This study investigates community college skills builders--students who enroll for a short time, take courses concentrated in career and technical education (CTE), are highly successful in their coursework, but typically leave college without a postsecondary credential. Drawing on administrative data from Colorado, Ohio, Michigan, and California,…

The Colorado Department of Education recently received state funding to implement a Student Re-Engagement Grant Program (SRGP). The goal of this project is to inform the administration of the SRGP by looking back at data from a previously administered grant program, called Colorado Graduation Pathways (CGP). The CGP program was a federally funded…

This study reports on the implementation of Gateway to College, a program whose mission is to serve students who have dropped out of high school, or who are at risk of dropping out of high school, by allowing them to earn a high school diploma and credits toward a postsecondary degree. Gateway to College is uniquely ambitious in providing…

The "Forum Guide to Exit Codes" provides an updated taxonomy for exit codes, information on best practices related to exit coding, and case studies that highlight different education agencies' approaches to and experiences with exit coding. In 2006, the Forum addressed the need for a voluntary, common format for tracking data about when…

Predictive analytics in higher education is a hot-button topic among educators and administrators as institutions strive to better serve students by becoming more data-informed. In this paper, the authors describe how predictive analytics are used in higher education to identify students who need extra support, steer students in courses they will…

The U.S. Department of Education's (ED) National Center for Education Statistics defines dropouts as "16- through 21-year-olds who are not enrolled in school and have not earned a high school credential (either a diploma or an equivalency credential such as a General Education Development (GED) certificate)." According to the feds, the…

Colorado has the second most-educated adult populace, but largely because it imports college-educated labor from other states. Almost 56 percent of Coloradans have a high-quality certificate, associate's degree, bachelor's degree, or higher. Yet at the same time Colorado has the fifth lowest high school graduation rate in the nation. The state's…

This report focuses on pathways to postsecondary education (PSE), including high school completion, for pregnant and parenting teens. Although birth rates among teens have declined in the United States over the last 20 years, one in seven adolescent females (14.4 percent) is expected to give birth before age 20 with females of color (24 percent of…

Colorado is in the middle of the dropout epidemic facing the nation--in fact its dropout rate is significantly higher than most states. For the sake of the students and the state, it is a crisis Colorado cannot afford to ignore. A combined total of 48,526 students dropped out of Colorado's public school system during the three school years between…

An estimated 46 million adults have some college education but have not completed their degrees. For many, especially those who have accumulated several years' worth of credits, the inability to finish college remains a frustration. If the United States is to achieve its ambitious education attainment goals, many more adults with such experience…

The Colorado Graduates Initiative demonstrates seven factors that must be present to build an effective statewide collaborative effort to increase high school graduation rates. These include: 1) Leadership to unite diverse stakeholders on specific, common goals and catalyze them into action; 2) A focus on data, particularly on actionable, early…

Dropping out of school is associated with a wide array of negative outcomes and the extraordinarily high United States dropout rate has brought the issue to the forefront of American education. This study investigated normally collected middle school data from a suburban Colorado school district to determine the predictive value toward students…

Our country has been trying to address the graduation crisis in many ways. We are seeing the impact of the efforts to improve graduation rates over the past twenty years including agreement among states to implement a common cohort-based graduation rate, research-based efforts to improve the transition to 9th grade, increased academic and social…

Few people realize the impact that high school dropouts have on a community's economic, social, and civic health. Business owners and residents--in particular, those without school-aged children--may not be aware that they have much at stake in the success of their local high schools. Indeed, everyone--from car dealers and realtors to bank…

Eagle Rock School and Professional Development Center (ERS) in Estes Park, Colo., is a boarding school designed to re-engage students who already have dropped out and persuade them to stay in school and graduate. The school does this by giving students leadership positions, giving students as much time as they need to meet expectations, using…