What's Being Done?
From an analysis of hundreds of dropout prevention programs, the National Dropout Prevention Center in Clemson, S.C., culled 15 major strategies that can aid in lowering the dropout rate. Some strategies focus on early learning; others recommend sound instructional practices, such as individualized instruction or instruction that targets multiple intelligences; still others call on schools to let the wider school community provide learning opportunities at the workplace.
Early Prevention
Schools need a whole constellation of strategies to ensure that they are meeting the academic needs of students, whether the students are at risk or not. But the center's executive director, Jay Smink, emphasizes that three are crucial:
- Get involved with students' families.
- Provide strong early childhood education.
- Help low-achieving students focus on reading and writing in the primary grades.
"If you truly want to be preventive, put all your eggs into those three baskets, and your problems will be minimized," Smink says.
For older students, in-school strategies such as tutoring or mentoring can personalize learning. Service learning, too, can individualize learning by bringing academic and personal growth together with community service and civic responsibility.
Connecting to Home and Culture
If schools want to reach students and their families, it helps to understand the families' cultural expectations, says Angela Ginorio, coauthor of Si, Se Puede! Yes, We Can: Latinas in School, an American Association of University Women's report focusing on the high dropout rate of Latina girls.
Ginorio suggests that even "a little twist" in home-school communications can be crucial for getting Latino parents involved in their children's school life. One principal at a school in Washington State, Ginorio notes, had little success in bringing Latino parents in for parent-teacher conferences with a general open-door invitation. When he sent notes home with a specific day and time to meet parents, he got a 90 percent response rate, Ginorio says.
Schools should also make an extra effort to help parents who may have had limited schooling or schooling in a non-U.S. setting. These parents may have difficulty understanding the school's expectations, including the value of extracurricular activities.
"Principals and counselors need to find ways to communicate why it's important for students to compete in Math Bowl after school—why it's important for college," Ginorio offers. This might not be clear to parents who expect their child to be helping out at home or working to help support the family.
Calling on the Community
A student who drops out of school is not the only one affected. Business leaders in Florida, for example, believe that high-tech industries have settled farther north because of the state's dismal high school dropout rate of 38 percent.
The Florida Chamber Foundation, supported by the Florida Chamber of Commerce, hopes to increase the state's high school graduation rate to 75 percent by 2010, says its executive vice president, Jane McNabb.
The foundation's World Class Schools program works with businesses to get them involved with schools, whether through mentoring, job shadowing, or teaching principal leadership. In the latter case, business leaders are paired with principals to look for business applications that might solve certain school problems.
"We think that local business leaders really need to get involved at the district level," McNabb says. "It helps demystify both school and the business operations." So far, the program has trained 5,000 Florida business leaders to take on such school partnerships.
"Turning the graduation rate around is like turning around the Queen Mary," says McNabb. Nonetheless, she adds, business leaders are committed to the project for the long term because they know the state's economic health depends on the smarts its workers bring to their jobs.
