This report reviews aggregate data for school districts in the Northwest region (Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington), breaking down on-time high school completion data by percent Native American student enrollment. This focus on high school completion rather than dropout emphasizes student resiliency rather than failure. Findings…

To gather data on factors associated with the withdrawal of first-time students before they achieved their educational goals, Riverside Community College (RCC), in California, conducted a study of 742 students who were attending RCC for the first time in 1994-95. The students were surveyed by telephone during their first and second semesters and…

Trends in research on participation in adult education have reflected social changes, shifting from sociodemographic surveys toward emphasis on understanding motivation for participating. Participation has been studied primarily from the perspective of service providers, gathering data on participants or dropouts. Since the 1970s, researchers have…

This directory of social programs that focus on the African-American male lists 145 programs grouped by state. Information for each program includes the sponsoring organization and contact person and a brief description of program goals and the target population. The programs deal with a variety of issues, but there is an emphasis on sex education…

Effective student retention strategies involve creating a vision and committing to that vision, ensuring that processes are applied systematically, providing support, and offering high quality instruction. Creating an effective program means having a real sense of what "program completion" is, how the state and programs define and measure…

What can employers assume about the literacy skills of General Educational Development (GED) program graduates? A subsample of 1,012 young adults, aged 21 to 25, selected from the Young Adult Literacy Survey (YALS) was used to study this question. The sample consisted of all Caucasians, African-Americans, and Hispanics in the following categories:…

This document consists of 6 figures and 67 tables that together present national, regional, and state profiles of those individuals aged 16 years and older who have not attained a high school diploma or equivalent and are not currently enrolled in school. Included in the tables are the following target population characteristics: number of years…

In response to increased attrition at federal service academies including Department of Defense and Coast Guard Academies, a multidimensional study was conducted of proposed theoretical longitudinal attrition models. The primary goal was to determine if persisters and resignees at the Coast Guard Academy could be differentiated based on a…

This manual describes regulations and procedures for Oregon's required reporting of elementary school through high school dropouts for the 1991-92 school year and beyond. Topics covered include the following: (1) basics of dropout reporting; (2) suggested reporting procedures; (3) exceptions; (4) non-dropouts; (5) dropouts; (6) students who return…

A project sought to determine if reluctant learners, about 30 percent of the adult basic education (ABE) population, can be retained in ABE classes through accommodations in the program structure and more effective teacher/counselor intervention. The project was based on earlier research findings that most ABE learners who drop out do so in the…

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…

Migrant and seasonal farmworkers are the most educationally disadvantaged group in society, with over 70% high school dropouts and 15% functionally illiterate. Mobility, language barriers, and cultural differences combined with health and nutrition problems have a negative effect on school achievement. The constant interruption of the educational…

A national stratified random sample of superintendents (N=432) responded to a 42-item questionnaire listing probable causes of students dropping out. They were asked to identify causes that they believe should be given high priority as well as those that had the necessary research foundation from which to develop significant intervention programs.…

This study updates and adds to data presented in a March 1986 study on the dropout problem in Boston (Massachusetts) Public Schools. The current study has the following four major parts: (1) updates to student loss data for the entire 1985-86 school year; (2) demographic studies of dropouts for that period: analyses by gender, race, grade,…

A national study examined the extent of the high school dropout problem and identified the students most likely to drop out before completing high school. Using three separate measures, the study found that on average, 4.4% of 10th-12th graders dropped out of high school annually in the years 1985-88, down about 2% from 1978; nearly 13% of all 16-…