Federal

Lack of Research, Data Hurts Dropout Efforts, Experts Say

By Christina A. Samuels — May 08, 2007 3 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Despite widespread concern about high school students’ dropping out before earning a diploma, research doesn’t offer much in the way of proven methods of addressing the problem, experts said last week.

Only eight programs have been researched rigorously enough to merit their inclusion in the federal What Works Clearinghouse, which was established in 2002 by the Institute of Education Sciences to provide a source of scientific evidence about what works in education.

That’s just one of the challenges a panel of experts discussed at a May 3 forum on dropout prevention sponsored by the Albert Shanker Institute, a Washington-based think tank named after the late president of the American Federation of Teachers.

The gathering was intended to bring together experts to talk about the scope of the dropout problem, and possible solutions. According to federal statistics, the proportion of children who do not complete high school at the end of 13 years of schooling is about 11 percent of the high school population, but can be as high as 28 percent among Hispanic students.

“This is a very underresearched area,” said Mark Dynarski, one of the panelists and the principal investigator for dropout prevention for the IES, an arm of the U.S. Department of Education.

“For 20 years, we’ve had a social problem that’s pretty big that has not moved one whit, … and basically, the clearinghouse has reviewed eight things that might work,” Mr. Dynarski said. The clearinghouse reviewed studies conducted over the past 20 years, he said.

The variation in statistics on dropouts outlines a problem even more fundamental than the relatively small number of dropout-prevention programs that have been proven successful, said Robert Balfanz, a research scientist at the Center for Social Organization of Schools, based at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Nationwide, there is still little agreement on just who is a “dropout,” Mr. Balfanz said. States are allowed to define dropout rates and graduation rates in different ways, he said.

“You can’t say if Minnesota is any better than Michigan in terms of dropouts,” he said.

The National Governors Association has proposed a standard formula for states to use in calculating graduation rates.The two panelists said they would favor including a uniform policy for calculating graduation rates in the reauthorized federal No Child Left Behind Act.

Unevenly Distributed

The dropout problem is not distributed evenly across the country, Mr. Balfanz said. Fifteen states account for 80 percent of the high school dropouts any given year, he said. About 2,000 schools in those 15 states—located mainly in urban areas, the South, and the Southwest—produce 50 percent of the nation’s dropouts.

Mr. Balfanz calls such schools “dropout factories,” defined by a situation in which the number of seniors is 60 percent or less than the number of freshmen entering four years earlier.

There appear to be two types of dropouts, he said: those who leave school because of life events—for instance, pregnancy or bullying—and students who fall away from school because of long-running academic failure. Their attendance becomes more and more sporadic until finally they just stop showing up.

A few of the successful dropout-prevention programs seek to halt that slow slide by designating one adult to follow up with small groups of students at risk of dropping out.

The Achievement for Latinos Through Academic Success program, which originated in Los Angeles, showed a large positive effect on dropout rates with that kind of personal approach. Also listed on the What Works Clearinghouse site is Check & Connect, established through a partnership between the University of Minnesota and the 36,400-student Minneapolis district. Both programs are aimed at middle school students.

Such programs are fairly expensive, Mr. Dynarski said. “But the alternative is that lots of these kids are going to drop out,” he said.

A bill recently introduced in the U.S. Senate would attempt to address the high school dropout problem in part by shifting more money into research for effective prevention models. Senate Bill 1185, also known as the Graduation Promise Act, would authorize $2.5 billion to strengthen federal and state partnerships to prevent dropouts. Sponsored by Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., it was referred to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions last month.

A version of this article appeared in the May 09, 2007 edition of Education Week as Lack of Research, Data Hurts Dropout Efforts, Experts Say

Events

Jobs Virtual Career Fair for Teachers and K-12 Staff
Find teaching jobs and other jobs in K-12 education at the EdWeek Top School Jobs virtual career fair.
Ed-Tech Policy Webinar Artificial Intelligence in Practice: Building a Roadmap for AI Use in Schools
AI in education: game-changer or classroom chaos? Join our webinar & learn how to navigate this evolving tech responsibly.
Education Webinar Developing and Executing Impactful Research Campaigns to Fuel Your Ed Marketing Strategy 
Develop impactful research campaigns to fuel your marketing. Join the EdWeek Research Center for a webinar with actionable take-aways for companies who sell to K-12 districts.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Federal Biden Calls for Teacher Pay Raises, Expanded Pre-K in State of the Union
President Joe Biden highlighted a number of his education priorities in a high-stakes speech as he seeks a second term.
5 min read
President Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the Capitol on March 7, 2024, in Washington.
President Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the Capitol on March 7, 2024, in Washington.
Shawn Thew/Pool via AP
Federal Low-Performing Schools Are Left to Languish by Districts and States, Watchdog Finds
Fewer than half of district plans for improving struggling schools meet bare minimum requirements.
11 min read
A group of silhouettes looks across a grid with a public school on the other side.
Vanessa Solis/Education Week via Canva
Federal Biden Admin. Says New K-12 Agenda Tackles Absenteeism, Tutoring, Extended Learning
The White House unveiled a set of K-12 priorities at the start of an election year.
4 min read
U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona participates in a roundtable discussion with students from Dartmouth College on Jan. 10, 2024, on the school's campus, in Hanover, N.H.
U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona participates in a roundtable discussion with students from Dartmouth College on Jan. 10, 2024, on the school's campus, in Hanover, N.H.
Steven Senne/AP
Federal Lawmakers Want to Reauthorize a Major Education Research Law. What Stands in the Way?
Lawmakers have tried and failed to reauthorize the Education Sciences Reform Act over the past nearly two decades.
7 min read
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., left, joins Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., left, as Starbucks founder Howard Schultz answers questions about the company's actions during an ongoing employee unionizing campaign, at the Capitol in Washington, on March 29, 2023.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., left, joins Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., left, at the Capitol in Washington, on March 29, 2023. The two lawmakers sponsored a bill to reauthorize the Education Sciences Reform Act.
J. Scott Applewhite/AP