Dropout Prevention

Dollar General Literacy Foundation and the Ad Council are proud to partner on a national public service advertising (PSA) campaign that aims to help high school dropouts get started on the road to their GED® Diploma.

These young adults know they need to get their GED Diploma but need to be reminded they can do it. The multi-media campaign is scheduled to launch in July 2010 and all materials will be available in English and Spanish. View the TV PSA.

All PSAs will feature a toll free number 877-38-YOURGED and a new website www.yourged.org, where people can find free referrals to local GED programs and information on the GED Diploma process. The program referrals come from a new comprehensive database developed in collaboration with National Center for Family Literacy and ProLiteracy.

We encourage you to extend the reach of the campaign through your communications. For Frequently Asked Questions about the campaign materials and usage, please refer to this document. For more information on the referral database, please visit www.nationalliteracydirectory.org.

Thanks in advance for your support!

The Dollar General Literacy Foundation and The Ad Council

A new study from the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University details the high cost of the dropout epidemic for both students and taxpayers. The paper outlines data for the employment, earnings, incarceration, teen and young adult parenting, and family incomes of the nation’s high school dropouts and their better-educated peers from 2006 to 2008, and the news is not good. The most startling statistic, contained in the report’s subtitle, indicates a 22 percent daily jailing rate for young black men who have dropped out. Overall, nearly one of every 10 young male high school dropouts was institutionalized on a given day in 2006-2007, versus fewer than one of 33 high school graduates, one of 100 young men who completed one to three years of post-secondary schooling, and only one of 500 men who held a bachelor’s or higher degree. Other data show young female high school dropouts nearly nine times as likely to become single mothers as their counterparts with bachelor degrees, with the year-round joblessness rate of young high school dropouts at 40 percent. Over their working lives, the average high school dropout will have a negative net fiscal contribution to society of nearly -$5,200, while the average high school graduate generates a positive lifetime net fiscal contribution of $287,000.
See the report: http://www.clms.neu.edu/publication/documents/The_Consequences_of_Dropping_Out_of_High_School.pdf
Please see the contents of this new report, The consequences of Dropping Out.

http://www.clms.neu.edu/publication/documents/The_Consequences_of_Dropping_Out_of_High_School.pdf

New study of eight community schools indicates rising graduation rates
10/16/2009

The Coalition for Community Schools in partnership with the National Association for Secondary School Principals is pleased to release a review of eight community schools yielding evidence of rising graduation and college going rates and a reduction in dropout rates. Schools from around the nation: Bronx, NY; Chicago, IL; Cincinnati, OH; Indianapolis, IN; Philadelphia, PA; Portland, OR; and Tukwila, WA, have found a way to reconnect with youth, enriching their educational experiences. These secondary institutions comes from the poorest and most ethnically diverse parts of the country and have identified the inextricable relationship between schools, the community and student success.

Themes that flow through the report stress the importance of reciprocal partnerships, collaborative leadership, and the alignment of resources to serve children, youth and families. Community schools implement many of the strategies aligned with Breaking Ranks II: Strategies for Leading High School Reform. Community schools get their strength from the local community as they create personalized environments, ensure a relevant and rigorous curriculum, and build sustainable partnerships that put a caring adult in a student’s life before, during, and after school and during the summer.

The Coalition for Community Schools is an alliance of national, state and local organizations in education K-16, youth development, community planning and development, family support, health and human services, government and philanthropy as well as national, state and local community school networks. The Coalition advocates for community schools as the vehicle for strengthening schools, families and communities so that together they can improve student learning.

In existence since 1916, the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) is the preeminent organization of and national voice for middle level and high school principals, assistant principals, and aspiring school leaders from across the United States and more than 45 countries around the world. The mission of NASSP is to promote excellence in school leadership.

Read the report: http://communityschools.org/CCSDocuments/Comm_HS.pdf

How Federal Policy Can Help

Forum – April 17, 2009
For More Information:
Jennifer Brown Lerner
American Youth Policy Forum
1836 Jefferson Place, NW
Washington, DC 20036
202.775.9731
jlerner@aypf.org
Presenters
Cheryl Almeida
Program Director
Jobs for the Future
88 Broad Street
Boston, MA 02110
Phone: 1-617-728-4446
Adria Steinberg
Vice President
Jobs for the Future
88 Broad Street
Boston, MA 02110
Phone: 1-617-728-4446
Barbara Knaggs
Associate Commissioner for State Initiatives
Texas Education Agency
1701 North Congress Ave.
Austin, TX 78701
Phone: 1-512-936-6060
James Witty
Alternative Education Coordinator
Tennessee Department of Education, Executive Secretyar of the Governor’s Advisory Council for Alternative Education
Andrew Johnson Tower
James Robertson Pkwy
Nashville, TN 37234
Phone: 1-615-532-4768

Overview

Jobs for the Future shared findings from two soon-to-be-completed comprehensive scans examining policy on alternative education and dropout prevention in all fifty states. These policy scans reveal significant legislative activity in these important policy areas, since the 2001 No Child Left Behind legislation. Based on rigorous research and deep relationships with expert practitioners, Jobs for the Future has identified a set of model policies that create the right conditions of support for successful programs and schools. Barbara Knaggs from the Texas Education Agency and James Witty, from the Tennessee Department of Education then shared information on their states’ efforts to improve alternative education and dropout recovery through both policy and practice.

Adria Steinberg, Vice President, Jobs for the Future began with a description of Jobs for the Future (JFF). Focusing on economically disadvantaged low-income youth and adults, including the need to increase the number of low-income and minority youth who graduate from high school, are college ready, and gain a college degree or a postsecondary credential, JFF hopes to influence the improvement of the high school graduation and post-secondary success rate for the 30% of young people nationally who are disengaged from school, get off track, and who are unlikely to ever graduate from high school.

According to Steinberg, the need to focus on dropouts and alternative education is great and the time is now. Describing a broken educational pipeline (graduation from high school, prepared for college, enrolled in post secondary education, completing post secondary education), where too many young people, especially low-income young people, are unprepared to succeed and do not succeed. Given the national spotlight on the dropout rate and the position of the field knowing more than ever before about what works to prevent dropping out and to recover those who have, Steinberg urge the time for action is now.

Recently, state activity to raise the graduation rate and reduce the drop out rate has increased; leadership at the state level is essential to reform. To document progress in the states, JFF is work on two scans of legislation relating to alternative education and drop out prevention and recovery at the state level. These scans will be published as policy briefs on the JFF website, www.jff.org in the near future.

The first scan, Reinventing Alternative Education: An Assessment of Current State Policy and How to Improve It, examines and analyzes the policy environment related to alternative schools and programs that work with the young people who have disengaged from or dropped out of school.
The model policy elements needed in state legislation in order to attain goals of improving alternative education include:

• Broader Eligibility: Alternative education needs to be “normalized” by making it available for all students who are struggling in school and not just those who are disruptive. There could be changes in eligibility, so that alternative education is not just short-term solution for trouble makers.

• Clearer Guidelines: Clearer state level guidelines and oversight should be set, while retaining local authority. Without clear guidance there can be program disparities.

• Accountability for Results: Schools could be held common standards, particularly so that students can meet state standards. However, progress should also be recognized and rewarded.

Enriched Funding: Targeting resources toward students with greater need considering the dual role of alternative education, to reengage students and to also accelerate their learning with the necessary academic and social supports.
• High Quality Teachers: Build a cadre of teachers skilled in content, pedagogy, and youth development.

• Enhanced Support Services: Require and help schools provide student supports through partnerships with community based organization (CBOs) and city agencies.

• Innovation: Flexible approaches to catching students up educationally depending on how close/far students are from graduation.

Cheryl Almeida, Program Director, Jobs for the Future then provided information on the key findings regarding state legislation on alternative education. Since 2000, 33 states have passed new legislation and/or put new regulations in place related to alternative education. Signs of progress, based on the model policy elements above, include broader eligibility (not limited to discipline problems, but open to any children who are struggling), clearer guidelines, more accountability (for student progress, but also rewards for progress), funding, and support services. Major challenges remain including recruiting high quality teachers and innovation.

The scan of legislation yielded the following information:
• 14 states broadened their eligibility criteria
• 16 states provided clearer guidance
• 10 states increased accountability for results (either improved or were more transparent about their progress)
• 15 states enriched funding
• 2 states focused on improving teacher quality
• 13 states provided enhanced services (including partnerships with CBOs and state agencies)
• No state addressed innovation in their legislation

The second study discussed, Dropout Prevention and Recovery: An Assessment of State Policy and How to Improve It, begins by describing the magnitude of the drop out problem. Thirty percent of youth nationally are not on track to graduate. Steinberg then continued by outlining the model policy elements of state drop out legislation. These are:

• Counting and Accounting for Dropouts: Set public goals for improving graduation rate and to measure graduation rates using cohort methodology.

• Using Graduation and On-track Rates as a Trigger for Reform and Reinvention: Serious, school-based and systemic reform should provided to struggling along with the development new recuperative options.

• Reinforcing the Entitlement to Education: Schools should be reminded of their obligation to deliver free public education through graduation or at least21 years of age. This education should include preparation for entry into postsecondary education or the world of work.

• Accelerating Preparation for Postsecondary Success: Include underrepresented and at-risk students in strategies for accelerating students to high school graduation and postsecondary success.

• Inventing New Models: Encourage the development of recuperative models, through a competitive grant system or other means that provides opportunities for innovation and scalability.

Almeida then reported on the key findings on state dropout policies. New legislation was enacted in 34 states since 2002. There are real signs of progress, such as accelerating learning, increasing accountability and reinforcing entitlement to public education, but big challenges remain. Challenges include using graduation and on-track rates as a trigger for reinvention and inventing new models. The result of the state scan was as follows:
• 15 states improved counting and accounting for dropouts, publicly reporting their data. Four more will report data soon.
• 18 states used graduation and on-track rates as a trigger for targeted reinvention and four used these same measures as a trigger for reinvention.
• 21 states reinforced the entitlement to education, closing policy loopholes that had allowed them to turn away youth who are 18 to 19 years old.
• 14 states accelerated preparation for post-secondary education, including explicitly target under-represented, at-risk students for accelerated learning and increasing students taking AP classes and using credit recovery methods.
• Inventing new models was legislated in two states.

Barbara Knaggs, Associate Commissioner for State Initiatives, Texas Education Agency spoke about Texas state policies to reduce the dropout rate and recover dropouts. Texas has 4.6 million students in approximately 1,200 school districts with about 8,000 campuses. There are approximately 1,700 high schools. The state as two big issues: size and diversity. Size varies widely from eight large urban school districts such as Dallas and Houston with hundreds of thousands of students to small rural school districts in the Eastern and Western parts of the state, some with only 30-50 students. State-wide, 55% of Texas students are economically disadvantaged and half (2.3 million) are at-risk of dropping out of school. In 2006-2007, the dropout rate in Texas was approximately 11%, corresponding to 52,000 students who dropped out.

She indicated that the type of federal policies that would be most helpful to a big, diverse state like Texas would be: (1) pressure with support and (2) flexibility with accountability. While indicating that Texas still has many challenges and a long way to go on the dropout challenge, Knaggs said that Texas did start early in an effort to both document and address the dropout challenge. The state’s first began collecting data on dropouts in 1984. In 1987, Texas added a definition of dropout to statute, increasing state and district responsibilities. In 1990, Texas implemented its state Academic Excellence Indicator System (AEIS), including graduation and dropout rates. In 1993, the state implemented a performance-based accountability system that included dropout rates. In 1998, a grade 7-12 longitudinal rate was added to the AEIS. By 2004, the state added a grade 9-12 cohort-based completion rate as an indicator in the state accountability system. Now, every Texas school district is rated on this longitudinal dropout data, as well as the annual dropout rate. In 2005-06, Texas adopted the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) definition of dropout.

Since 2003, the state of Texas and private foundations have collaborated on a high school reform and dropout prevention project called the Texas High School Project. Working with school districts, this project has redesigned 93 underperforming Texas high schools, and established 79 new models, including early college high schools (29 developed) and Texas Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (T-STEM) academies (38 developed)..

In 2006, Texas passed legislation that increased core academic courses required for graduation, added funding for every student in 9th through 12th grade ($320 million per year in additional funding), and provided vertical teams for college readiness and standards. Another bill included changes to student assessment, moving away from exit-level assessment to end-of-course exams in 9th through 12th grades.

In 2007, an omnibus bill created a number of new dropout prevention pilot programs, and the state doubled its funding for dropout prevention and high school reform. As part of that bill, a $6 million pilot project was started for programs to recover dropouts. These programs were given maximum flexibility along with increased accountability. Flexibility included no required seat time for students; accountability included no payments, beyond some baseline money, until benchmarks were met. A variety of service providers including colleges and non-profits were allowed to apply to be providers though an application process. Currently, there are 22 grantees including two community colleges and three non-profits.

Another dropout prevention strategy was to form a taskforce with someone from each department in the Texas Education Agency to identify dropout issues that crossed departmental lines. This group mapped out their assets, developed intra-agency solutions, and put them on a website. They found that schools often do not know that strategies exist or, if aware of them, how they can be used.

Texas also effectively leverages some of their federal funding sources to promote their dropout prevention and recovery agenda. For example, 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLCs) provided funding for after-school programs and the state prioritized some of dollars to be directed to high school activities. Similarly, they prioritized some of their Title II, Part B funds to support T-STEM professional development for high schools. TANF funds were used in part for Communities-in-Schools. Title I funds were used to support Early College High School and other reforms.

James Witty, Executive Secretary of the Governor’s Advisory Council for Alternative Education; Special Projects Manager, Office of School Safety and Learning Support, Tennessee Department of Education, and Vice President for the
National Alternative Education Association (NAEA), gave an overview of the opportunities and challenges related to alternative education in Tennessee, including changes that have been made in state law. He also made recommendations for federal policy based upon both his work in Tennessee and with NAEA .

In Tennessee, alternative education encompasses both punitive schools and programs (such as those for suspension and expulsion) and some nontraditional schools. Demand for alternative education is on the rise; during the 2007-2008 school year, 21,721 students were provided services in an alternative educational setting. This was a 20% increase over the previous school year
The Tennessee Governor’s Advisory Council for Alternative Education was formed in 2006. Its mission included: considering any issue, problem or matter related to alternative education; studying proposed plans for alternative education programs or curricula/models; considering rules of governance; reporting annually to the General Assembly; and creating a Feasibility Study for the establishment of pilot sites across the state of Tennessee.

Tennessee is in the process of redefining alternative education. It is currently defined as a “short term (one year of less) intervention program designed to develop academic and behavioral skills for students who have been suspended or expelled from the regular school program.” The Advisory Council has worked to change this definition to “a nontraditional academic program designed to meet the student’s educational, behavioral, and social needs.” The old system had a punitive perspective; but the new concept would allow the creation of a nontraditional alternative education high school that would also assist with dropout prevention. The new definition is working its way through the General Assembly and should become law July 1.

The Advisory Council developed a list of 12 quality indicators for alternative education, using research-based information on what constitutes a high quality program. The list was adopted by the State Board of Education as recommended standards for alternative education. It is merely a recommendation as mandating compliance would require enriched funding to school districts. The quality indicators relate to the following broad areas: Mission, Program Environment, Governance, Transitional Planning, Support Services, Parent/Community Engagement, Staffing and Professional Development, Individualized Learner Plans, Life Skills, Curriculum and Instruction, Student Assessment, and Monitoring and Program Assessment. Similarly, the National Alternative Education Association also developed a list of exemplary practices in alternative education which can be found at www.the-naea.org.

In terms of the funding environment, Witty mentioned that alternative education costs more than regular education however usually receives much less funding. This assessment aligns with the earlier recommendation that policies should enrich funding. Also, funding does not always follow the student into an alternative placement. Sometimes funding stays at the home school and sometimes it is split between the home school and the alternative school. Next year will be the first year that all alternative learners in Tennessee, whether in an alternative school or alternative program, will be tracked, which will hopefully give Tennessee a better understanding of what the alternative learner looks like. In an effort to combine and leverage resources, Tennessee is considering combining several different alternative and nontraditional programs in the same school buildings.

Current challenges in Tennessee include budget constraints that are causing districts to downsize their current alternative education services, when alternative education actually requires increased funding to be successful. Education funding in Tennessee is typically tied to school official numbers, but no such numbers are tied to alternative programs. As they are not covered under No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and are not held to the same standards as schools funded by NCLB, the Department of Education has not assigned them official school numbers but has plans to begin doing so during the next school year.

Witty believes that several successful federal initiatives have lessons applicable to alternative education. For example, 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLCs) has proved that federal policy can be pushed down to the program level. Safe School/Healthy Students has taught them that education, mental health and juvenile justice have to work together.

Witty shared an anecdote about a student in an alternative setting, a foster child whose mother was a drug addict and who had never had a real stable home. She said the alternative school was the first place she had ever called home. It had kept her from dropping out of high school.

Witty’s federal policy recommendations were:
• Invest in a position within the US Department of Education to support state alternative education coordinators.
• Create an Alternative Education Task Force at the federal level to examine issues states are facing relative to alternative education and that also has the autonomy to develop and implement solutions for states.
• Invest in alternative education by providing earmark funding (a federal funding stream for alternative education). In addition, funding should allow both alternative schools and individual programs to receive monies.
• Designate a portion of the stimulus package to specifically build or refurbish old educational facilities that will in turn serve as an alternative program or school.

Highlights from the Question and Answer Session

Jennifer Lerner, American Youth Policy Forum, started off the question and answer session by asking what recommendations each speaker had for federal policy. Witty responded that he would like to see state level strategies applied at the federal level, such as a federal task force on alternative education and a federal coordinator at the U.S. Department of Education as a contact person. Steinberg responded that the administration can use the bully pulpit to call attention to the 30% of young people who are marginalized. She added that the country can never meet its recently reiterated educational goals without addressing this issue. She advised that it is a good time to leverage and expand on the commitment states have shown both to alternative education and drop out prevention and recovery by targeting these issues with a portion of innovation funds under the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act’s (ARRA) Race to the Top initiative. Knaggs added that while there are numerous programs for disadvantaged youth, they each have detailed and complex requirements which differ from one program to the next. She suggests again that they would trade increased accountability for increased flexibility.

The next question was whether there are examples of excellent alternative education programs informing high school reform. Almeida replied that Portland, Oregon is actively engaged in this type of sharing of best practices. In fact, the public schools are now using an 8th to 9th grade transition program developed by Open Meadow (Open Meadow, in North Portland, is a private, non-profit, accredited, educational organization serving youth who have not fared well in the public schools, including those who have dropped out or who have had attendance, academic, or disciplinary issues. For more information, see www.openmeadow.org.) New York City transfer schools are also recognized as successful models. Steinberg added that New Visions for Public Schools, in New York City, is a school development organization which shares ideas across schools both traditional and alternative. Witty said that in Tennessee the state board was so receptive to standards developed for alternative schools that they are receptive to creating and/or revising high school standards. Knaggs said that several high school reform models incorporate learning from alternative schools including the personalization of learning, alternative delivery of instruction, and use of individual learning plans.

A question was asked regarding whether states are not interested in recovering the 30% of youth who are marginalized because it is just too expensive. Steinberg replied that it is certainly easier to make the case for prevention of dropping out than for drop out recovery. However, using economic models can prove the value of taking action versus the cost of ignoring the financial cost to cities, states and the nation of having so many youth drop out.

Given that the speakers suggested that alternative education should cost more than traditional education, another questioner asked how much it would actually cost per student to deliver alternative education. Knaggs responded that not all the money needs to be new as current monies are not coordinated well and all have different requirements.

PRESENTERS:
• Cheryl Almeida, Jobs for the Future
• Adria Steinberg, Jobs for the Future
• Barbara Knaggs, Associate Commissioner for State Initia

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Published Online: September 3, 2009

Commentary

Why Not Count Them All?
By Jim Hull
Premium article access courtesy of Edweek.org.
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Before leaving office, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings issued last October new regulations for how states should calculate high school graduation rates under the federal No Child Left Behind Act. The regulations seemed simple: Take the number of students who graduated, then divide by the number of students who entered high school four years earlier. But what about those students who take longer than four years to graduate? How would they be counted? The short answer is, they wouldn’t.

The October 2008 regulations gave states the option of including “late graduates” in what the Department of Education called an “extended year” graduation rate. But the states would have to apply to the department to do so. Several states have, but confusion remains over how the separate four-year and extended-year rates should interact. (“Rules Allowing Extended Time on Graduation,” April 1, 2009.)

Some educators express concern that allowing states to give credit to schools for late graduates will limit the incentives schools have to make sure students graduate on time. They cite research showing that those who graduate on time have better life outcomes than those who take longer. And therein lies the question.

The answer, on average, is yes. The average on-time graduate has a much better life outcome than the average late graduate. But that is “on average.” The average on-time graduate enters high school as a much higher-performing student from a higher-income family than the average student who graduates late. When comparing late graduates to similar on-time graduates (that is, those with similar achievement levels and socioeconomic characteristics), the picture is much more mixed.

We recently did such a comparison at the Center for Public Education (“Better Late Than Never? Examining Late High School Graduates”) and found that, when comparing late graduates to similar on-time graduates, the on-time graduates are better off than the late graduates in some life outcomes, but not in others.

For example, late graduates are not as likely as similar on-time graduates to earn a college degree, to earn as much income per year, or to be covered by health insurance. But late graduates were just as likely as similar on-time graduates to hold a full-time job, have retirement benefits, be involved in their communities, and lead a healthy lifestyle.

But when students don’t graduate on time, when they fall behind their classmates, we know what the alternatives are: (1) graduate late; (2) seek a General Educational Development credential; or (3) drop out of school altogether. This raises the question, are students better off graduating late than never?

To find an answer, our study also compared life outcomes of late graduates with those of dropouts and GED recipients. The analysis showed that late graduates were better off in most life outcomes, including holding a full-time job, having health and retirement benefits, being involved in their communities, and living healthier lifestyles, than both dropouts and GED recipients. Clearly, our findings showed, students are better off graduating late than never graduating at all, and schools should be recognized—even applauded—for keeping them in the pipeline.

Not everyone is ready to agree, however. The National Governors Association, for example, expressed its concern that if five- and six-year graduates are included in state graduation rates, the percentage of late graduates could go from 1 percent of students today to 12 percent tomorrow. We share the governors’ concern, particularly if the increase in late graduates results from a corresponding decrease in on-time graduation. But if the students graduating late are students who would otherwise have dropped out or earned a GED, wouldn’t this be something to celebrate?

These concerns ignore another fact: Schools already have negative incentives for keeping students for more than four years. An extra year or more is expensive, especially since these students tend to be struggling and are likely to need more resources than the average student. Moreover, schools are having a hard enough time keeping classes’ size at a reasonable level without filling them with students who could have graduated on time but didn’t. Accountability formulas that recognize only on-time graduation rates could have the reverse effect of handing schools a reason not to make the effort.

In a perfect world, students wouldn’t fall behind their classmates, but we don’t live in a perfect world. There are many reasons students fall behind, and not all of them are within the school’s control. But our schools must stick with all of our students, no matter how long it takes, to ensure that they acquire the knowledge and skills needed to earn a diploma.

Instead of debating whether or not late graduates should be counted as graduates, we should be looking into incentives to keep all students in school until they earn a high school diploma. Graduating on time is the best outcome for students. But it’s also true that students are better off graduating late than never.

Jim Hull is a policy analyst for the Center for Public Education at the National School Boards Association, in Alexandria, Va.

Give potential dropouts positive reasons to stay in school
Focusing students on goals, not threatening them with repercussions, is a better way to prevent high-school dropouts, Education Week reporter Catherine Gewertz writes in this blog post. Gewertz cites the example of one program that creates a focus on the future for students. They write letters about their lives and goals — which are sealed in a vault to be returned to them at a reunion 10 years later. Education Week/High School Connections blog
http://www.smartbrief.com/subscribertools/passiton.action?issueid=B2DFA391-0C47-4ADB-958A-6A341C99164B&copyid=D3077A7A-1DC0-4258-87DE-F11BC191AA7D&brief=ASCD&sid=0455708d-c247-48b6-9146-67843687182b

Dropouts affect entire community
Friday, August 7, 2009
By MARIBETH WARD, Staff Writer

GREENCASTLE — Tuesday afternoon, Putnam County representatives from education, government, industry, economic development, social services, juvenile probation and businesses came together for a third time this summer.
The group is looking for ways to attack a community problem that affects every member of our county.

Nationwide, nearly one in three U.S. high school students fails to graduate. In total, approximately 1.3 million students drop out each year — averaging 7,200 every school day.

Brad Tucker with State Farm Insurance and David English, executive director of the Putnam County United Way, hosted the meeting at the Miller Conference Center.

Tucker, who is also a retired educator, has been tapped to head a group to explore ways to reduce Putnam County’s dropout rate through a program called America’s Promise Alliance.

General Colin Powell founded this initiative in 1997. Today it is chaired by Powell’s his wife Alma. It is a cross-sector partnership of more than 300 corporations, nonprofits, faith-based organizations and advocacy groups passionate about improving lives and changing outcomes for children.

Their research has shown an inextricable link between the well being of children and our nation’s economic health.

“Experts say that dropping out of high school affects not just students and their families, but the country overall — including businesses, government and communities,” said Tucker.

“Those who drop out are more likely to be incarcerated, rely on public programs and social services, and go without health insurance than those who graduate from high school,” he continued.

According to the Alliance for Excellent Education, dropouts from just the class of 2007 will cost the nation $329 billion in lost wages, taxes, and revenue over their lifetimes.

In an effort to reduce America’s high school dropout rates, the Alliance introduced the Dropout Prevention program.

More than 35 summits have been held in cities nationwide — bringing together more than 14,000 mayors and governors, business owners, child advocates, school administrators, students and parents to develop workable solutions and action plans.

The Putnam County group plans to send 10 to 15 people to the America’s Promise Alliance in Indianapolis on Sept. 25.

“We hope those people will come and pass on the information they gain. And together we can determine ways to increase the number of students graduating,” said English.

The group on Tuesday spent a little over an hour discussing issues and gathering information surrounding the effect dropping out of school has on the community and the child.

“Not only does it economically impact the community but it is condemning these kids to a life of poverty,” said Greencastle High School Principal Randy Corn.

One discussion centered on making cultural changes so that school becomes something for children to look forward to attending.

“There is a lot of opportunity out there. We need to start teaching them this earlier. By high school it is too late,” said Economic Development Director Bill Dory.

“Convincing parents that graduation is an achievable goal is important,” added Greencastle Mayor Sue Murray.

Students moving from one parent to another and one school district to another are an issue. So is the tradition of parents who drop out not expecting their children to graduate.

Not having enough money to send kids to school despite free and reduced book fees and lunch programs was mentioned. Of course, pregnancy, drugs and alcohol use and abuse factor into the formula.

North Putnam High School Principal Alan Zerkel brought up the idea of letting kids finish school at their own pace, not necessarily in four years.

“We have to do this in four years. There are certain things you can do and some you can’t. Many college students today take five years to finish their degrees. Why not let high school students who need more time do the same?” he asked.

“And, let those who can finish in three do that too,” added another person.

Problems with special needs students are another issue. Cloverdale Community School Superintendent Carrie Milner explained how a student’s Intelligence Quotient (IQ) could affect graduation outcomes.

“The average is 100 points. Fifteen points below that and kids are struggling. A student having a 75 point IQ doesn’t have the same ability as one with 115 point IQ,” said Milner.

At the end of the meeting there were many questions and many suggestions.

“You can see the issue is huge. How do we get a handle on it?” said Tucker.

The next step will be meeting with school principals and superintendents to determine who will attend the summit in Indianapolis.

“We need to see if there is something we can do countywide and share recourses,” said Tucker. “We’ll bring in all the partners and see what initiatives come out of it in the future.

A Policy and Practice Brief
Robert Balfanz
Everyone Graduates Center and Talent Development Middle Grades Program
National Middle School Association
June 2009
About Everyone Graduates Center
The Everyone Graduates Center (EGC) is located at the Center for Social Organization of Schools at Johns Hopkins University, one of the nation’s leading research universities. The mission of the Everyone Graduates Center is to develop and disseminate the know-how required to enable all students to graduate from high school prepared for college, career, and civic life. Through a systematic and comprehensive approach, EGC combines analysis of the causes, location, and consequences of the nation’s dropout crisis with the development of tools and models designed to keep all students on the path to high school graduation, and capacity building efforts to enable states, communities, school districts, and schools to provide all students with the supports they need to succeed.
About Philadelphia Education Fund
The mission of the Philadelphia Education Fund is to improve the quality of public education for underserved youth throughout the Philadelphia region. Working closely with school districts, schools, businesses, universities, nonprofit organizations, community stakeholders, and other partners, the Philadelphia Education Fund aims to create high-performing secondary schools (grades 6 – 12) where public school diplomas are synonymous with rigorous and high quality education that leads to post-secondary success; provide all students with access to postsecondary education opportunities and the assurance that they can complete appropriate and rigorous classes to allow them to succeed in college and career; and create strategic alliances to support student success from pre-K through college.
The Philadelphia Education Fund’s portfolio of programs and initiatives focus on enhancing teaching and learning, conducting research studies that fuel its work and that of others, directly assisting students to access and succeed in postsecondary education, convening public education stakeholders in support of school reform policy and practice, and informing and engaging citizens as public school advocates.
About National Middle School Association
Since its inception in 1973, National Middle School Association (NMSA) has been a voice for those committed to the educational and developmental needs of young adolescents. With nearly 30,000 members representing principals, teachers, central office personnel, professors, college students, parents, community leaders, and educational consultants across the United States, Canada, and 46 other countries, NMSA welcomes and provides support to anyone interested in the health and education of young adolescents. In addition, NMSA has a network of 58 affiliate organizations in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia that strengthens our outreach to the regional, state, provincial, and local levels.
Through the release of our landmark position paper, This We Believe: Successful Schools for Young Adolescents, NMSA has been a key resource to middle level educators looking to develop more effective schools. Our message is for schools to be academically excellent, developmentally responsive, and socially equitable for every young adolescent.
Policy and Practice Brief Putting Middle Grades Students on the Graduation Path 3
The middle grades will play a pivotal role in enabling the nation to reach President Obama’s goal of graduating all students from high school prepared for college or advanced career training. In high-poverty neighborhoods, in particular, our research and school improvement work indicate that students’ middle grades experiences have tremendous impact on the extent to which they will close achievement gaps, graduate from high school, and be prepared for college. Consequently, there is a need to reconceptualize the role the middle grades play in the public education system. The middle grades, broadly defined as fifth through eighth grade, need to be seen as the launching pad for a secondary and post-secondary education system that enables all students to obtain the schooling and/or career training they will need to fully experience the opportunities of 21st century America.
This brief, drawing on our research and field work, illuminates key policy and practice implications of the middle grades playing a stronger role in achieving our national goal of graduating all students from high school prepared for college or career and civic life. The brief is based on more than a decade of research and development work at the Center for the Social Organization of Schools at Johns Hopkins University. It also draws on direct field experience in more than 30 middle schools implementing comprehensive reform and a longstanding collaboration with the Philadelphia Education Fund.
Major Research Findings
We first highlight our major research findings in two critical areas—the role of the middle grades in determining the likelihood that a student will graduate from high school and their role in closing achievement gaps.
Role of Middle Grades in Determining the Odds of High School Graduation
Our fundamental finding is that in high-poverty environments a student’s middle grades experience strongly impacts the odds of graduating from
high school.
Initial Findings from Philadelphia
Working with the Philadelphia Education Fund, we followed several cohorts of Philadelphia students from sixth grade through one year past on-time graduation.
Our central question was: How early in the middle
A Policy and Practice Brief
Putting Middle Grades Students
on the Graduation Path
Robert Balfanz
Everyone Graduates Center and Talent Development Middle Grades Program
Policy and Practice Brief Putting Middle Grades Students on the Graduation Path 4
grades could we see clear signals that students had fallen off the path to high school graduation? Our goal was to find high-yield indicators that shared two critical features: Identifying students who, absent intervention, would have low odds of graduating (25% or lower graduation rates) and collectively identifying a significant number (at least 25%) of future nongraduates or dropouts. In short, we looked for indicators that were not only accurate, but also had practical application.
We found that sixth graders who failed math or English/reading, or attended school less than 80% of the time, or received an unsatisfactory behavior grade in a core course had only a 10% to 20% chance of graduating on time. Less than 1 of every 4 students with at least one off-track indicator graduated within one extra year of on-time graduation.
Although these numbers are shocking initially, upon reflection they are understandable. Once a sixth grader has demonstrated that he or she lacks either the knowledge to pass tests in math or English or the ability to complete assignments, absent successful intervention, this is unlikely to change on its own. This may be especially true in high-poverty environments, where home and community resources can be limited.
As a result, the student continues to fail courses and may not achieve on-time promotion to the next grade. The student then enters high school, overage for the grade with a history of course failure. Lacking the skills, knowledge, and self-confidence to succeed in high school and feeling distanced from his or her peers, the student continues to fail, does not earn promotion to the 10th grade, and, at this point, may well have reached the legal age for dropping out. Similar trajectories can be seen for 11- and 12-year-olds who miss one or two or more months of school or who receive poor behavior ratings from their teachers. Both clearly signal lack of engagement and participation in school. Absent successful intervention, these behaviors do not typically self-correct over time and lead to course failure, non-promotion, and ultimately, dropping out.
Findings from Replications and Extensions in Additional School Districts
We have subsequently replicated the Philadelphia study in five school districts. These replications confirm the core findings of the Philadelphia study and collectively indicate that, at least in high-poverty environments, it is possible to identify in the middle grades up to half, and sometimes even more, of eventual dropouts. The replications also provide some important nuances.
• Critical attendance thresholds varied by school district. In some districts, students who missed a month or more of school (roughly, 90% attendance rates or less) had greatly diminished graduation odds. In other districts, like Philadelphia, students needed to miss two or more months (roughly, attendance of 80% or less) to achieve similar outcomes. This suggests that both the number of days a student misses and how his or her attendance compares with that of peers signal that a student is not fully engaged and is in danger of falling off the graduation path.
• Mild but sustained misbehavior appears to have an independent effect on graduation odds. In other words, not paying attention in class, acting out, and not getting along with teachers in sustained fashion signal disengagement. Left unaddressed, behaviors that typically might generate a low mark for conduct or multiple behavior referrals knock students off the graduation path. Thus, schools and districts that do not have data that capture these interactions in a systematic and cumulative fashion ultimately miss some students who are clearly signaling they are off track.
• Students who fall off track in the sixth grade tend to have one or two off-track indicators. Relatively few sixth graders have three or four indicators, that is, failing math and English and having low attendance and poor behavior (a pattern, by comparison, that is common in high school). The most common combination was for students to be failing either math or English (not both) and to
Policy and Practice Brief Putting Middle Grades Students on the Graduation Path 5
have either an attendance or a behavior indicator. A significant subset of students, however, had just one indicator—failing a single class, not attending school regularly, or misbehaving. This suggests that students, at least in the sixth grade, are falling off the graduation path from different avenues. The avenues, moreover, appear to follow basic human reactions to uncomfortable environments. The students are fleeing (not coming to school), pushing back (acting out), or withdrawing (coming to school and behaving, but not paying attention or engaging).
• The earlier students develop off-track indicators, the lower their graduation odds appear to be. The first year of the middle grades (typically the sixth grade year), much like ninth grade, appears to be a make-or-break year. Across the school districts we examined, most middle grades students developed their off-track indicators in sixth grade. Moreover, students who signaled that they were falling off the graduation path in the sixth grade had worse outcomes than students who did not begin to develop off-track indicators until at least the seventh grade.
• Students who exhibit off-track indicators in the middle grades are resilient. Sixth graders who signaled they were falling off the graduation path typically remained in school for at least five more years. This indicates there is substantial time to intervene and that, despite years of struggle, students, perhaps with diminishing motivation, continue to attempt to participate and succeed in their schooling.
• Different measures of academic outcomes are often highly correlated, but some are still better indicators than others. Across the districts, we found that course grades were better indicators; they were both more reliable and had a higher yield (predicted a greater percentage of dropouts) than standardized test scores. Only very low test scores—scores below the 15th percentile on a nationally normed test—had predictive power and useful yields. It was only when course grades were not entered into the analysis that test scores, in general, showed predictive power. This was because, in general, though not always, students with poor grades also had low test scores. Upon reflection, it is not that surprising that grades predict better than test scores. Grades will, on average, be more sensitive to students’ attendance and effort over time. Thus, receiving a failing grade for an entire year likely signals substantial and sustained disengagement as well as skill and knowledge gaps. Moreover, passing courses in high school is key to earning the required credits to graduate. Even states with graduation or exit exams require students to pass their courses to graduate. Thus, middle grades students who have difficulty passing their courses are directly signaling difficulty with the most salient factor in determining whether they will graduate.
• Ds seem important, too. In Philadelphia we found that focusing on math and English grades only provided strong predictive power, while in other districts we saw that any course failure and even overall GPA were also effective indicators. How much course performance information is used becomes a judgment call balancing predictive power and yield (the likelihood a student will graduate versus how many future nongraduates are identified). This tension can clearly be seen in the question of Ds. Across the districts we found course failure—typically defined as receiving an F or a grade below 60% or 65%— was more predictive than receiving the grade just above failing, typically a D. Students who received Ds, however, still had considerably lower graduation odds than students with C averages or higher. Also, Ds tended to be predictive of Fs. So, here is the judgment call: Does it make sense to include students who receive Ds in an early warning system to signal that, absent successful intervention, these students likely will not graduate, even if it means that a greater proportion of the students who receive additional supports may not have needed them? In the case of Ds, we believe the answer is yes, but we highlight this question to show the importance of using local judgment as well as solid empirical analysis in establishing the set of on- and off-track indicators a school, district, or state will use.
Policy and Practice Brief Putting Middle Grades Students on the Graduation Path 6
• Students who come every day, behave, and get good grades graduate in high numbers. Across the districts we examined, middle grades students who had 95% or better attendance, B averages or better, and no record of misbehavior graduated in relatively large numbers, even when they attended low-performing schools in high-poverty districts.
• Similar schools serving similar student populations had different percentages of students with off- and on-track indicators. This indicates that schools can have a powerful influence on shaping student behavior. This provides a clear goal to schools and districts: Drive down the number of students exhibiting off-track indicators and drive up the number of students exhibiting on-track indicators.
• Middle grades schools within districts also often have unequal distributions of off-track students. In every school district we examined, every middle school had some students exhibiting off-track indicators. In some this amounted to a small percentage of students, and in others, it amounted to half or more of all students. This suggests that while all schools can employ these indicators and benefit, some schools will need substantially more resources than others to respond effectively.
Role of the Middle Grades in
Closing Achievement Gaps
Efforts to keep students on the graduation path should be paired with efforts to close achievement gaps. It is during the middle grades, particularly in lower-performing schools that serve high-poverty populations, that achievement gaps often become achievement chasms. To achieve the nation’s goal of graduating all its high school students ready for college and career, it will be essential for students to enter high school with at least close-to-grade-level skills and knowledge. Many high schools have been able to provide additional supports for succeeding in high standards environments if their students enter with skill and knowledge levels equal to those of average seventh or eighth graders. However, the number of programs able to achieve similar results with students entering with upper elementary level skills—those typical of fifth and sixth graders—is much smaller. Yet in high-poverty environments, nonselective high schools often educate primarily students who enter with the skill levels of typical fifth or sixth graders. In short, these are students who lack a solid middle grades education.
Moreover, while it is arguable that a long-term solution involves better pre-K through elementary instruction so that nearly all students enter the middle grades having mastered elementary skills, middle grades schools must find ways to accelerate student learning and close rather than widen achievement gaps.
Core Findings from Philadelphia
To date, the research we have conducted on closing achievement gaps has been limited to Philadelphia and has focused primarily on mathematics. Specifically, we examined the 23 middle grades schools in Philadelphia serving student bodies that were at least 80% minority with at least 80% of students qualifying for free and reduced-price lunch. Thus, our results are illustrative rather than definitive.
The fundamental questions we explored were: What factors enable middle school students to make large, gap-closing achievement gains? What factors constrain middle school students from making those gains? In these investigations we defined large gains as increases of 10 percentile points or greater on standardized tests. Thus, if a student started sixth grade scoring at the 30th percentile on a nationally- or state-normed test and left the eighth grade at the 40th percentile, we would classify this as a large and gap-closing achievement gain. The student’s achievement gap was not fully closed. He or she was still below the 50th percentile but left the middle grades much closer to it than when entering.
Achievement Gap Closing Within and Between Middle Grades Schools
Middle grades students in these 23 schools either significantly closed their achievement gaps or fell further behind. Within each of the schools, two sets of students were having very different experiences.
Policy and Practice Brief Putting Middle Grades Students on the Graduation Path 7
While some students were making impressive gains, others were leaving the middle grades further behind than when they entered. Within each school, roughly a quarter to a third of students made very large gains, while the majority of students lost ground. In a few schools, only 10% to 15% of students made gains, but in a few others more than 40 percent did. This indicates that with relatively similar populations in the same city, some schools witnessed three times as many students making gap-closing gains as other schools did. In no school, however, did half or more of the students experience large achievement gains.
Across the 23 middle grades schools, average achievement gains for the school could lead to false impressions. When the outcomes of the gap-closing and gap-increasing students are averaged at the school level, it creates the illusion of either small school-wide improvements or declines. In truth, what distinguished one school from the next was not whether they were making small improvements for all students but how widespread an opportunity they were creating for students to make large achievement gains.
Enablers and Constraints of Achievement Gap Closing
In line with prior research, we found that 1. teachers had the strongest impact on whether or not a student would close or widen achievement gaps during the middle grades. If, for two of the three years, students were in classrooms in which the average student witnessed more than a year’s growth in a year’s time, all were considerably more likely to close their achievement gaps.
Attendance, behavior, and effort all had 2. independent and additive impacts on the likelihood that a student would close achievement gaps. This indicates that to close achievement gaps, students needed not only strong teachers, they also had to show up, behave in class, and try hard to learn. Research shows school actions can positively impact all of these behaviors. This reinforces the point that schools need to pay attention to shaping both learning opportunities and student motivations.
For large numbers of students to close their 3. achievement gaps, all of these factors must operate in concert. When students were in a high-gain classroom for at least two years, came to school 95% of the time, on average had excellent behavior marks, and put forth greater-than-average effort in math class, a remarkable 77% closed their achievement gaps during the middle grades. However, across the three representative middle grades schools we studied intensely, only 20% of the students experienced these conditions and exhibited
these behaviors.
Implications for Policy
and Practice
What do these research findings on the role of the middle grades in determining high school graduation and in closing achievement gaps, particularly in schools that serve high- poverty populations, imply for policy and practice in a college-and-career-readiness-for-all era?
First and foremost, the research demonstrates that the middle grades matter—tremendously. During the middle grades, students in high-poverty environments are either launched on the path to high school graduation or knocked off-track. It is a time when they can close achievement gaps and enter high school ready or at least close to ready for standards-based instruction that leads to college readiness. Alternatively, it is a time when students’ achievement gaps widen, forcing them to enter high school still in need of a good middle grades education.
These findings also demonstrate why reform is difficult, as no single reform stands out as the major action required. Using our combined Philadelphia data from our achievement gap and staying on the graduation path studies, we were able to model explicitly the contributions of major school reform elements. Essentially, we found that everything one might think matters, does so, but modestly at best. This included parental involvement, academic press, teacher support, and the perceived relevance of what was being taught and its intrinsic interest to students. Some of these
Policy and Practice Brief Putting Middle Grades Students on the Graduation Path 8
factors influenced attendance, others influenced behavior or effort, and they either indirectly or directly impacted course performance, achievement gains, and graduation outcomes. It was only when all the elements were combined in a well-functioning system that major gains were observed.
The ABCs of Putting Middle Grades Students on the Graduation Path
The research, development, and school improvement work we have done on the factors that throw middle grades students off the graduation path and the actions that lead to large achievement gains in the middle grades tell us much the same thing. This is fortunate because it enables the formation of a unified middle grades improvement strategy that will lead to both increased academic achievement and higher graduation rates. When combined with good middle grades practices such as those detailed in publications such as This We Believe: Successful Schools for Young Adolescents, This We Believe in Action: Implementing Successful Middle Level Schools, Success in the Middle: A Policymaker’s Guide to Achieving Quality Middle Level Education, Making Middle Grades Work, and Breaking Ranks in the Middle; curricula and instructional practices linked to college and career readiness; and enhanced teacher quality, our research and experience suggest that the following actions and practices can accelerate and magnify the impact of the middle grades on student success.
Attendance
School districts with low graduation rates usually have significant—and often unrecognized —chronic absenteeism in the middle grades. It is in the middle grades that students learn they can miss first a few and then a growing number of school days with few or no repercussions. It is also during the middle grades, especially in urban areas, that students start taking mass transportation to school—municipal buses and subways—sometimes involving a transfer. This provides them the opportunity to set off for school but not quite get there or to leave during the school day. In some cities we have examined, the majority of middle grades students in some schools and neighborhoods miss 20 or more days (a month or more) of school. In one large city, we tracked students over time and found that 40% of students missed a year or more of school cumulatively over a five-year period beginning with sixth grade. This indicates that one source of the growing achievement gaps in the middle grades, in some locations and for some students, is the simple fact that they are not in school enough to keep up. Consequently, middle schools must monitor attendance more carefully and make strong efforts to prevent students from developing poor attendance habits.
Schools must
• Measure attendance in informative and actionable manners. At a policy level this will involve recording not simply average attendance in a school, but keeping track of how many students have very good attendance, i.e., miss 5 or fewer days a year; are moderately absent, missing between 10 and 19 days; are chronically absent, missing 20 or more days; or extremely chronically absent, missing 40 or more days.
• Take measures to increase the number of students with very good attendance and decrease the number who are chronically absent. This means that every absence needs to elicit a response. At first this can be simple outreach to let students know they are missed and to solve any problems standing in their way of attending school. If the absenteeism persists, more structured responses are required. For better or worse, acknowledge that middle grades students are starting to make independent decisions about their level of school engagement. As important as parents are, the extent to which schools encourage good attendance and help problem solve attendance issues, matters.
• Recognize good attendance regularly through public acknowledgement and social rewards (i.e., earning privileges). Positive peer pressure can also be activated by recognizing not only good individual attendance but collective success as well (i.e., homeroom or classroom and grade level attendance).
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• Separate attendance from course performance. Student grades should not be administratively affected by poor attendance (e.g., lowering grades if students miss a certain number of days). Rather, give students a structure for making up missed assignments. Then address the source of the student’s absenteeism, whether disengagement or issues in school, at home, or in the community. Similarly, students who are chronically absent should not be suspended. Having students miss more school because they missed too much school has not proven to be an effective response. This does not mean that students should not be held responsible for their own attendance, as it is clear that at least some students are making a choice not to attend on a given day. But the consequences need to be modulated so that they lead to improved attendance behaviors and do not knock students off the graduation path.
• Be and be perceived as safe and engaging places. Schools should regularly survey students on the reasons they miss school, their perceptions of school safety and climate, and their levels of engagement. Surveys should be analyzed by whatever units the school uses to organize students (homerooms, core groups, pods) to help identify clusters of students whose micro-experience differs in negative ways from that of their classmates. A group of disaffected or uneasy students may encourage and enable each other to miss school.
Belief, Behavior, and Effort
Central to increasing the positive impact of the middle grades on the nation’s graduation rate is engaging students in the quest. Middle grades students need to believe that hard work will bring life success, that positive behavior is recognized and desired, and that they need to invest their personal agency and apply effort to succeed. In many low-performing middle schools, however, what students learn is that rules and rewards are applied capriciously (i.e., each teacher has different rules), that school is something to be endured, that negative behavior gets attention, and that doing just enough to get by and pass is acceptable. Policies and practices that promote good behavior, engagement, and effort and build upon student assets include:
• High engagement electives that provide avenues for short-term success and positively recognize asymmetrical skills levels. Students who enter the middle grades with poor preparation require time to build up their formal academic skills to the point where they feel successful and are recognized as such. This is too long to wait for most adults, let alone young adolescents. Thus, students need other educational experiences that provide avenues for short-term success. Experiences like debate and drama in which students with strong verbal skills but weaker writing skills can show their talents or robotics and chess in which students with good engineering or logic abilities but limited formal mathematics skills can demonstrate strengths
are essential.
• Activities that honor and use middle grades students’ desire for adventure and camaraderie. Some students cut class or act out for the sheer thrill, or because they want to belong to the group of students who earn social recognition from their peers for such behaviors. Students need positive alternatives that allow them to work collectively on activities that are meaningful to them. Group rather than individual service learning projects, for example, encourage students to put their collective energy to use solving problems and helping others.
• Recognition at both the individual and group level for positive behavior. Make students responsible for managing part of the effort. Have them work with teachers to develop short and common lists of positive behaviors and recognize individuals, classes, and groups that achieve them.
• Teaching organizational and self-management skills. In moving to college and career readiness for all, we must now teach some skills formerly learned by students on their own. All students need lessons and modeling of study and work skills like time and task management, note taking, and assignment
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completion strategies as well as social skills like working cooperatively with others and resolving conflict. Equally important is modeling the level of effort needed for adult success and building upon and expanding students’ resilience.
Course Performance
The most critical challenge is finding ways to improve the quality of middle grades coursework and course performance. Students who receive high-quality instruction and course assignments will learn and advance and, ultimately, graduate college-ready. Those who do not, will not. To meet this challenge, progress and improvements in several areas will likely be required. Some reconceptualization of what constitutes student achievement in the middle grades may also be needed.
• Encouraging quality coursework may require new forms of assessment. Benchmark testing, which provides teachers formative assessments of students’ progress toward mastering skills and standards, can play an important role. Its primary focus, though, is usually identifying the subset of skills in a topic or concept that a student has or has not mastered. Focusing only on discrete skills or knowledge, however, misses a key component of quality coursework: the ability to integrate a series of skills and a set of knowledge to produce an intellectual product such as a persuasive essay, a substantive science experiment; an equation, table, or graph that helps solve a problem; or analysis of a historical event that provides insight. If these are the desired outcomes—and analysis of emerging concepts of college readiness argue that they are—we will need to develop formative and summative assessments that focus effort and support on them.
• Accept and acknowledge the implications of course grades being more predictive of eventual success than test scores. Course grades capture effort, engagement, and even attendance over time as well as knowledge and skill levels. Yet, inherently, we often recoil from the implications of this finding because we fear grade inflation and easy ways to game the system. The result is that the dominant focus of our academic improvement efforts becomes raising student test scores rather than improving course performance. A more productive strategy is to fix the potential limitation of grades by creating common rubrics across subjects, grades, and classrooms within schools and by employing common final exams to check consistency of grades.
• Create developmentally appropriate high school/college readiness indicators that are meaningful and engaging to middle grades students and understood by parents. One way to conceptualize this is to consider creating the academic equivalent of merit badges. Students could be recognized for demonstrating mastery of meaningful chunks of knowledge or intellectual skills in ways such as successfully arguing a case in moot court, writing an effective op-ed, statistically illuminating a public policy challenge, or creating a logic model of the spread of disease.
• Get extra help right. Fundamental in effecting broad-based improvement in the quality of middle grades course work will be developing extra help and support systems that are integrated with class activities assignments and provided when the need arises, not long after it is needed. Currently, too much extra help is offered through after-school programs and is disconnected from students’ day-to-day classroom needs. Students struggling in math may receive extra help, but it is often designed to build their general skill level or address a skill deficiency that is tested. If students get extra help in fractions, but their test on Friday covers integers, they are not getting the support they need to succeed in class.
Early Warning and Intervention Systems
Early warning and intervention systems provide the necessary means to unify, focus, and target efforts to improve attendance, behavior, and course performance. Their fundamental purpose is to get the right intervention to the right student at the right time. To achieve this, consider the following:
• Focus on effective intervention, not just identification. As our research and that of others has shown, it is possible to identify as early as
Policy and Practice Brief Putting Middle Grades Students on the Graduation Path 11
sixth grade large numbers of students who, absent successful intervention, likely will not graduate. Identifying students as they are just beginning to fall off the graduation path enables schools to target resources effectively and move from a reactive to a proactive intervention strategy. Simply identifying students, however, will have no significant impact unless it leads to the students receiving the additional supports they need to get back on track. As identification is relatively easy and effective intervention can be hard, the temptation may be to focus on the first and not the second. Or, districts and states may see their role as setting up the early warning system, then leaving it to the schools to figure out how to use the data and build an intervention system. What will likely be required, however, for early warning and intervention systems to fulfill their promise, is collaboration among states, districts, and schools to design, implement, and staff multitiered intervention systems. In the areas of attendance, behavior/effort, and course performance, these intervention systems will need to provide research-based and practice-validated, whole-school prevention strategies; targeted supports for students who need more; and intensive supports for students for whom whole-school and targeted approaches are not enough. It does not make sense for every school to have to invent, validate, implement, and resource this intervention system on their own.
• Recognize and build on student strengths.
It is also vitally important that early warning and intervention systems are not built around deficit models. Student strengths, as well as areas of struggle, need to be recorded, recognized, analyzed, and used to help build and deliver effective interventions.
• Provide time, training, and support to teachers for implementing early warning and intervention systems. For early warning and intervention systems to work, interdisciplinary teams of teachers (pairs, triads, four- to six-person teams can all work) must share a common set of students and have common planning time to monitor student progress, evaluate the effectiveness of interventions, and adapt strategies as needed to make sure that the right intervention is getting to the right student at the right time. Teachers will need technical assistance on how to run and operate early warning and intervention systems as well as ongoing support and facilitation to help them establish effective teaming and intervention practices.
• Match resources to student needs but practice intervention discipline. For early warning and intervention systems to work, schools will need access to the resources required to respond to their students’ needs. Often, this will be a question of scale. A high-poverty middle school with 800 to 1,000 students could have 200 students needing daily targeted supports of moderate intensity. These students may need someone to call their homes when they do not show up at school, make sure they have completed their homework and school assignments, help them understand what they need to do or how to do it, remind them to behave in class, check on their progress in fulfilling a behavior contract, and invite them to an engaging after-school activity. Serving 200 students with these needs, however, far outstrips the typical capacity of a sole attendance monitor, social worker, guidance counselor, or dean. In this case, there is a need to recruit and support additional adults from the community or national service organizations or older students involved in service learning to act as shepherds for these students. Because intervention support is expensive, administrators must establish criteria for prioritizing who receives it. This intervention discipline must be exercised to make resource acquisition feasible. In some high-poverty middle schools, it could well be true that most students would benefit from a social worker or counselor and a tutor. Social workers, counselors, and tutoring programs, however, are usually scaled for tens of students, not hundreds. High-quality one-on-one or small-group support is also expensive. So these supports need to be preserved for the students for whom nothing else works, not employed as the first line of intervention for all students showing signs of falling off track.
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• Evaluate the effectiveness of interventions. Because so many different interventions can be going on at one time in a school, it is difficult to determine which intervention methods are effective for which problems. If an important outcome like achievement goes up, then every intervention in the school is deemed successful. Likewise, if achievement goes down, everything is viewed as ineffective. The truth, however, is likely to be much more mixed, with some interventions working in both circumstances. Simple tools enabling teachers to track which intervention is used with which student and how well the student responded to the intervention are needed along with the time to analyze the impact of the interventions. For example, if only two of the ten students assigned mentors improved their attendance, there is evidence that mentoring might not be the best frontline strategy, at least for certain types of students. Over time, this micro-evaluation of interventions is what will enable schools to successfully target the right intervention to the right student at the right time.
• Teachers and administrators can get started with just the data currently available in their schools. Although, ultimately, state and district data systems will enable early warning and intervention systems to realize their full power, all of the key data needed to begin is already available in schools. Grades, daily attendance, and behavior referrals and consequences are recorded routinely and regularly in schools. Thus, it is not necessary to wait for the district or the state to build early warning data systems. Teams of teachers sharing common sets of students can share the key early warning data among themselves, and principals, deans, and counselors can organize, model, and support the use of these school-based data.
Challenges
There are three major challenges to acting effectively on the insights generated by our research and fieldwork.
• Getting the ratio of skilled adults to students in need right. One of the fundamental drivers of the nation’s graduation rate crisis is the concentration of our neediest students in a subset of largely under-resourced schools. Customarily, middle schools are designed with the assumption that, perhaps, 15% of students might need various forms of extra help to succeed, with similar numbers ready for acceleration, and the vast majority of students able to make it through on their own. These assumptions, for example, are what determine ratios of one counselor or assistant principal to hundreds of students and class sizes of 25 or more. In the high-poverty middle schools feeding the high schools that produce most of the nation’s dropouts, up to half, and sometimes more, of the students need extra supports to succeed. In these schools, there simply are not enough skilled adults to help the students in need. The result is triage, burnout, and high mobility among administrators, teachers, and staff members. This, in turn, makes the situation worse, as reforms are unable to take hold amidst constantly shifting sets of adults. These, then, are the schools that will require an infusion of skilled and committed adults from the community, local colleges and universities via work study programs, and, perhaps most promisingly, through national service programs. Recent federal legislation has greatly expanded the funding available to national service programs and has targeted them more closely to solve urgent national priorities. Schools and districts can expand the role of national service organizations with proven track records, such as Experience Corps and City Year. At the same time, the federal government, states, and districts need to work together to increase the skill, longevity, and, in many cases, the number of teachers, administrators, and support staff in middle schools with large numbers and percentages of students needing extra supports to stay on the graduation path.
• Getting teacher buy-in and support for the mission of keeping middle grades students on the graduation path. Asking teachers not only
Policy and Practice Brief Putting Middle Grades Students on the Graduation Path 13
to focus on getting students to succeed in their coursework but also to pay attention to their long-term educational trajectory is a new mission. It is a mission that teachers will willingly embrace if they have been given sufficient information about the impact of attendance, behavior/effort, and course performance on students’ odds of long-term success, and when they believe a support system exists to enable adults to effectively collaborate to help students. This allows them to see it as more than just one more demand on their already full schedule.
• Strengthening the family-student-teacher support triangle. Ideally, middle grades students are strongly supported by their parents/families and their teachers, with the teachers and parents supporting each other. In practice, often as the result of miscommunication or lack of communication, one or more of these relationships breaks down or is not sufficiently strong. Moreover, as the nation raises its goal to college and career readiness for all, the need for parents, teachers, and students to be on the same page increases. Take, for example, student effort. Teachers need to be able to expect that students will complete assignments in acceptable fashion. But parents need good information on what those assignments are and how they can help. Students may or may not convey this well on their own. Students also need to know that when they face a real impediment to completing an assignment—whether they do not understand the material or a family situation distracts them—that teachers will take them at their word and find ways to help them finish it. In these situations, teachers need to be able to double check the details with parents. Although his seems straightforward, more often than not, it does not occur without effort. Thus, active and evidence-based strategies need to be in place to increase family-student-teacher partnerships.
Conclusion
Two thousand high schools produce half the nation’s dropouts and more than two-thirds of its minority dropouts. The nation’s dropout crisis is driven by these high schools and their feeder middle grades schools. Until we transform these high schools and the middle grades schools in which large numbers of students are falling off the path to graduation, the nation will not achieve its goal of graduating all its students from high school prepared for college, career, and civic life.
As our research, experience, and the work of many others have shown, particularly in high-poverty environments, a student’s middle grades experience is critical to his or her life’s chances. It is during the middle grades that students either launch toward achievement and attainment, or slide off track and placed on a path of frustration, failure, and, ultimately, early exit from the only secure path to adult success. This essential path is leaving high school prepared for post-secondary education and career training.
Our research, experience, and the work of many others, however, also shows that there is hope and considerable knowledge and know-how regarding how the middle grades can be transformed to enable all students to stay on the graduation path. Our challenge is to use this knowledge and know-how where it is needed most and in ways tailored to
local circumstances.
Sources
Balfanz, R. (2007). What your community can do to end its dropout crisis: Learnings from research and practice. Center for Social Organization of Schools, Johns Hopkins University, prepared for National Summit on America’s Silent Epidemic, Washington, DC. Rerieved May 19, 2009 from www.every1graduates.org/capacity/WhatCommunitiesCanDo.html
Policy and Practice Brief Putting Middle Grades Students on the Graduation Path 14
Balfanz, R., & Byrnes, V. (2006). Closing the mathematics achievement gap in high poverty middle schools: Enablers and constraints. Journal of Education for Students Placed At Risk, 11(2), 143–159.
Balfanz, R., Herzog, L., & Mac Iver, D. (2007). Preventing student disengagement and keeping students on the graduation path in the urban middle grade schools: Early identification and effective interventions. Educational Psychologist, 42(4), 223–235.
Balfanz, R., & Mac Iver, D. (2000). Transforming high-poverty urban middle schools into strong learning institutions: Lessons from the first five years of the Talent Development Middle School Model. Journal for Education of Students Placed at Risk, 5(1 & 2), 137–158.
Balfanz, R., Mac Iver, D., & Byrnes, V. (2006). The implementation and impact of evidence based mathematics reforms in high poverty middle schools: A multi-site, multi-year study. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 37, 33–64.
Erb, T.O. (Ed.). (2005). This we believe in action: Implementing successful middle level schools. Westerville, OH: National Middle School Association.
Mac Iver, D. J., Ruby, A., Balfanz, R., Jones, L., Sion, F., Garriott, M., et al. (in press). The Talent Development Middle Grades Model: A design for improving early adolescents’ developmental trajectories in high-poverty schools. In J. Meece & J. Eccles (Eds.), Handbook of research on schools, schooling, and development. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
National Association of Secondary School Principals. (2006). Breaking ranks in the middle: Strategies for leading middle level reform. Reston, VA: Author.
National Middle School Association. (2006). Success in the middle: A policymaker’s guide to achieving quality middle level education. Westerville, OH: Author.
National Middle School Association. (2003). This we believe: Successful schools for young adolescents. Westerville, OH: Author.
Southern Regional Education Board. (2008). Making middle grades work: An enhanced design to prepare all middle grades students for success in high school. Retrieved May 19, 2009 from http://www.sreb.org/programs/hstw/publications/2006Pubs/06V15-R08_MMGW_Brochure.pdf
Robert Balfanz is a principal research scientist at the Center for Social Organization of Schools at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland. He is co-director of the Talent Development Middle and High School Program and the Everyone Graduates Center.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Doug Mac Iver, Martha Mac Iver, and Vaughan Byrnes at the Center for Social Organization of Schools at Johns Hopkins University; Allie Mulvihill, Liza Herzog and Carol Fixman of the Philadelphia Education Fund; the staff of the Talent Development Middle School program; and the faculty and students of all the middle grades schools we have worked with for their help and insight in forming findings and ideas presented in the paper. He also would like to thank National Middle School Association and the NMSA Research Advisory Board for their efforts in editing, improving, and publishing the paper.
National Middle School Association
4151 Executive Parkway, Suite 300, Westerville, Ohio 43081
www.nmsa.org 614-895-4730
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Colin Powell, foot soldiers battle America’s dropout ‘catastrophe’Story Highlights
Willie Thornton, 48, runs a dropout prevention program in rural Alabama

Thornton is trying to lower the school’s dropout rate; He mentors 70 at-risk students

Study: 53 percent of black students, 57 percent Latinos graduate within four years

Retired Gen. Colin Powell says minority dropout rate is a ‘catastrophe’

updated 3 hours, 27 minutes agoNext Article in U.S. »

Read VIDEO
By Soledad O’Brien and Michelle Rozsa
CNN

GREENVILLE, Alabama (CNN) — Willie Thornton is on a rescue mission. One morning in March he set out to save Desmond Dunklin, a 19-year-old who should have graduated last year from Greenville High School in Greenville, Alabama.

Willie Thornton, 48, is the dropout prevention coordinator at Greenville High School in rural Alabama.

1 of 3 Thornton, 48, the school’s dropout prevention coordinator, and Lt. Malcolm Owens, the school’s police officer, drive the five minutes to Dunklin’s house.

“I need for you to show up,” Thornton tells a sleepy Dunklin, who clearly has just been awakened by the men’s repeated knocking on his door.

Dunklin hadn’t been attending school regularly, despite six or seven home visits from Thornton.

Thornton has been teaching for 16 years, but this is his first year running the dropout prevention program. It is his job to mentor, encourage, counsel and cajole 70 students considered at-risk for dropping out. His school in rural Butler County claims a 75 percent graduation rate, but a number of those kids don’t get out within four years. The Southern Education Foundation, an education research group, says only about six in 10 students in Butler County graduate within four years.

The number sounds shockingly low, but it’s actually not far off the national average. A 2008 study by America’s Promise Alliance, a group founded by former Secretary of State Colin Powell, concluded that only 52 percent of students in the nation’s 50 largest school systems graduate in four years. About 57 percent of Hispanic and 53 percent of African-American students graduate with a regular diploma in four years, according to the study, which puts the national graduation rate at 70 percent.

“Finishing high school is absolutely basic to being a success at any place in our society. We can’t afford this,” Powell said.

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“If we lose these youngsters from our educational system, it doesn’t mean they’re all going to jail,” Powell said. “It just means they’re not going to have the same earning potential as they would if they finished school. And ultimately that will affect them, and it will affect the nation.”

“I need to finish school,” Dunklin says after a meeting with Thornton and his mother. “My mama wants me to graduate, tells me I can’t get a job if I don’t graduate.”

She’s right. Even people with diplomas struggle to find work in Butler County.

“Our stores, Wal-Mart, eatery places are really demanding our students have high school diplomas, and we respect that,” Thornton said. “We really respect that because we want them to be completers.”

In March, Thornton and hundreds of other educators, business leaders and grassroots activists gathered to brainstorm ways to solve the dropout problem.

The meeting was funded in part by America’s Promise Alliance, which is chaired by Powell’s wife, Alma Powell. One of the charity’s goals is to hold more than 100 of these dropout prevention summits across the country and raise alarm bells and create an army of foot soldiers like Thornton to crush the problem General Powell calls a “catastrophe.” Alma Powell: Every 26 seconds a child drops out of school »

“It’s a ground game,” he said. “There’s no Hail Mary pass. This is going to be a yard-at-a-time as we go after this problem.”

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Alma Powell was the featured speaker at the dropout prevention summit Thornton attended.

“You cannot afford to let one go,” she said. “You cannot give up.”

Thornton is someone who doesn’t give up. In late May, Dunklin, donned the green cap and gown of Greenville High School, walked across the stage and received a folder and a handshake from principal Charles Farmer.

Dunklin didn’t earn a diploma; he received a certificate indicating he finished coursework in an independent study program. Alabama still considers him a dropout; he must complete more classes and tests to receive an actual diploma.

It’s a start, Thornton says.

“The benefit is basically for a student to say that ‘I can’ and ‘I’ve raised my self-esteem enough,’ because prior to that most of them in their hearts have already quit,” Thornton said.

“What we do here [in the dropout prevention program] is try to gain some sort of success story that they own. And we try to build story by story. That gains a lot of energy and hope,” he said. “When you lose hope, you lose everything.”

Dunklin insists he is done with school, but Thornton still hasn’t given up. “I think once he starts seeing what he needs. He’ll come back.”