Conference Focuses on 'Silent Epidemic' of Dropouts

Students offer candid stories of leaving school.

Washington

At 16, Lyle Oates had quit high school and was selling drugs on the streets of Cambridge, Mass.

“I needed the money and school wasn’t telling me how to make money,” said Mr. Oates, now 18.

That children who grew up in his poor, urban neighborhood never graduated, much less went to college, was a given, Mr. Oates said. What stunned him—after returning to an alternative school last year called YouthBuild—was just how many had given up on...