The "National Dropout Prevention Newsletter" is published quarterly by the National Dropout Prevention Center/Network. This issue contains the following articles: (1) Why Do I Have to Learn This?; (2) 2008 NDPN Crystal Star Winners; (3) Effective Freshman Transition for School Improvement (David Livingston, John Greene, and Lindy Stahlman); (4)…

Research shows that peer status in adolescence is positively associated with school achievement and adjustment. However, subculture theories of juvenile delinquency and school-based ethnographies suggest that: (1) disadvantaged boys are often able to gain some forms of peer status through violence; and (2) membership in violent groups undermines…

A 2006 study of apprentices commencing with a Group Training Organisation in an Australian regional centre identified factors that appear to support apprentices in their first year. The research demonstrates that school subject selection and access to work-related experiences while still at school make an important difference to completion of the…

Act 49 of 1987 requires the Secretary of Education to provide the General Assembly with an annual report on public school dropouts in Pennsylvania. The purpose of this report is to document the actual number of students who drop out each year and to provide various characteristics about these students. The type of data collected about each dropout…

This article uses event history analysis to examine certain determinants of dropout from a case management program that serves homeless adults with substance abuse problems. The examined determinants are perceptions of conventional treatment services: (a) client perceptions concerning the value of the conventional services that case managers help…

The centrality of quality education provisioning for all towards a better and socially just life is acknowledged globally. To date, however, there are still skewed gender differentials unfavourable to girls, thus impeding gender equality. In this paper I report on the reasons for leaving school early cited by out-of-school girls in North-West…

A remarkably consistent picture of the value of the arts in a comprehensive Pre-K-grade 12 education emerges from a review of two decades of theory and policy recommendations about arts education. Over the past decade, the National Governors Association, the Education Commission of the States, the National Association of State Boards of Education,…

This unique book examines the physical, psychological, social, and environmental factors that support or undermine healthy development in American Indian children, including economics, biology, and public policies. American Indian and Alaska Native youth suffer disproportionately higher rates of trauma, substance abuse, and youth suicide. At the…

The purpose of this quantitative research study was to determine the relative impact school culture has on student achievement (specifically AYP status, dropout rates and graduation rates) in select urban and suburban Georgia high schools. To examine this relationship, the researcher reviewed data collected from the School Culture Survey (SCS)…

This paper discusses dropout prevention initiatives by the Malaysian government for the disadvantaged indigenous Orang Asli people in the rural villages of Peninsular Malaysia. The roles of the Ministry of Education (MOE) as well as the Institutes of Teacher Education (ITEs) are highlighted pertaining to efforts at improving the quality of…

The Learn and Play Project was initiated by Solomon Islands Football Federation and aimed at educating and providing football skills training for primary school dropouts. The aim of this paper is to report the implementation of the programme in a case study school. Because the project is still being implemented, this paper is not intended to…

The U.S. is comprised of many different cultural and linguistic groups, and this diversity is reflected in every state and local school district. However, the ongoing underachievement and high dropout rate of some racial/ethnic groups is still of major concern. This paper focuses on a discussion of three powerful factors related to the schooling…

In the Netherlands only a small number of male students opt for primary school teaching and a relatively large percentage of them leave without graduating. A small-scale research project was set up to explore the question: Can gender-specific student factors be identified in relation to the initial teacher education curriculum that leads to the…

This study investigated the influence of the teacher and family relationships during secondary school for 18 to 22 year old students who had dropped out of secondary school and were attempting to gain access to tertiary study through a tertiary bridging program at a regional university. 144 students from two student cohorts completed a…

Conventional wisdom claims a newly discovered dropout crisis in high schools. Jay Greene, of the Manhattan Institute, and Christopher Swanson, formerly with the Urban Institute, are primarily responsible for this claim, publishing reports showing these extraordinary high dropout rates nationwide, for the states, and for many specific school…