitigate the risk of dropping out. This article describes the history of school dropout, predictors of…

The General Educational Development (GED[R]) Tests, established in 1945, helped determine soldiers' high school qualifications for the workforce, as they returned home from WWII. Because many soldiers dropped out of school to join the military, achieving a certain score on the test was a way for them to demonstrate that they had attained high…

Dan Bloom of MDRC examines policies and programs designed to help high school dropouts improve their educational attainment and labor market outcomes. So called "second-chance" programs, he says, have long provided some combination of education, training, employment, counseling, and social services. But the research record on their effectiveness…

In recent times, governments have introduced new policies and programs to address the needs of early school leavers. One such initiative is the Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning (VCAL), which aims to provide a vocationally-oriented alternative to the academic senior school certificate. Since the implementation of VCAL in the Technical and…

The "EQUIP3 Newsletter" is an e-newsletter that is currently sent to subscribers quarterly. It provides updates on EQUIP3 activities and initiatives, and shares excerpts from relevant youth development resources. This issue contains the following articles: (1) Bangladesh Youth Employment Pilot (BYEP); (2) CSY [Cross-Sectoral Youth]/YED…

The study examined whether participating in the "National Guard Youth ChalleNGe Program", a quasi-military residential/mentoring program for dropouts, improved the educational and other outcomes of at-risk youth. The study analyzed data on about 1,000 16- to 18-year-old high school dropouts enrolled in 10 ChalleNGe programs throughout…

This article explores some of the ill-defined provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act and its compelling arguments. The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 was born in controversy, and the passage of time has not lessened the controversy surrounding it. Initially, this act appeared to be legislation which would have little or no impact on…

This study of social capital employs data from the Longitudinal Study of Adult Learning (LSAL), funded by the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy (NCSALL) and conducted at Portland State University to increase understanding of the learning process of adults with limited formal education. It provides longitudinal data on…

The two years under review constitute a period of unprecedented progress in vocational education, since it is probably conservative to say that the tangible results accomplished equal those of any decade preceding. There are important factors in this development. To mention a few, they include: (1) Most important of all has been the culmination of…