Gradual Disengagement: A Portrait of the 2008-09 Dropouts in the Baltimore City Schools
Written by Dr. Martha Mac IverGradual Disengagement: A Portrait of the 2008-09 Dropouts in the Baltimore City Schools examined eight years of student-level data to paint a collective portrait of the process of disengagement that leads to student dropout. The study found that the majority of students who eventually drop out of Baltimore high schools enter ninth grade with a pattern of chronic absenteeism that goes back at least several years. A large majority of eventual dropouts are overage for grade by the time they enter ninth grade for the first time, and have increasingly high levels of absenteeism and course failure over their years in high school. The study recommends that interventions be implemented during the early middle grades to prevent most dropout outcomes, and that non-traditional credit-earning options be offered to older enrolled students (17 and older) who already have patterns of chronic absenteeism and course failure.
To address the factors related to high school success, BERC announces the release of the report,"Keeping On Track in Ninth Grade and Beyond: Baltimore’s Ninth Graders in 2007-08." Focusing on a recent Baltimore City ninth grade cohort, the report examines the behavioral factors identified in previous research as key predictors of high school graduation, particularly ninth grade attendance and course passing. The study also demonstrates how ninth grade outcomes are linked to warning indicators in the middle grades. The report suggests that raising the graduation rate in Baltimore City will require specific attention to addressing the behavioral factors that push students off-track to graduation: chronic absenteeism, suspensions, and course failure.
Raising Graduation Rates: A Series of Data Briefs Progress Toward Increasing National and State Graduation Rates
Written by Robert Balfanz and Chris WestThis is the first in a series of briefs examining the progress in raising high school graduation rates over the past decade. During this period, the prevailing view on high school graduation rates has moved from the belief that essentially everyone who wanted to, or needed to, graduate from high school was doing so to the recognition that in every state there were too many communities and schools where high school graduation was not the norm.
In urban school districts that educate primarily low income students, chronic absenteeism (missing a month or more schooling) is a serious issue in the elementary grades and can reach epidemic levels in middle and high school. In a recent analysis EGC researchers found that over a five year period in one city 40% of students who were in the sixth grade in 1999 missed a year or more of schooling.
Learn more here.
Beyond the Indicators An Integrated School-Level Approach to Dropout Prevention
Written by Martha Abele MacIver and Douglas MacIverBeyond the Indicators provides an integrated framework that schools and districts can use to build a foundation to prevent students from dropping out. Based on a tiered public health model, this framework provides universal and schoolwide practices designed to produce high attendance, positive behavior, and successful academic achievement for the majority of students. It includes implementing early warning systems that identify students at risk of dropping out, and tiered interventions to insure that struggling students stay on track to graduate.
This report (August 2009) summarizes the research on why students drop out of school, explains the research implications for how to create an integrated dropout prevention strategy, and highlights an innovative pilot project that yielded results in a matter of months—a how-to example that works.
Martha Abele Mac Iver and Douglas J. Mac Iver
Report available on the Mid Atlantic Equity Center Website here.
Still a Freshman: Examining the Prevalence and Characteristics of Ninth-Grade Retention Across Six States
Written by Chris WestWith the nation’s governors signing the National Governors Association Graduation Compact, and the federal government and organizations such as the Data Quality Campaign, and other advocacy groups leading the efforts to standardize the way student success is measured, better data on graduation rates is on the way.
Improving student attendance with a school-wide approach to school-family-community partnerships.
Written by Steve SheldonResearchers and policy makers have questioned the efficacy of family-involvement interventions. They believe that more studies are needed to compare outcomes of students whose families received a partnership intervention with those who did not.
Present and Accounted For: Partnership Effects on Student Attendance
Written by Joyce Epstein and Steve SheldonReducing student absenteeism and truancy is a goal of many schools across the country. Surprisingly little research focuses on what schools can do to increase and sustain students’ daily attendance, and even fewer studies explore how family–school–community partnerships may contribute to this goal.
Getting students to school: Using family and community involvement to reduce chronic absenteeism
Written by Steve Sheldon and Joyce EpsteinStudents who are chronically absent are more likely than other students to drop out of school. Many schools have goals to reduce student truancy and to help chronically absent students attend school regularly. Few studies, however, have focused on whether or how family and community involvement help reduce rates of chronic absenteeism.
This case study of a science reform program in the middle grades highlights how the instructional payoff from investments in intensive professional development in science was diminished by 1) teachers leaving the school and 2) assignment of teachers to subjects other than those for which they had received the professional development.
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- What We Can Do to Build a Graduation Nation: Making High Poverty Secondary Schools Engines for Advancement
- Building a Grad Nation | 2010 - 2011 Annual Update
- Gradual Disengagement: A Portrait of the 2008-09 Dropouts in the Baltimore City Schools
- Keeping On Track in Ninth Grade and Beyond
- New Report - Building a Grad Nation: Progress and Challenge in Ending the High School Dropout Epidemic