This article provides a brief review of the genesis of the National Education Goals and considers the role of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) in monitoring progress toward them. Reform movements began the call for back to basics in the 1970s. The emerging debate among educators, business and professional leaders, policymakers,…

The New Horizons Program of the Des Moines (Iowa) Public Schools provides supportive services such as counseling, attendance monitoring, career-related instruction, work experience, and coordination with community agencies to dropout-prone students and their families to improve academic achievement and increase the graduation rate. Work…

This report addresses the problem of school wastage in developing countries, provides the latest data on trends in repetition and drop-out, and deals with three questions: (1) how extensive is school wastage? (2) what are its causes? and (3) what can be done to make schools more efficient? Wastage is defined as the missed opportunities for…

The Educational Learning and Enrichment Center (ELEC) entered into a contract with the Houston Independent School District (HISD) (Texas) to provide a community-based alternative education program for HISD eligible students who had dropped out of school and were considered to be at risk of not completing their basic education. The 1996-97…

This report presents the recommendations of the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) concerning issues in data collection on school exit status. Of major concern were: (1) the high proportion of students exiting with status unknown, (2) the extreme state-to-state variability in reports of basis of exit, and (3) the incomparability of the…

Youth Opportunities Unlimited (YOU), a program operating on funds from the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA), was initiated at Arkansas State University in 1989. The 60-day program is targeted to economically disadvantaged 14- and 15-year-olds who are on grade level and have been identified as being likely to drop out of high school, but are not…

The use of aptitude and competency testing in the public school system can have some undesired effects on students in terms of the stress and anxiety tests can impose. Adolescence is already a time in a child's life when many different pressures are coming to bear upon the psyche. Among the most undesirable consequences that can result from the…

This document presents a series of seven notebooks written to assist students at risk of becoming school dropouts due to learning problems. The notebooks explain what learning is, the student's role in the learning process, tools available to learners, how a particular student may learn best, which areas of learning need to be strengthened, and…

This report presents findings from the 3rd year of a 4-year study of the impact of educational reform on at-risk students in Texas. Specifically, the study examined the effect of four reforms on at-risk students--the attendance policy, the no pass/no play rule, the driver's license law, and the TEAMS/TAAS (Texas Educational Assessment of Minimum…

Key characteristics of adults who took the General Educational Development (GED) Tests in 1989 were compared with those of their 1980 counterparts. Findings indicated that the percentage taking the tests primarily to fulfill postsecondary educational admissions requirements increased from 29.1 to 32.8 percent. The percentage who took the tests for…

The majority of Native American students in Arizona and New Mexico experience inferior elementary and secondary educations. They attend small rural schools with limited resources in remote locations on or near reservations. Poverty and unemployment rates are high. Northern Arizona University, the Navajo and Hopi Tribes, Northern Arizona Education…

This report describes the methodology and findings of the validation of a user-friendly, early predictor measure to identify at-risk students among Syracuse (New York) middle school students. The School Self-Rating (SSR) is designed to assess various dimensions of student attitudes that have been linked to at-risk status and that provide an…

Given that faculty advising plays an important role in college level retention, this paper examines three possible forms of faculty advisor-student relationships--paternalism, agency, and contract--and found the contract form to be superior. The paternalistic model in which the advisor assumes responsibility and authority for decision making was…

This paper is one component of the National Commission for Employment Policy's current project on at-risk youth aged 9-15 years old. It examines and discusses current issues, legislation, and action being taken regarding educational programs that assist this at-risk population about to enter the school-to-work transition. The paper also analyzes…

The experiences of 397 freshmen at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, were studied, along with the ways in which the university programs and services affect student commitment to the university. Based on a telephone interview, findings include the following: many freshmen had little contact with major university services designed to orient…