Chile offers high school dropouts a chance to graduate through enrollment in Second Opportunity Centers, located in cities ranging in population from 5 million inhabitants to less than 100,000. Participants in 18 centers were classified into four distinct classes based on their family situation, handicaps, employment, experience with…

Policy research established that it is possible to predict a student will drop out of school based on academic, attendance, behavior indicators. Little is known about the processes that put Early Warning Systems (EWS) in place. This case study of the Montana EWS describes the characteristics of a statewide implementation, the efficiency of the EWS…

U.S. Department of Education research indicates that early warning indicator systems are being used in at least half of high schools in the United States. Previous findings from an efficacy study of one early warning indicator and response system, the Early Warning Indicator (EWI) team model, indicated that ninth grade students in schools using…

The purpose of Diploma On! is to re-engage students who have dropped out of school within member districts and ultimately increase the graduation rate in Hennepin County, Minnesota. Program staff obtain student contact information from identified referral sources within each district, normally after a 15-day drop. Next, they contact the student…

This applied dissertation study was designed to assess a high-performing high school's dropout prevention program that increased graduation rates and decreased dropout rates among high school students. The high-performing high school was chosen because the target site achieved a 90% or higher graduation rate over 5 school years. Four of 19 high…

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 purpose of Diploma On! is to re-engage students who have dropped out of school within member districts and ultimately increase the graduation rate in Hennepin County, Minnesota. Staff from the program obtains contact information for students from identified referral staff within each district, normally after a 15-day drop. Next, they contact…

Alternative high schools in the United States perform a significant role for students who drop out, are pushed out, or fall out of conventional high schools. An essential function of alternative high schools is to support some of the most underserved students in the country to graduate from high school. High school graduation is a major factor…

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…

In this study, we analyze the effects of Project GRIT (Generating Resiliency and Inspiring Transformation), a six-week intervention program that worked with a group of high school "pushouts," students who were encouraged to leave school, in a school district in southern California. We interviewed thirty-nine former high school students…

This study investigates the change in students' cognitive engagement as a result of participation in a Flexible Learning Programme. Using an understanding of engagement as both a process and a relationship between the students and their school, we sought to determine whether students' perception of competency, willingness to engage, and…

The study is framed by critical race theory to explore the intersection of cultural and institutional factors that influence Latino students' completion of high school. The purpose of this study is to determine the extent to which factors related to students' background, culture, socioeconomic status, and institutional-support such as…

This paper invokes the voices of young people who had been separated from mainstream schooling because they were positioned as "disengaged" and "at risk of failing". The authors argue that streaming students out of schooling needs serious questioning as an escalating number of young people are framed as non-performers within a…

Research shows that students who participate in early college programs are more likely to enroll in and persist through college than non-early college students. This fact sheet examines the impact of a districtwide early college program in Pharr-San Juan-Alamo Independent School District in Texas. The fact sheet includes a series of questions…

This paper examines the effects of school characteristics on both the probability of dropping out and the strongest predictor of dropping out -- absenteeism. The authors employ a sub-sample from the High School and Beyond (HS&B) database which contains results of background questionnaires and standardized achievement tests given in 1980 to…