Community colleges have long been the overlooked stepchildren of the educational system. But because of profound structural changes in the U.S. economy over the past several years, community colleges have become increasingly critical to the nation's economic competitiveness and the key platform for moving low-income people into the middle class.…

To align with new federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) regulations for graduation rate calculations, the Utah State Office of Education (USOE) is reporting a new graduation rate beginning with the 2011 graduating class (also known as the 2011 cohort). The four-year cohort rate (includes all students who started 9th grade in 2007-2008 plus…

The Talent Development program at Johns Hopkins, City Year, and Communities in Schools have created a new middle school and high school model that reduces dropout risk. Diplomas Now integrates strategies that are designed to raise student achievement, promotion, and graduation rates in the nation's most challenged high-poverty secondary schools. A…

Although the drop-out problem is particularly acute at the community college, there is very little research on student attrition that is specific to community colleges. Differences between the community college and four-year institutions stems are accented by entrance requirements that are traditionally much more rigorous at traditional colleges…

Objectives: To identify the incidence of self-reported physical and sexual child abuse among homeless youth, the self-perceived effects of past abuse, and current interest in treatment for past abuse among homeless youth with histories of abuse. Methods: Homeless and street-involved persons aged 18-23 filled out a questionnaire and participated in…

Presidents at least as far back as Bill Clinton have made attendance a priority of their school-reform efforts, in part because of the social costs of youngsters not attending. There's a direct line from truancy to juvenile crime, gang membership, and drug use, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. There's an equally direct line from…

Drop-out from upper secondary school is considered a widespread problem, closely connected with youth unemployment. The aim of the current study was to examine whether parents' level of education predicted drop-out for 16-24-year-olds when accounting for basic skills. For this purpose, data from the Norwegian (n = 996) and American (n = 641)…

This article describes and analyses some crucial aspects in the latest reforms of Swedish upper secondary education. For decades Sweden stood out as a special case in several respects, in particular the integration of different tracks in upper secondary education; offering second chances to dropouts, and success in terms of equality and…

The academic e-learning practice has to deal with various participation patterns and types of online learners with different support needs. The online instructors are challenged to recognize these and react accordingly. Among the participation patterns, special attention is requested by dropouts, which can perturbate online collaboration.…

College student retention has been and continues to be one of the most important issues facing the higher education community. Despite this importance, little is known about the type and methodological rigor of institutional efforts to increase student retention. This article presents the findings of a study which attempted to gain a clearer…

ACTE Issue Briefs provide background information, highlight research, profile career and technical education (CTE) programs and include examples of how CTE is tied to a broader issue of national interest. This brief, "The Role of Career Academies in Education Improvement," was released in the spring of 2009 to capitalize on education…

Open access is central to the Community College mission. For this reason, any restriction in online enrollments should not be undertaken lightly. This study uses institutional data gathered from a large, urban community college to examine a policy aimed at increasing student retention in online courses by restricting those eligible to enroll based…

The purpose of the current study is to examine, in retrospect, trainees' perceptions of the reasons some of their peers dropped out of the vocational education at the Industrial Institute-Shuwaikh (IIS), Kuwait. Using the descriptive-analytical method, a reliable questionnaire was developed to achieve this purpose. Results show that: (a) the…

This study investigated the impact of a range of variables as predictors of graduation potential for students with Specific Learning Disabilities (SLD) or Emotional Behavioral Disorders (EBD) within a large urban school district. These factors included the following characteristics and elements: (a) primary exceptionality, (b) gender, (c)…

This paper demonstrates the meaningful application of learning analytics for determining dropout predictors in the context of open and distance learning in a large developing country. The study was conducted at the Directorate of Distance Education at the University of North Bengal, West Bengal, India. This study employed a quantitative research…