The My Brother's Keeper (MBK) Challenge developed by President Obama supports communities that promote civic initiatives designed to improve the educational and economic opportunities specifically for young men of color. In Oakland, California, the MBK educational initiative features the African American Male Achievement (AAMA) program. The AAMA…

Although newly passed federal regulations mandate the provision of family-based aftercare supports for adolescents served in therapeutic residential care, very little research has been conducted to determine best practice. This efficacy and replication study compares the outcomes of youths and caregivers randomly assigned to On the Way Home (OTWH;…

Educators, policymakers, and institutions have worked for decades to increase rates of college graduation, but about half of students who enter college drop out without completing a bachelor's degree. Although the rate of student attrition is higher in the United States than in any other industrialized nation, about 30% of U.S. students will drop…

Communities In Schools, Inc. (CIS) is a nationwide initiative designed to connect needed community resources with schools to help students, particularly those identified as at-risk, successfully learn, stay in school, and prepare for life. As part of a comprehensive 5-year national evaluation of CIS, ICF International conducted a school-level…

The Kentucky Valley Educational Cooperative and Green River Regional Educational Cooperative received an Investing in Innovation (i3) development grant from the U.S. Department of Education to implement the Creating College and Career Readiness (C3R) initiative. The initiative offered a suite of software developed by WIN Learning (WIN) to support…

Objectives: This study examined the effects of Check & Connect (C&C) on the attendance, behavior, and academic outcomes of at-risk youth in a field-based effectiveness trial. Method: A multisite randomized block design was used, wherein 260 primarily Hispanic (89%) and economically disadvantaged (74%) students were randomized to treatment…

A 2-year, randomized control trial with 9th to 10th grade students with significant reading problems was provided for 50 minutes a day in small groups. Comparison students were provided an elective class and treatment students the reading intervention. Students were identified as demonstrating reading difficulties through failure on their state…

This study examines the effectiveness of a summer school credit recovery program in the Sun Valley High School District. Using logistic regression I assess the relationship between race, gender, course failure, school of origin and summer school participation for a sample of students that failed one or more classes in their first year of high…

Chicago has been in the forefront of the country in its use of 9th-grade indicators of dropout. Catalyzed by the development of the freshman on-track indicator and research around it, Chicago school administrators, central office personnel, and external partners have developed a number of mechanisms using 9th-grade indicators to stimulate school…

The multiple causes and complex nature of the dropout problem require a variety of program approaches to help both at-risk students and dropouts. Twelve-Together (Detroit, Michigan), Adopt-a-Student (Atlanta, Georgia), and the Summer Youth Employment Program (New Bedford, Massachusetts) are supplemental services providing counseling and job…

Prior Learning Assessment, or PLA, is an important and often overlooked strategy for helping adults progress towards a degree. PLA is the process by which many colleges evaluate for academic credit the college-level knowledge and skills an individual has gained outside of the classroom (or from non-college instructional programs), including…

An evaluation was conducted of a 3-year demonstration program the purpose of which was to demonstrate the efficacy of projects that included vocational education as a key component in encouraging at-risk youth to remain in or return to school. Six of the 10 project grantees, funded under the Cooperative Demonstration Program of the Carl D. Perkins…

Investigating the possibility of designing effective intervention programs for at-risk students, this study used simultaneous methods in a classroom setting for working with drug use problems, poor attendance, and emotional distress. The study was a two-group, repeated measures, clinical trial which was presented to high risk students as a…

The Middle College High School (MCHS) in Tennessee is an alternative school located on the Shelby State Community College (SSCC) campus, designed to provide special counseling, college preparation, and access to SSCC facilities for potential high school dropouts who have the capacity for secondary and postsecondary success. The program, which was…

During the 1987-88 school year, 12 academy programs were operating in California under state sponsorship, including the two original Peninsula Academies in operation since 1981, and 10 replications of these, called Partnership Academies. The academies are designed to reduce the number of dropouts among at-risk high school youth. They combine a…