A new report examines the Boston school district’s success in reducing its dropout rates from 8 percent in 2004 to 3.8 percent last year.
The case study by the Rennie Center, an education policy and research organization in Boston, focuses on the school system’s efforts to join forces with various community partners to come up with innovative prevention and dropout-recovery programs to get students to complete a high school diploma. The initiatives grew out of the city’s Youth Transitions Task Force, a coalition of government agencies and nonprofit organizations convened by the late Mayor Thomas Menino and organized by the Boston Private Industry Council.
Among the key strategies identified were:
• developing a common understanding of the problem and a vision for change;
• agreement on how to measure results; and
• continuous communication between partners.
