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United States General Accounting Office: 
GAO: 

Report to the Honorable Jim Gibbons, House of Representatives. 

February 2002: 

School Dropouts: 

Education Could Play a Stronger Role in Identifying and Disseminating 
Promising Prevention Strategies: 

GAO-02-240: 

Contents: 

Letter: 

Results in Brief: 

Background: 

Dropout Rates Changed Little in the 1990-2000 Period and Vary 
Considerably Between Regions and Ethnic Groups Multiple Factors Are 
Related to Dropping Out A Variety of Programs Address the Dropout 
Problem: 

Multiple Federal Programs Provide Funds That Can Be Used for Dropout 
Prevention: 

Conclusions: 

Recommendations: 

Agency Comments: 

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology: 

Appendix II: Descriptions of Dropout and Completion Measures: 

Appendix III: Federal Programs That Can Be Used for Dropout Prevention: 


Appendix IV: High School Completion Rates, October 1998 Through 2000: 

Appendix V: Comments From the Department of Education: 

Appendix VI: GAO Contacts and Acknowledgments: 

GAO Contacts: 

Acknowledgments: 

Bibliography: 

Tables: 

Table 1: Dropout Rates in October 2000 for U.S. and Foreign-Born 16- 
through 24-Year-Olds: 

Table 2: High School Completion Rate 1998-2000 and Percentage of 18- 
Through 24-Year-Olds in Selected States in 1999 Who Were Hispanic: 

Table 3: Dropout and Completion Measures: 

Table 4: Federal Programs That Can Be Used for Dropout Prevention: 

Figures: 

Figure 1: Percentage of 16- Through 24-Year-Olds Who Were Dropouts, 
October 1990 Through October 2000: 

Figure 2: Percentage of 16- Through 24-Year-Olds Who Were Dropouts by 
Region, October 2000: 

Figure 3: Percentage of 16- Through 24-Year-Olds Who Were Dropouts by 
Ethnic Group, October 1990 Through October 2000: 

Figure 4: Event and Status Dropout Rates and Noncompletion Rates, 1990 
Through 2000: 

Abbreviations: 

CCD: Common Core of Data: 

CPS: Current Population Survey: 

DPDP: Dropout Prevention Demonstration Program: 

GAO: General Accounting Office: 

GED: General Education Development: 

GRAD: Graduation Really Achieves Dreams: 

HHS: Health and Human Services: 

JUMP: Juvenile Mentoring Program: 

JROTC: Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps: 

LEA: local education agency: 

NCES: National Center for Education Statistics: 

NDPC: National Dropout Prevention Center: 

PAL: Partnership at Las Vegas: 

QOP: Quantum Opportunities Program: 

SDDAP: School Dropout Demonstration Assistance Program: 

SEA: state education agency: 

[End of section] 

United States General Accounting Office: 
Washington, DC 20548: 

February 1, 2002: 

The Honorable Jim Gibbons: 
House of Representatives: 

Dear Mr. Gibbons: 

Over the last decade, between 347,000 and 544,000 10th- through 12th-
grade students dropped out of school each year without successfully 
completing a high school program. In October 2000, about 11 percent of 
16- through 24-year-olds who were not enrolled in a high school program 
had neither a high school diploma nor an equivalent credential. These 
dropouts earn lower incomes, are more frequently unemployed, and have 
more limited job opportunities than high school graduates. Dropouts are 
more likely to receive public assistance than high school graduates, 
and dropouts make up a disproportionate share of the nation’s prison 
and death row inmates, thus imposing a burden on all levels of 
government. Although the problem has long been recognized, earlier 
federal efforts to reduce the number of dropouts showed mixed results, 
and the last significant federal funding for a dropout prevention 
program ended in 1995. Multiple approaches to dropout prevention exist, 
and many experts believe that dropout programs should be tailored to 
the needs of the student population being served. You asked us to 
examine the dropout prevention efforts currently underway. As agreed 
with your office, we focused our work on answering the following 
questions: 

* What are the national and regional dropout rate trends? 

* What does the research say about factors associated with dropping 
out? 

* What state, local, or private efforts have been implemented to 
address the factors associated with dropping out? 

* What federal efforts exist to reduce dropout rates and what is known 
about their effectiveness? 

In conducting this work, we interviewed officials at the National 
Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and reviewed NCES annual 
reports, statistics, and studies related to dropout rates. We also 
contacted and reviewed the reports of dropout prevention experts at 
universities, federal agencies, and private research organizations. We 
conducted site visits at state, local, and private dropout prevention 
programs in six states—California, Florida, Nevada, Pennsylvania, 
Texas, and Washington. These programs were selected based on 
recommendations obtained from a variety of sources, including federal 
program administrators, evaluations of programs, and program experts. 
We interviewed, in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, state at-
risk coordinators that were either identified by the National Dropout 
Prevention Center in South Carolina or who were referred to us by state 
program administrators. In addition, we interviewed officials from the 
federal programs that could fund local dropout prevention efforts. We 
also reviewed evaluations of programs funded by the federal School 
Dropout Demonstration Assistance Program (SDDAP) in fiscal years 1988-
1995. Appendix I further describes our scope and methodology. We 
conducted our review between January and October 2001 in accordance 
with generally accepted government auditing standards. 

Results in Brief: 

National dropout rates changed little in the 1990-2000 period. NCES— 
which is the primary federal entity responsible for publishing U.S. 
dropout data—reports that the national status dropout rate, which is 
the percent of 16-through 24-year-olds who are not enrolled in school 
and who have not completed a high school diploma or obtained a high 
school equivalency certificate, fluctuated between 10.9 and 12.5 
percent in the 1990-2000 period.[Footnote 1] However, dropout rates 
have varied considerably between regions of the country and ethnic 
groups. For example, in 2000 dropout rates were higher in the South and 
West than they were in the Midwest and Northeast regions. In addition, 
dropout rates are considerably higher for Hispanics than for other 
ethnic groups, and Hispanics born outside the country are nearly three 
times as likely to drop out as those born in the United States. Dropout 
figures also vary depending on which dropout or school completion 
measure is used, primarily because calculations use different age 
groups, data, or definitions of dropout. No one dropout measure is 
ideal for all situations. The status dropout rate is useful in 
measuring the percent of 16-through 24-year-olds who are not enrolled 
in school and who have not earned a high school diploma or equivalent 
credential, but does not indicate how well schools are preventing 
students from dropping out in a given year. The event dropout rate 
provides a better measure of how well schools are performing in a given 
year since it measures the percent of 15-through 24-year-olds who 
dropped out of grades 10-12 in just the last year. 

Research has shown that multiple factors are associated with dropping 
out and that dropping out of school is a long-term process of 
disengagement that occurs over time and begins in the earliest grades. 
NCES and private research organizations have identified two types of 
factors—those associated with families and those related to an 
individual’s experience in school—that are related to dropping out. For 
example, students from low-income, single-parent, and less-educated 
families often enter school less prepared than children from more 
affluent, better educated families and subsequently drop out at a much 
higher rate than other students do. Factors related to an individual’s 
experiences in school often can be identified soon after a child begins 
school. These factors, such as low grades, absenteeism, disciplinary 
problems, frequently changing schools, and being retained for one or 
more grades, are all found at a much higher than average rate in 
students that drop out. Study of the long-term process of dropping out 
may provide insights into ways to identify earlier potential dropouts. 

A variety of state, local, and private programs are available to assist 
youth at risk of dropping out of school. These programs range in scope 
from small-scale supplementary services that target a small group of 
students, such as mentoring or counseling services, to comprehensive 
school-wide restructuring efforts that involve changing the entire 
school to improve educational opportunities for all students. The Coca-
Cola Valued Youth Program, for example, supports a tutoring program in 
which older children tutor younger children, and Project GRAD is a 
comprehensive school reform model that provides integrated programs for 
kindergarten through 12th grade students. Several of the dropout 
prevention programs we reviewed have been rigorously evaluated to 
determine their effectiveness, and other programs have shown 
improvements in one or more aspects, such as students’ attendance and 
test scores. States’ support of dropout prevention activities varies 
considerably, with some states providing funds specifically for dropout 
prevention programs while others fund programs to serve the broader 
population of at-risk youth, which may help prevent them from dropping 
out. 

One federal program, the Dropout Prevention Demonstration Program 
(DPDP)—first funded at $5 million in fiscal year 2001—is specifically 
targeted to dropouts; because the program is new, the Department of 
Education has not yet evaluated its effectiveness. In September 2001, 
the program awarded grants to state and local education agencies 
working to reduce the number of school dropouts. Other federal 
programs, such as Education’s Prevention and Intervention Programs for 
Children and Youth who are Neglected, Delinquent, or At-Risk of 
Dropping Out (Title I, part D), have dropout prevention as one of their 
multiple objectives, and many more federal programs serve at-risk youth 
but do not have dropout prevention as a stated program goal. The 
federal government does not track the amount of federal funding used 
for dropout prevention services or require that evaluations of programs 
include assessments of their effect on dropout rates, even for programs 
for which dropout prevention is an objective. Thus, the total federal 
funding used for dropout prevention activities or their impact on 
reducing dropouts is not known. Evaluations of the prior federal 
program devoted entirely to dropout prevention, the SDDAP funded from 
1988 to 1995, showed mixed results, with many of the efforts it funded 
having little or no significant impact on dropout rates. Experts and 
state and local officials suggested several ways to improve the 
effectiveness of federal efforts to reduce the dropout rate, such as 
creating one source of comprehensive information on promising dropout 
prevention practices and strategies. We are recommending that Education 
(1) evaluate the quality of existing dropout prevention research, (2) 
determine how best to encourage or sponsor the rigorous evaluation of 
the most promising state and local dropout prevention programs and 
practices, and (3) determine the most effective means of disseminating 
the results of these and other available studies to state and local 
entities interested in reducing dropout rates. In commenting on a draft 
of this report, Education agreed that dropping out is a serious issue 
for American schools and that rigorous evaluation of dropout prevention 
programs is needed. Education said that it would consider commissioning 
a systematic review of the literature on this topic. 

Background: 

The adverse impact that dropping out of school has on both those who 
drop out and society itself has long been recognized. Multiple studies 
have shown that dropouts earn less money and are more frequently 
unemployed than graduates. Dropouts[Footnote 2] are about three times 
as likely as high school completers who do not go on to college to be 
welfare recipients, and about 30 percent of federal and 40 percent of 
state prison inmates are high school dropouts[Footnote 3] thus imposing 
a considerable cost on all levels of government. Given the multiple 
adverse consequences associated with dropping out, lowering the dropout 
rate has long been a goal of educators and legislators. 

The 1968 amendments to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 
1965 established local demonstration projects aimed at reducing the 
dropout rate. From 1969 through 1976, some 30 projects received $46 
million in grants from the Department of Education (then the Office of 
Education) to develop and demonstrate educational practices that showed 
promise in reducing the numbers of youth who failed to complete their 
secondary education.[Footnote 4] The act was amended again in 1974, 
when funding for dropout prevention efforts was consolidated with 
funding for other programs, and states were given the discretion to 
decide what financial support dropout prevention projects would receive 
through state-administered consolidated grants. In 1988, the Congress 
created the SDDAP. The program consisted of competitive grants from 
Education to 89 school districts and community organizations. In fiscal 
years 1988-1995, SDDAP grantees received nearly $227 million in federal 
funds. Authorizations and appropriations for the program ended in 
fiscal year 1995. The School Dropout Assistance Act was passed in 1994 
and authorized funding in fiscal years 1995 to 1999, but was never 
funded. Dropout prevention program funding was subsequently provided in 
fiscal year 2001 when Education’s Dropout Prevention Demonstration 
Program received appropriations of $5 million. 

Although federal funding for dropout prevention programs has been 
inconsistent, the National Dropout Prevention Center (NDPC) has existed 
for 15 years and is privately funded. Many of the program officials 
with whom we spoke said that NDPC was a resource on which they depended 
for information. This center is housed at Clemson University in South 
Carolina and offers various resources to those wishing to implement 
dropout prevention programs. For example, NDPC manages a database that 
provides program profiles, including contact information, for model 
programs located throughout the country. In addition, NDPC provides an 
overview of the 15 strategies it has identified as being the most 
effective in preventing dropout. NDPC also contracts with school 
districts and communities to assess and review the dropout prevention 
programs in the school district and make recommendations for 
improvement. Much of this information and additional information on 
annual national conferences and professional development services are 
available on the center’s website: [hyperlink, 
http://www.dropoutprevention.org]. 

NCES, part of Education’s Office of Educational Research and 
Improvement, is the primary federal entity for collecting, analyzing, 
and reporting data on the condition of education in the United States. 
Since 1989, NCES has annually published data on high school dropout 
statistics. NCES’ most recent publication provides national level data 
for three measures—event and status dropout rates and high school 
completion rates.[Footnote 5] Periodically, NCES also reports on cohort 
dropout rates.[Footnote 6] NCES also reports dropout rates for groups 
with various characteristics (e.g., sex, ethnicity, age, and recency of 
immigration). 

Dropout Rates Changed Little in the 1990-2000 Period and Vary 
Considerably Between Regions and Ethnic Groups: 

Nationally, dropout rates changed little in the 1990-2000 period. Rates 
varied considerably, however, depending on the geographic region and 
ethnic group.[Footnote 7] The highest dropout rates occurred in the 
South and West, while the Midwest and Northeast tended to have lower 
rates. Dropout rates were much higher for Hispanics than for other 
ethnic groups, affected primarily by the very high dropout rates for 
Hispanics born outside the United States. Dropout figures also vary 
depending on which dropout or school completion measure is used, 
primarily because calculations use different age groups, data, or 
definitions of dropout. No one measure is appropriate for all 
situations. Those using dropout or completion data must familiarize 
themselves with the various measures and select the one that best meets 
their needs. 

National Dropout Rates Show Little Change in Recent Years: 

For the nation as a whole, dropout rates changed little in the 1990-2000
period. Data compiled by NCES indicates that the percentage of 16-
through 24-year-olds who were dropouts ranged between 10.9 and 12.5
percent. While the year-to-year results went up in some years and down 
in others, the net result was a decline of 1.2 percentage points during 
this time period. 

Figure 1: Percentage of 16- Through 24-Year-Olds Who Were Dropouts, 
October 1990 Through October 2000: 

[Refer to PDF for image] 

This figure is a vertical bar graph depicting the following data: 

Percentage of 16- Through 24-Year-Olds Who Were Dropouts, October 1990 
Through October 2000: 

1990: 12.1%; 
1991: 12.5%; 
1992: 11.0%; 
1993: 11.0%; 
1994: 11.5%; 
1995: 12.0%; 
1996: 11.1%; 
1997: 11.0%; 
1998: 11.8%; 
1999: 11.2%; 
2000: 10.9%. 

Note: This figure presents NCES’ status dropout rate. 

Source: NCES, Dropout Rates in the United States: 2000, U.S. Department 
of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, table C, 
p. 51. 

[End of figure] 

Dropout Rates Vary Considerably by Region and Ethnic Group: 

Dropout rates show considerable variation when broken down by region or 
by ethnic group. The highest dropout rates occurred in the South and 
West, while the lowest rates occurred in the Northeast and Midwest. As 
figure 2 shows, while the national portion of 16-through 24-year-olds 
that were dropouts was 10.9 percent in October 2000, the regional 
average ranged from 12.9 percent in the South to 8.5 percent in the 
Northeast. 

Figure 2: Percentage of 16- Through 24-Year-Olds Who Were Dropouts by 
Region, October 2000: 

[Refer to PDF for image] 

This figure is a vertical bar graph depicting the following data: 

South Region: 12.9%; 
West Region: 11.3%; 
Midwest Region: 9.2%; 
Northeast Region: 8.5%; 
United States overall: 10.9%. 

Note: This figure presents NCES’ status dropout rate. 

Source: NCES, Dropout Rates in the United States: 2000, U.S. Department 
of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, table 3, 
p. 13. 

[End of figure] 

Analyzed by ethnic group, dropout rates were higher for Hispanics than 
for other ethnic groups,[Footnote 8] as shown in figure 3. For example, 
in 2000, the Hispanic dropout rate was 27.8 percent compared with 6.9 
percent and 13.1 percent for white non-Hispanics and black non-
Hispanics, respectively. Asian/Pacific Islanders had the lowest dropout 
rate, 3.8 percent, in 2000. However, due to the relatively small sample 
sizes, reliable estimates for Asian/Pacific Islanders could not be 
calculated before 1998, so they are not shown separately in the trend 
lines in figure 3. In addition, sample sizes were too small for NCES to 
calculate dropout rates for American Indians/Alaskan Natives in any 
year. 

Figure 3: Percentage of 16- Through 24-Year-Olds Who Were Dropouts by 
Ethnic Group, October 1990 Through October 2000: 

[Refer to PDF for image] 

This figure is a multiple line graph depicting dropout rates for the 
following ethnic groups during the designated time period: 
Hispanic; 
Black, non-Hispanic; 
White, non-Hispanic; 
National average. 

Note: This figure presents NCES’ status dropout rate. 

Source: NCES, Dropout Rates in the United States: 2000, U.S. Department 
of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, table B5, 
p. 37. 

[End of table] 

Further analysis offers additional insight into the high dropout rate 
for Hispanics. Compared to non-Hispanics in the United States, a much 
higher percent of Hispanic children were born outside the United 
States—43.6 percent versus 6.5 percent. The dropout rate for Hispanics 
born outside the United States was much higher than that for Hispanics 
born in the United States in 2000 (44.2 percent vs. 15.2 percent). As a 
result, although Hispanics born outside the country accounted for only 
6.6 percent of all 16-through 24-year-olds, they accounted for more 
than a quarter of all dropouts in 2000 and thus significantly raised 
the overall Hispanic dropout rate and the national dropout rate. In 
addition, data from 1995 show that more than half (62.5 percent) of the 
foreign-born Hispanic youths who were dropouts had never enrolled in a 
U.S. school, and 79.8 percent of these young adults who had never 
enrolled in U.S. schools were reported as either speaking English “not 
well” or “not at all.”[Footnote 9] 

Table 1: Dropout Rates in October 2000 for U.S. and Foreign-Born 16- 
through 24-Year-Olds: 

Birth place: Born outside of the United States: Hispanic; 
Dropout rate (percent): 44.2%; 
Percent of all dropouts: 26.7%; 
Percent of 16-through 24-year-olds: 6.6%. 

Birth place: Born outside of the United States: Non-Hispanic; 
Dropout rate (percent): 7.4%; 
Percent of all dropouts: 3.7%; 
Percent of 16-through 24-year-olds: 5.5%. 

Birth place: Born in the United States: Hispanic; 
Dropout rate (percent): 15.2%; 
Percent of all dropouts: 11.9%; 
Percent of 16-through 24-year-olds: 8.5%. 

Birth place: Born in the United States: Non-Hispanic; 
Dropout rate (percent): 7.9%; 
Percent of all dropouts: 57.7%; 
Percent of 16-through 24-year-olds: 79.3%. 

Note: This table presents NCES’ status dropout rate. 

Source: NCES, Dropout Rates in the United States: 2000, U.S. Department 
of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, table 3, 
page 13. 

End of table] 

The high dropout rates for Hispanics also affect the state differences 
in high school completion rates. As table 2 shows, the states with the 
highest rates of high school completion among 18-through 24-year-olds 
(Alaska, Maine, and North Dakota) have very small percentages of 
Hispanics, while the states with the lowest rates of high school 
completion among 18-through 24-year-olds (Arizona, Nevada, and Texas) 
have very large percentages of Hispanics.[Footnote 10] Our analysis of 
the state-by-state information for all 50 states and the District of 
Columbia shows that two factors— Hispanics as a percent of 18- to 24-
year-olds in 1999 and the percentage increase in Hispanics under 18-
years-old in the 1990s—account for about 40 percent of the variation in 
the high school completion rates between states.[Footnote 11] 

Table 2: High School Completion Rate 1998-2000 and Percentage of 18- 
Through 24-Year-Olds in Selected States in 1999 Who Were Hispanic: 

State: Maine; 
Percent completion rate for 18-through 24-year-olds, 1998-2000: 94.5%; 
Hispanics as a percent of all 18-through 24-year-olds in 1999: 1%. 

State: North Dakota; 
Percent completion rate for 18-through 24-year-olds, 1998-2000: 94.4%; 
Hispanics as a percent of all 18-through 24-year-olds in 1999: 2%. 

State: Alaska; 
Percent completion rate for 18-through 24-year-olds, 1998-2000: 93.3%; 
Hispanics as a percent of all 18-through 24-year-olds in 1999: 5%. 

State: Arizona; 
Percent completion rate for 18-through 24-year-olds, 1998-2000: 73.5%; 
Hispanics as a percent of all 18-through 24-year-olds in 1999: 29%. 

State: Nevada; 
Percent completion rate for 18-through 24-year-olds, 1998-2000: 77.9%; 
Hispanics as a percent of all 18-through 24-year-olds in 1999: 23%. 

State: Texas; 
Percent completion rate for 18-through 24-year-olds, 1998-2000: 79.4%; 
Hispanics as a percent of all 18-through 24-year-olds in 1999: 35%. 

State: National average; 
Percent completion rate for 18-through 24-year-olds, 1998-2000: 85.7%; 
Hispanics as a percent of all 18-through 24-year-olds in 1999: 15%. 

Source: NCES, Dropout Rates in the United States: 2000, U.S. Department 
of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, table C7, 
p. 53; GAO’s calculations based on Census Bureau data. 

[End of table] 

Multiple Ways of Measuring School Dropout or Completion Exist, Each 
Appropriate in Different Situations: 

Analyzing dropout rates is made more complicated by the fact that 
multiple ways exist to measure the extent of dropping out—and no one 
measure is ideal for all situations. For example, one way to measure 
dropouts is to determine the percentage of students that drop out in a 
single year. This measure is referred to as an event dropout rate. 
NCES’ event dropout rate measures the number of 15-through 24-year-olds 
that drop out of grades 10-12 in the past year without completing a 
high school program. While such a measure can be used to spot dropout 
trends on a year-to-year basis, it does not provide an overall picture 
of what portion of young adults are dropouts. If the concern is whether 
the total population of dropouts is growing, shrinking, or staying 
about the same, a different measure is needed. 

Several ways exist to measure the portion of young adults who are 
dropouts rather than the percentage who drop out in any given year. In 
one such approach, referred to as the status dropout rate, NCES 
measures the percentage of all persons from 16-through 24-years-old who 
are not enrolled in school and have not earned a high school 
credential, including those who never attended school in the United 
States. A similar but somewhat different measure is the high school 
completion rate. NCES’ completion rate measures the percentage of 18-
through 24-year-olds who are no longer in school and have a high school 
diploma or an equivalent credential, including a General Education 
Development (GED) credential. The status dropout rate and the 
completion dropout rate differ because they are based on different 
populations. Only the status dropout rate calculation includes 16- and 
17-year-olds and those 18- through 24-year-olds who are still enrolled 
in a high school program. Because of these differences, the status 
dropout rate and the high school completion rate are not the simple 
inverse of each other. Another approach, called the cohort dropout 
rate, uses repeated measurements of a single group of students to 
periodically report on their dropout rate over time. 

Further complicating the picture, most of the types of dropout measures 
have at least two rates, which differ because they are based on 
different age groups, data, or definitions of dropouts. For example, 
some rates use data for a single year while others use a 3-year 
average, and some count GED recipients as graduates while others do 
not. (See app. II for descriptions of each of the published dropout and 
completion measures we identified.) 

Different measures can be used separately or together to examine 
various dropout trends. For example, figure 4 shows the event dropout 
rate, the status dropout rate and the high school noncompletion rate. 
The event dropout rate, which measures only those youth who drop out in 
a single year, is lower than the other two measures which deal with the 
percentage of dropout in an age group regardless of when they dropped 
out. The event dropout rate rose slightly—0.8 percentage point—between 
1990 and 2000. However, this change was not statistically significant. 
The noncompletion rate and the status dropout rate showed similar 
patterns during the 10-year period, with the noncompletion rate 
declining 0.9 percentage point and the status rate declining 1.2 
percentage points during the period. However, as mentioned earlier, 
these two rates differ, in part because they are based on different age 
groups. 

Figure 4: Event and Status Dropout Rates and Noncompletion Rates, 1990 
Through 2000: 

[Refer to PDF for image] 

This figure is a multiple line graph depicting data in the following 
three categories: 
Non-completion rate; 
Status dropout rate; 
Event dropout rate. 

Note: The noncompletion rate is 100 percent minus the completion rate. 
This rate is used to provide a figure in the same range as the event 
and status dropout rates. 

Source: NCES, Dropout Rates in the United States: 2000, U.S. Department 
of Education’s, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, table 
B1, p. 33; GAO’s calculation of high school noncompletion rates. 

[End of figure] 

Another high school completion measure is the “regular” high school 
completion rate. This rate is the number of public high school seniors 
who earn a regular diploma in a given year stated as a percent of the 
number of entering freshman 4 years earlier. For example, in the 1998-
1999 school year, public high schools awarded 2,488,605 regular high 
school diplomas. This number was 67.2 percent of the 3,704,455 students 
who began the ninth grade 4 years earlier in the fall of 1995. Like all 
the other dropout measures we identified, the regular graduation rate 
has its uses, but no one measure is appropriate for all situations. As 
a result, users of dropout and completion data must familiarize 
themselves with the many measures available and select the measure or 
measures which best meet their needs. 

Multiple Factors Are Related to Dropping Out: 

Research has shown that multiple factors are associated with the 
likelihood of dropping out. Education and private research 
organizations have identified two main types of factors associated with 
the likelihood of dropping out—one type involving family 
characteristics and the other involving students’ experiences in 
school. For example, students from low-income, single-parent, and less-
educated families drop out at a much higher rate than other students. 
Similarly, low grades, absenteeism, disciplinary problems, and 
retention for one or more grades are also found at much higher-than-
average rates among students who drop out. However, identifying 
students likely to drop out is not just a matter of identifying 
students with high-risk characteristics, because research shows that 
dropping out is often the culmination of a long-term process of 
disengagement that begins in the earliest grades. Study of this long-
term pattern may offer ways to better and earlier identify potential 
dropouts. 

Family- and School-Related Factors Are Correlated With Dropping Out: 

Research indicates that a number of family background factors, such as 
socioeconomic status, race-ethnicity, single-parent families, siblings’ 
educational attainment, and family mobility are correlated with the 
likelihood of dropping out. Of these factors, socioeconomic status, 
most commonly measured by parental income and education, bears the 
strongest relation to dropping out, according to the results of a 
number of studies. For example, an NCES longitudinal study of eighth 
graders found that while data show that blacks, Hispanics, and Native 
American students were more likely to drop out than white students, 
this relationship is not statistically significant after controlling 
for a student’s socioeconomic status.[Footnote 12] Studies have also 
found that dropping out is more likely to occur among students from 
single-parent families and students with an older sibling who has 
already dropped out than among counterparts without these 
characteristics. Other aspects of a student’s home life such as level 
of parental involvement and support, parent’s educational expectations, 
parent’s attitudes about school, and stability of the family 
environment can also influence a youth’s decision to stay in school. 
For example, results from the NCES study found that students whose 
parents were not actively involved in the student’s school, whose 
parents infrequently talked to them about school-related matters, or 
whose parents held low expectations for their child’s future 
educational attainment were more likely to drop out. 

Students’ past school performance is also related to the likelihood of 
dropping out. For example, research shows that students with a history 
of poor academic achievement, evidenced by low grades and poor test 
scores, are more likely to drop out than students who have a history of 
academic success. In addition, students who are overage for their grade 
or have repeated a grade are more likely to drop out. For example, one 
study found that students who had repeated a grade as early as 
kindergarten through fourth grade were almost five times as likely to 
drop out of school than those who had not. The odds of students who had 
repeated a later grade—fifth through eighth grade—of dropping out were 
almost 11 times the odds of those students who had never repeated these 
grades.[Footnote 13] Other school experiences related to dropping out 
include students having a history of behavior problems and having 
higher rates of chronic truancy and tardiness. 

Research also indicates that dropout rates are associated with various 
characteristics of the schools themselves, such as the size of the 
school, level of resources, and degree of support for students with 
academic or behavior problems. For example, a summary[Footnote 14] of 
the research on school size and its effect on various aspects of 
schooling, found that in terms of dropout rates or graduation rates, 
small schools tended to have lower dropout rates than large schools. Of 
the 10 research documents that were summarized, 9 revealed differences 
favoring or greatly favoring small schools, while the other document 
reported mixed results. 

Dropping Out Is a Long-Term Process: 

Various research studies have focused on dropping out is a long-term 
process of disengagement that occurs over time and begins in the 
earliest grades. Early school failure may act as the starting point in 
a cycle that causes children to question their competence, weakens 
their attachment to school, and eventually results in their dropping 
out. For example, a study examining the first-to ninth-grade records 
for a group of Baltimore school children found that low test scores and 
poor report cards from as early as first grade forecast dropout risk 
with considerable accuracy.[Footnote 15] This process of disengagement 
can be identified in measures of students’ attitudes as well as in 
measures of their academic performance. Studies have shown that early 
behavior problems—shown in absenteeism, skipping class, disruptive 
behavior, lack of participation in class, and delinquency—can lead to 
gradual disengagement and eventual dropping out. For example, a report 
summarizing a longitudinal study of 611 inner-city school children 
found significant relationships between behavior problems in 
kindergarten through grade 3 and misconduct in the classroom at ages 14 
and 15, future school disciplinary problems, police contacts by age 17, 
and subsequently higher dropout rates.[Footnote 16] Study of such long-
term patterns that often lead to dropping out may offer ways to better 
and earlier identify potential dropouts. 

A Variety of Programs Address the Dropout Problem: 

Local entities have implemented a variety of initiatives to address the 
factors associated with dropping out, ranging from small-scale 
supplementary services to comprehensive school reorganizations. These 
initiatives are limited in the degree to which they address family-
related factors associated with dropping out, such as income; they 
focus mainly on student-related factors, such as low grades and 
absenteeism. While dropout prevention programs can vary widely, they 
tend to cluster around three main approaches: (1) supplemental services 
for at-risk students; (2) different forms of alternative education for 
students who do not do well in regular classrooms; and (3) school-wide 
restructuring efforts for all students. Several of the programs we 
reviewed have conducted rigorous evaluations, with others reporting 
positive outcome data on student progress and student behavior. States’ 
support of dropout prevention activities varies considerably with some 
states providing funds specifically for dropout prevention programs 
while others fund programs to serve at-risk youth, which may help 
prevent them from dropping out. 

Local Entities Use Three Main Approaches for Dropout Prevention: 

Local entities have implemented a variety of initiatives to address the 
factors associated with dropping out of school. Our visits to 25 
schools in six states—California, Florida, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Texas, 
and Washington—showed that initiatives in these schools cluster around 
three main approaches: (1) supplemental services for at-risk students; 
(2) different forms of alternative education, which are efforts to 
create different learning environments for students who do not do well 
in regular classrooms; and (3) school-wide restructuring efforts for 
all students. Individual programs may focus exclusively on one type of 
approach, or use a combination of approaches to address many of the 
student-and school-related factors associated with dropping out of 
school. Several of the programs we reviewed have conducted rigorous 
evaluations, and others are reporting positive outcome data on student 
academic progress and student behavior. 

Supplemental Services for At-Risk Students: 

Providing supplemental services to a targeted group of students who are 
at risk of dropping out is one approach used by many of the programs we 
visited. Some of the more common supplemental services include 
mentoring, tutoring, counseling, and social support services, which 
operate either during the school day or after school. These services 
aim to improve students’ academic performance, self-image, and sense of 
belonging. For example, Deepwater Junior High School in Pasadena, 
Texas, offers the Coca-Cola Valued Youth Program, an internationally 
recognized cross-age tutoring program designed to increase the self-
esteem and school success of at-risk middle and high school students by 
placing them in positions of responsibility as tutors of younger 
elementary school students. At Deepwater Junior High, officials told us 
that about 25 eighth graders tutor kindergartners through second 
graders at the local elementary school for 45 minutes a day, 4 days a 
week. Tutors are paid $5 a day for their work, reinforcing the worth of 
the students’ time and efforts. According to officials, the program has 
improved the tutors’ attendance in school, behavior, self-esteem, 
willingness to help, and sense of belonging. Another benefit of the 
program is its impact on students’ families, such as improved 
relationships between the tutor and his or her family and between 
families and the school. The Coca-Cola Valued Youth Program is also the 
subject of a 1992 rigorous evaluation that compared 63 Valued Youth 
Program tutors with 70 students in a comparison group.[Footnote 17] 

This evaluation showed that 2 years after the program began, 12 percent 
of the comparison students had dropped out compared with only 1 percent 
of the Valued Youth Program students. Average reading grades, as 
provided by reading teachers of tutors and comparison group students, 
were significantly higher for the program group, as were scores on a 
self-esteem measure and on a measure of attitude towards school. The 
Valued Youth Program has been widely replicated throughout the 
Southwest and elsewhere. 

At another school we visited—Rolling Hills Elementary in Orlando, 
Florida—officials told us that 85 percent of the students are on free 
or reduced-price lunches (which are served to lower-income children), 
and that the school provides multiple supplemental academic programs 
and social services to address many of the academic, personal, and 
social problems that are often associated with students likely to drop 
out of school. These programs and services include pre-school and 
kindergarten classes to help at-risk children become successful 
learners, two “dropout prevention” classes for students who are behind 
their grade level, after school tutoring classes, and a variety of 
social and counseling services. Progress reports are sent to parents to 
keep them informed of their child’s progress. The school also works 
with three full-time therapists who help students with their social and 
emotional problems. Teachers and staff monitor students’ attendance and 
identify early on those with attendance problems. This monitoring 
effort has resulted in improved student attendance. School officials 
emphasized the importance of identifying at an early age children who 
are likely to become academic underachievers, truants, or likely to 
develop behavioral problems, and the need to develop programs to 
address the academic and behavior needs of these children. Although 
longitudinal studies looking at the effects of these services over time 
would be needed to determine the effectiveness of Rolling Hills’ early 
intervention program at preventing students from dropping out, research 
suggests that early identification and intervention can help counteract 
the process of disengagement and withdrawal from school. 

Another form of supplemental services provided by schools we visited is 
school-community partnerships. While a variety of approaches are used 
by school officials to create school-community partnerships,[Footnote 
18] the partnerships we reviewed focused on providing an array of 
supportive services to students and their families, including mental 
health counseling, health care, adult education, and recreation 
programs. For example, the Tukwila School District in Tukwila, 
Washington, aims to improve student achievement in school by focusing 
on school, family, and community collaborations. According to 
officials, the District offers mentoring and tutoring programs, 
internships, and an array of health and social services. By building 
partnerships with state and federal agencies, nonprofits, and other 
organizations, the District hopes to maximize resources in ways that 
would strengthen young people and their families. A longitudinal study 
of the District’s program during the 1994-1996 school years found that 
58 percent of the elementary students who received human services from 
district service providers and/or community agencies had higher grades 
than a control group of students who did not receive services, and 74 
percent of secondary school students receiving services had improved 
their course completion rates after two semesters of service. 

Alternative Learning Environments: 

The second approach commonly used by localities we visited is to 
provide alternative educational environments for students who do not do 
well in the regular classroom. These alternative learning environments 
attempt to create a more supportive and personalized learning 
environment for students to help them overcome some of the risk factors 
associated with dropping out, such as school disengagement and low 
attachment to school. Alternative learning environments can either 
operate within existing schools or as separate, alternative schools at 
an off site location. Alternative environments operating within regular 
schools can include small groups of students meeting each day to work 
on academic skills in a more personal setting, or smaller schools 
housed within the regular school, such as ninth grade or career 
academies which focus on a specific group of students or offer a 
curriculum organized around an industry or occupational theme. 
Alternative schools located off site are generally smaller schools than 
those the students otherwise would have attended. These smaller schools 
usually have smaller classes, have more teachers per student, and offer 
a more personalized learning environment for students. For example, the 
Seahawks Academy in Seattle, Washington, is a small alternative school 
for seventh, eighth, and ninth graders who have been unsuccessful in 
the traditional middle and high schools. According to officials, the 
academy is a partnership between Seattle Public Schools, Communities in 
Schools (CIS),[Footnote 19] the Seattle Seahawks football team, and 
corporate partners and strives to provide a safe, nurturing, and 
supportive learning environment for about 110 students. The school 
offers smaller class sizes, tutors, mentors, no cost health care, and 
social services. Students wear Seahawks Academy uniforms and must 
commit to strict behavior contracts signed by the student and parent. 
Officials told us that the Academy’s policies foster positive 
expectations and “Seahawks Academy culture,” teaching students to 
respect each other, teachers, and themselves. The Academy emphasizes 
attendance, academic achievement, and appropriate behavior. Evidence of 
program effectiveness includes improved test scores, fewer discipline 
problems, and no suspensions or expulsions for the last 2 school years 
compared with suspensions of about 7 percent and expulsions of about 
0.5 percent at other schools in the district. 

Another example of an alternative learning environment is the 
Partnership at Las Vegas (PAL) Program at the Las Vegas High School in 
Las Vegas, Nevada. The PAL program is a school operating within the 
existing school with a school-to-careers curriculum that is designed to 
provide students with both academic and career-related skills to 
prepare them for entry into an occupation or enrollment in higher 
education. Officials said that by linking academic coursework to career-
related courses and workplace experience, the PAL program aims to 
motivate students to stay in school and promote an awareness of career 
and educational opportunities after high school. According to 
officials, the program is made up of a team of 6 teachers and about 150 
at-risk 11th and 12th grade students. Program participants attend 
classes 4 days a week and report to a work site for a nonpaid 
internship 1 day a week. The program features academic courses that 
stress the connection between school and work and include language 
arts, mathematics, social studies, science, and computer applications. 
Essential program aspects include business etiquette lessons, career 
speakers, field trips, business internships, developing peer and team 
affiliations, and constant monitoring and evaluation of student 
progress. According to officials, evidence of program effectiveness 
includes improved attendance and fewer discipline problems than non-PAL 
participants. In addition, the PAL program reports a dropout rate of 
about 2 percent for PAL participants, compared with a rate of 13.5 
percent for non-PAL participants. 

While only one of the alternative programs we visited has been 
rigorously evaluated, the others are reporting positive outcomes in 
areas such as test scores and students’ behavior. For example, the 
Excel program at the Middle School Professional Academy in Orlando, 
Florida, an alternative school designed to meet the special needs of 
disruptive, expelled, and disinterested youth, reported substantial 
gains in mean grade point averages for students in the program. 
Officials also reported fewer discipline problems and a retention rate 
of 95 percent for the 2000-2001 school year. The Ranger Corps, at 
Howard Middle School in Orlando, Florida, a Junior Reserve Officers 
Training Corps (JROTC) program for about 50 seventh graders, also 
reported gains of about 15 percentage points in reading test scores as 
well as increased attendance and fewer disciplinary problems. 

School-Wide Restructuring Efforts: 

The third type of approach used by local entities is school-wide 
restructuring efforts that focus on changing a school or all schools in 
the school district in an effort to reduce the dropout rate. School-
wide restructuring efforts are generally implemented in schools that 
have many students who are dropout prone. The general intent of this 
approach is to move beyond traditional modes of school organization to 
make schools more interesting and responsive places where students 
learn more and are able to meet higher standards. Some researchers have 
suggested that these restructuring efforts have the potential to reduce 
dropping out in a much larger number of students by simultaneously 
addressing many of the factors associated with dropping out. An example 
of a school-wide restructuring effort is Project GRAD (Graduation 
Really Achieves Dreams) in Houston, Texas—a 12-year-old scholarship 
program that reports a track record of improving student academic 
performance and increasing graduation rates. The program was initially 
established in 1989 as a scholarship program, but in 1993, the program 
began implementing math, reading, classroom management, and social 
support curriculum models in a feeder system of schools (all the 
elementary and middle schools that feed students into a high school). 
According to officials, the program expanded its services to the 
elementary grades after program supporters recognized the need to begin 
intervention in the earliest grades for it to be more successful. 
Project GRAD emphasizes a solid foundation of skills in reading and 
math, building self-discipline, providing resources for at-risk 
children, and offering college scholarship support. Project GRAD has 
reported demonstrating its effectiveness with higher test scores, 
higher graduation rates, greater numbers of scholarship recipients, and 
fewer disciplinary problems in the schools. For example, a 1999-2000 
rigorous evaluation of the program showed that Project GRAD students 
outperformed students in corresponding comparison groups in math and 
reading achievement tests and made substantial gains in college 
attendance. The success of Project GRAD has led to its expansion into 
three additional feeder systems in Houston, with a 5-year plan to 
expand into two more feeder systems. The model is being replicated in 
feeder systems in Newark, Los Angeles, Nashville, Columbus, and 
Atlanta. 

Another example of a school-wide restructuring effort is the Talent 
Development program in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania—a comprehensive high 
school reform model that aims to improve large high schools that face 
serious problems with student attendance, discipline, achievement 
scores, and dropout rates. This model has been implemented in four 
Philadelphia high schools and approved for implementation in two 
others. We visited three high schools in Philadelphia that use this 
approach. According to officials, these schools provide or are in the 
process of implementing a separate academy for all ninth graders, 
career academies for 10th through 12th graders, and an alternative 
after-hours twilight school for students who have serious attendance or 
discipline problems. Block scheduling, whereby students take only four 
courses a semester, each 80 to 90 minutes long, and stay together all 
day as a class, is used in each school. The longer class periods enable 
teachers to get to know their students better and to provide times for 
individual assistance. A report on the outcomes of this model at two 
schools showed that the percentage of students promoted to the tenth 
grade has increased substantially, and the number of suspensions has 
dropped dramatically. The report also indicated that students had 
significant gains on standardized achievement tests in math and 
improved student attendance.[Footnote 20] 

The career academy model[Footnote 21] implemented at Talent Development 
schools and other high schools we visited has been the subject of in-
depth evaluations. Career academies represent the high school reform 
movement that is focused on smaller learning communities. Academy 
components include rigorous academics with a career focus, a team of 
teachers, and active business involvement. Extensive evaluations on the 
academies indicate a positive impact on school performance. For 
example, in a 10-year, ongoing national evaluation of nine career 
academies,[Footnote 22] evaluators compared the performance of 959 
students who participated in career academies and 805 similar students 
who applied to but did not attend an academy. The evaluation also has a 
long follow-up period, which extends 4 years beyond the students’ 
scheduled graduation from high school. One report from the evaluation 
found that among students at high risk of school failure, career 
academies significantly cut dropout rates and increased attendance 
rates, number of credits earned toward graduation, and preparation for 
postsecondary education. A follow-up report issued in December 2001 
stated that although the career academies enhanced the high school 
experiences of their students, these positive effects did not translate 
into changes in high school graduation rates or initial transitions to 
post-secondary education and jobs.[Footnote 23] For example, some of 
the students at high risk of school failure obtained a GED instead of 
graduating. The report also notes that the full story of career academy 
effectiveness is still unfolding and that longer-term results should be 
examined prior to making definitive judgments about the effectiveness 
of the approach. 

Most States Provide Programs That Serve At-Risk Youth: 

Many states have dropout prevention programs or programs that serve at-
risk youth that may help prevent them from dropping out of school. 
Specifically, our calls to 50 states and the District of Columbia found 
that 14 states have statewide dropout prevention programs,[Footnote 24] 
and 29 other states and the District of Columbia have programs to serve 
at-risk youth that may help prevent them from dropping out of school. 
Seven states have no statewide programs identified to prevent dropout 
or serve at-risk youth.[Footnote 25] Services provided by dropout 
prevention programs and programs that serve at-risk youth may be 
similar. However, the number of school districts served and the scope 
of services offered by either type of program varies greatly by state. 
Some states provide dropout prevention services in each of the states’ 
districts, while others have dropout prevention programs that serve 
only a limited number of school districts. For example, Tennessee 
awards $6,000 dropout prevention grants to only 10 of its 138 school 
districts annually. 

The following examples illustrate how states implement their dropout 
prevention and at-risk programs: 

* The official dropout prevention programs implemented in California, 
Texas, and Washington vary in their form and funding. One of 
California’s four dropout prevention programs, the School-Based Pupil 
Motivation and Maintenance Program, provides $50,000 per school to fund 
a school dropout prevention specialist (outreach consultant) at 300 
schools in about 50 school districts each year. The outreach 
consultants work to provide early identification of students at risk of 
failing or dropping out and then coordinate the resources and services 
of the whole school and surrounding community to identify and meet the 
needs of these children so they can succeed and stay in school. Texas’ 
dropout prevention program, the State Compensatory Education (SCE) 
Program, provides state funds to schools that have a large percentage 
of at-risk students (i.e., students with many of the characteristics 
associated with dropping out). The SCE program funds services such as 
supplemental instruction or alternative education with the goal of 
enabling students not performing at grade level to perform at grade 
level at the conclusion of the next regular school term. In addition, 
each district is responsible for developing a strategic plan for 
dropout prevention. Washington changed its dropout prevention program’s 
focus in 1992 from targeted dropout prevention services to a 
comprehensive, integrated approach to address many of the factors 
associated with the long-term process of disengagement from school that 
often begins in the earliest grades. Washington uses about 15 state 
programs to help prevent students from dropping out, including programs 
emphasizing early intervention, schools-within-schools, and community 
partnerships. How state funds are used to meet state education 
objectives is largely left up to the school districts. 

* Georgia, the District of Columbia, and Utah have no statewide dropout 
prevention programs, but instead offer comprehensive programs to serve 
at-risk students. Georgia’s comprehensive approach to serving at-risk 
students provides different services to students of different ages. For 
example, Georgia has an Early Intervention program for students in 
kindergarten through third grade, a reading program for students in 
kindergarten through second grade, and Alternative Education for 
students who are academically behind and disruptive. State funds are 
allocated to alternative schools based on a formula grant process. The 
District of Columbia also takes a comprehensive approach to preventing 
students from dropping out through a variety of services targeted to at-
risk students. Programs include Head Start; after school programs; 
school counseling; community service; alternative schools that offer 
small classes, career readiness, testing, and counseling; and a program 
to apprehend truant students and provide them with counseling and 
referral services. Federal and District dollars are used to fund these 
programs. Utah offers a number of programs to serve at-risk students. 
Programs include alternative middle schools, gang intervention, and 
homeless/disadvantaged minorities programs. These programs provide 
mentoring, counseling, and health services to students, and state funds 
are awarded to school districts through both competitive and formula 
grants. 

Multiple Federal Programs Provide Funds That Can Be Used for Dropout 
Prevention: 

The Dropout Prevention Demonstration Program (DPDP)—funded at $5 
million for fiscal year 2001—is the only federal program that has 
dropout prevention as its sole objective; because the program is new, 
the Department of Education has not yet evaluated its effectiveness. 
[Footnote 26] However, other federal programs are also used by local 
entities to provide dropout prevention services.[Footnote 27] For 
example, five federal programs have dropout prevention as one of their 
multiple objectives and several more programs—such as Safe and Drug-
Free Schools and 21st Century Community Learning Centers—serve at-risk 
youth even though dropout prevention is not the programs’ stated goal. 
Reducing the dropout rate is not a stated program goal of most current 
programs, and thus assessing how effective the current federal programs 
have been in reducing the dropout rate is very difficult given that 
very few programs have been evaluated in terms of their effects on the 
dropout rate. Prior evaluations of the SDDAP—which have measured 
program effect on dropout rates—showed mixed results. Although some 
experts and state and local officials did not believe the creation of 
additional federal dropout programs was warranted, some of these 
officials suggested a central source of information on the best dropout 
prevention practices could be useful to states, school districts, and 
schools. 

One Current Federal Program Has Dropout Prevention as Its Sole 
Objective, but Multiple Programs Fund Such Efforts: 

Currently, the only federal program that has dropout prevention as its 
sole objective is the DPDP. In fiscal year 2001, the Congress 
appropriated $5 million for the program. The program, in turn, awarded 
13 grants of between $180,000 and $492,857 to 12 local education 
agencies (LEAs) and one state education agency (SEA) with dropout rates 
of at least 10 percent. These grant recipients are to work in 
collaboration with institutions of higher education or other public or 
private organizations to build or expand upon existing strategies that 
have been proven effective in reducing the number of students who drop 
out of school. The Stephens County Dropout Prevention Project in 
Toccoa, Georgia, for example, was awarded $441,156 to screen all 2,400 
students in Stephens County in grades 6 to 12 to determine specific 
needs based on at-risk traits. The project seeks to significantly 
reduce suspension, grade retention, and repeat offenses leading to 
expulsion and referrals to the court system through partnerships with 
the Communities in Schools of Georgia, the National Dropout Prevention 
Center, and the Department of Juvenile Justice. Another grant 
recipient, a tribal school located in Nixon, Nevada, was awarded 
$180,000 to assist approximately 200 Native American students in grades 
7 to 12 who have not succeeded in a traditional public school setting 
to remain or return to high school and graduate by developing 
individualized education plans. 

In addition to DPDP, we identified five programs that have dropout 
prevention as one of their multiple objectives, with total funding of 
over $266 million from three federal agencies. In fiscal year 2000, 
Education received appropriations of $197.5 million to fund three of 
these programs, and the Department of Justice and the Department of 
Labor received total appropriations of $69.2 million to fund their 
programs. Two programs account for most of these funds: Talent Search 
and School-to-Work. Education’s Talent Search program, funded at $100.5 
million in fiscal year 2000, provides academic, career, and financial 
counseling to its participants and encourages them to graduate from 
high school and continue on to the postsecondary institution of their 
choice. Education and Labor, who jointly administer the School-to-Work 
Opportunities Act of 1994, each contributed $55 million in fiscal year 
2000.[Footnote 28] This program’s goal is to provide students with 
knowledge and skills that will allow them to opt for college, 
additional training, or a well-paying job directly out of high school. 
Education’s Title I, part D program, funded at $42 million in fiscal 
year 2000, provides grants to SEAs for supplementary education services 
to help youth in correctional and state-run juvenile facilities make 
successful transitions to school or employment upon release. Two 
smaller programs that also have dropout prevention as one of their 
goals are Justice’s Juvenile Mentoring Program (JUMP) and Labor’s 
Quantum Opportunities Program (QOP). JUMP was funded at $13.5 million 
in fiscal year 2000 and aims to reduce juvenile delinquency and gang 
participation, improve academic performance, and reduce the dropout 
rate through the use of mentors. Labor allocated $650,000 to QOP in 
fiscal year 2000 and states that its program goals include encouraging 
students to get a high school diploma, providing post-secondary 
education and training, and providing personal development courses. 

Twenty-three other federal programs serve at-risk youth, although 
dropout prevention is not the programs’ stated goal. (See app. III for 
a complete list of these programs.) Safe and Drug Free Schools and 21st 
Century Community Learning Centers are examples of such programs. 
Education’s Safe and Drug Free Schools Program, funded at $428.6 
million in fiscal year 2000, works to prevent violence in and around 
schools and to strengthen programs that prevent the illegal use of 
alcohol, tobacco, and drugs. Education’s 21st Century Community 
Learning Centers Program, funded at $453 million in fiscal year 2000, 
enables schools to stay open longer and provide a safe, drug-free, and 
supervised environment for homework centers, mentoring programs, drug 
and violence prevention counseling, and recreational activities. 

None of the five programs for which dropout prevention is an objective 
track the portion of funds used for dropout prevention. However, many 
state and local officials informed us that they use one or more of 
these and the other 23 federal programs that serve at-risk youth to 
address the factors that may lead to students dropping out. The use of 
programs such as these for dropout prevention is consistent with a 
recent NDPC recommendation that dropout prevention proponents should 
look beyond traditional dropout prevention program funding and seek 
funds from programs in related risk areas, such as teenage pregnancy 
prevention, juvenile crime prevention, and alcohol and drug abuse 
prevention to identify and secure grant funding sources. 

Few Current Federal Programs’ Effects on Dropouts Have Been Evaluated, 
and Evaluation of Past Federal Dropout Prevention Programs Showed Mixed 
Results: 

Since DPDP grants were just awarded in September 2001, Education has 
not been able to evaluate the program’s effect on the dropout rate. In 
addition, most federal programs that address dropout prevention have 
other goals, and the measurement of these goals takes precedence over 
measuring the program’s effect on the high school dropout rate. For 
example, programs that promote post-secondary education as their major 
goal, such as Talent Search, measure the program’s effect in assisting 
program participants enroll in college rather than what portion of 
participants complete high school. Also, because many federal programs 
provide funds for states and localities to administer programs, 
responsibility for evaluating and measuring the effectiveness of 
programs is also devolved to the state and local level. For example, 
Education’s Title I Neglected and Delinquent Program mostly administers 
the distribution and allocation of funds to states. While many of the 
programs it funds list dropout prevention as one of their intended 
goals, states are not required to report on their program’s effect on 
dropout rates. 

The three major evaluations of the former dropout prevention program— 
Education’s SDDAP which funded demonstrations from 1988-1995—have shown 
mixed results. A study[Footnote 29] of 16 targeted programs showed 
programs that were intensive[Footnote 30] in nature and that were 
operating in middle school could improve grade promotion and reduce 
school dropout rates. However, the same study showed that programs 
implemented in high school did not affect personal or social outcomes 
that are often correlated with dropping out (e.g., student’s self-
esteem, pregnancy, drug use, and arrest rates). The study’s authors 
concluded that dropout prevention programs are more effective when 
implemented in earlier grades. A second study of SDDAP programs, 
[Footnote 31] which focused on the impacts of school restructuring 
initiatives,[Footnote 32] concluded that restructuring would not, in 
the short term, reduce dropout rates. This study explained that school 
restructuring was often a lengthy process, and finding the true effect 
of such efforts on dropout rates could take longer than the 3-to 4-year 
period of most demonstration programs. This study also explained that 
although dropout rates were not reduced in schools that restructured, 
other outcomes such as school climate—the environment of the school and 
how teachers and students interact— and test scores often improved and 
that these improved outcomes could ultimately affect the dropout rate. 
Finally, the third study evaluated 16 programs and found promising 
strategies for reducing dropout rates at all levels of elementary and 
secondary education.[Footnote 33] The study found that at the 
elementary school level, in-class adult friends (trained volunteers or 
helpers), after-school tutoring, and enrichment exercises that are 
directly related to in-class assignments appeared to be effective 
approaches. At the middle school level, coordinated teaching 
strategies, flexible scheduling, heterogeneous grouping of students, 
and counseling services were found to be useful. At the secondary 
school level, the study found that paid-work incentives monitored by 
the school and tied to classroom activities were very successful for 
promoting school engagement. While all three studies of SDDAP programs 
identified some promising practices or strategies for preventing 
dropouts or addressing the factors associated with dropping out, none 
of the programs studied were consistently effective in significantly 
reducing dropout rates. 

State and local officials also had numerous suggestions for reducing 
the dropout rate. Several of them suggested that Education develop a 
central source of information on the best dropout prevention 
strategies. For example, an administrator at Independence High School 
in San Jose, California, asked that the federal government act as a 
clearinghouse for information about effective dropout prevention 
programs, provide a list of people that could be contacted to find out 
about these programs, and identify programs that could be visited to 
observe best practices for preventing dropouts. A consultant for the 
California Department of Education suggested that the federal 
government could develop model dropout prevention programs and publish 
information on programs that were successful. The At-Risk Coordinators 
in Arizona, Idaho, Maine, and New York made similar suggestions for a 
national clearinghouse or information on best practices for preventing 
students from dropping out. 

As mentioned earlier, NDPC is an organization that provides an NDPC-
developed list of effective strategies and information on self-reported 
model programs on its website. However, the NDPC is completely self-
funded through memberships, grants, and contracts and does not have 
sufficient resources to (1) disseminate information that is available 
on its database of promising dropout prevention programs and practices, 
or (2) thoroughly review programs included in its model program 
listing. Instead NDPC relies on its website to communicate about 
effective dropout prevention practices and its data are based on 
voluntary submissions of program descriptions and promising practices 
by its members and other experts in the dropout prevention field. While 
some dropout prevention program officials mentioned NDPC as a useful 
resource, they believe a more complete and current database of program 
descriptions and promising practices would better serve their needs. 

Conclusions: 

Although there have been many federal, state, and local dropout 
prevention programs over the last 2 decades, few have been rigorously 
evaluated. Those federally funded programs that have been evaluated 
have shown mixed results. Several rigorously evaluated local programs 
have been shown to reduce dropout rates, raise test scores, and 
increase college attendance. In addition, some state and local 
officials believe that they are implementing promising practices that 
are yielding positive outcomes for students, such as improved 
attendance and grades and reduced discipline problems, although their 
programs have not been thoroughly evaluated. Education could play an 
important role in reviewing and evaluating existing research and in 
encouraging or sponsoring additional research to rigorously evaluate 
the effectiveness of state and local programs. Subsequently, Education 
could disseminate the results of such research and information on the 
identified best practices for state and local use. Opportunities exist 
for Education to identify ways to collaborate with existing 
organizations, such as the NDPC, that are already providing some 
information on existing programs. As schools continue to look for ways 
to ensure all students succeed, such research and information could 
play a vital role in developing and implementing effective programs. 

Recommendations: 

We recommend that the Secretary of Education (1) evaluate the quality 
of existing dropout prevention research, (2) determine how best to 
encourage or sponsor the rigorous evaluation of the most promising 
state and local dropout prevention programs and practices, and (3) 
determine the most effective means of disseminating the results of 
these and other available studies to state and local entities 
interested in reducing dropout rates. 

Agency Comments: 

We provided a draft of this report to the Department of Health and 
Human Services’ (HHS) Administration for Children and Families and the 
Department of Education. HHS had no comments. Education provided a 
response, which is included as appendix V of this report, and technical 
comments, which we incorporated when appropriate. Education agreed that 
dropping out is a serious issue for American schools, emphasized the 
importance of school improvement efforts in the No Child Left Behind 
Act of 2001, and provided additional information about relevant 
Education programs and activities. In response to our recommendations 
that Education evaluate the quality of existing dropout prevention 
research and determine how best to encourage or sponsor rigorous 
evaluation of the most promising state and local dropout prevention 
programs and practices, Education agreed that rigorous evidence is 
needed and said that it will consider commissioning a systematic review 
of the literature on this topic. 

As agreed with your office, unless you publicly announce its contents 
earlier, we plan no further distribution of this report until 3 days 
after the date of this letter. At that time we will send copies of this 
report to the Secretary of Education, appropriate congressional 
committees, and other interested parties. If you or your staff have any 
questions or wish to discuss this material further, please call me or 
Diana Pietrowiak at (202) 512-7215. Key contributors to this report are 
listed in appendix VI. 

Sincerely yours, 

Signed by: 

Marnie S. Shaul: 
Director, Education, Workforce, and Income Security Issues: 

[End of section] 

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology: 

To determine dropout rate trends and identify factors associated with 
dropping out, we obtained and reviewed reports, statistics, and studies 
developed by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the 
Annie E. Casey Foundation, and the National Dropout Prevention Center 
(NDPC). We also obtained the papers presented at the Harvard University 
Dropouts in America symposium in January 2001 and subsequently made 
available on the Internet. In addition to interviewing officials at 
each of the entities listed above, we interviewed dropout prevention 
experts at universities, federal agencies, and private research 
organizations and obtained and reviewed their publications. 

To obtain information on the services offered by state, local, and 
private agencies to students who are at-risk of dropping out, we 
conducted site visits in six states—California, Florida, Nevada, 
Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington. We selected these states because 
our analysis of the literature and discussions with key dropout 
prevention experts identified a variety of promising dropout prevention 
programs within these states in each of the major types of dropout 
prevention approaches—supplemental services for at-risk students, 
different forms of alternative education, and school-wide restructuring 
efforts. Between February and August 2001, we also conducted telephone 
interviews with state at-risk coordinators in all 50 states and the 
District of Columbia who were either identified by the NDPC or who were 
referred to us by state program administrators. From the telephone 
interviews, we determined, among other things, (1) whether the state 
had a dropout prevention program, (2) if the state had other programs 
for at-risk youths, and (3) if any evaluations had been made of the 
effectiveness of the state programs’ impact on reducing dropouts. Our 
review focused only on dropout prevention programs and efforts. We did 
not obtain information on dropout recovery programs that try to get 
dropouts to return to school or on programs designed to help dropouts 
get a General Education Development (GED) credential or other type of 
high school credential. As a result, our list of programs whose funding 
could be used to prevent dropouts in appendix III does not include 
programs aimed only at dropout recovery or helping dropouts to get a 
GED or other type of high school credential. 

To identify what federal efforts exist to address dropout prevention 
and if they have been proven effective, we interviewed officials from 
the U.S. Departments of Education, Labor, Justice, and Health and Human 
Services who manage programs that aid in reducing the dropout rate. We 
developed our initial list of federal dropout prevention programs 
through our literature review and updated the list with references made 
by the various federal program officials. We obtained information on 
how the programs operated, how funds were dispersed, how dropout 
prevention was prioritized, and whether or not the programs had been 
evaluated. We also reviewed evaluations of the federal School Dropout 
Demonstration Assistance Program (SDDAP), which funded local dropout 
prevention programs in fiscal years 1988-1995. 

[End of section] 

Appendix II: Descriptions of Dropout and Completion Measures: 

Table 3 provides a description of each of the types of dropout and 
completion measures and the individual measures developed by each of 
three different organizations. Since 1989, the National Center for 
Education Statistics (NCES) has annually published a report on dropout 
rates, Dropout Rates in the United States.[Footnote 34] The most recent 
report includes status and event dropout rates and high school 
completion rates. Occasionally,[Footnote 35] the report includes cohort 
rates. Both a national and state status dropout rates are developed 
annually by the Annie E. Casey Foundation for its Kids Count Data Book. 
[Footnote 36] A second measure of school completion, the “regular” 
graduation rate, is occasionally published by the Center for the Study 
of Opportunity in Higher Education in Postsecondary Education 
Opportunity.[Footnote 37] 

Table 3: Dropout and Completion Measures: 

Measure/source: Event Dropout Rates; 
Description: Measures the annual incidence of dropout—that is, the 
percent of students who leave school in a given year without completing 
a high school program. 

Measure/source: National Event Rate (NCES); 
Description: NCES publishes a national event dropout rate, which it 
defines as the percent of 15- to 24-year-olds who were enrolled in high 
school the prior October but had not completed high school and were not 
enrolled in grades 10 to 12 a year later. According to this definition, 
a person could complete high school by either earning a high school 
diploma or receiving an alternative credential such as a GED. The 
national rate is computed from sample data collected from 50,000 U.S. 
households by the Census Bureau in its October Supplement to the 
Current Population Survey (CPS). 

Measure/source: State Event Rates (NCES); 
Description: NCES publishes state event dropout rates for grades 9 to 
12 based on state-reported data collected through its annual survey of 
state and local public educational agencies, known as the Common Core 
of Data (CCD). The number of participating states using sufficiently 
consistent data definitions and collection procedures to be included in 
NCES’ annual report increased from 14 states in the 1991-1992 school 
year to 37 states and the District of Columbia for the 1997-1998 school 
year. State data were not available states with large school-age 
populations – California, Florida, New York, and Texas – in the most 
recent school year. 

Measure/source: Status Dropout Rates; 
Description: Measure the portion of individuals within a particular age 
group (typically young adults) who are not enrolled in a high school 
program and have not completed high school. 

Measure/source: National Status Rates (NCES & Annie E. Casey 
Foundation); 
Description: NCES uses data from the CPS to calculate the national 
status dropout rate, which it defines as the proportion of 16- to 24-
year-olds who are not enrolled in a high school program and have not 
completed high school. The Annie E. Casey Foundation also uses CPS data 
to calculate a national status dropout rates, but for a smaller age-
range – 16-to 19-year-olds. Both sources consider those who earn an 
alternative credential, such as a GED, to have completed high school. 

Measure/source: State Status Rates (Annie E. Casey Foundation); 
Description: The Annie E. Casey Foundation also uses data from CPS to 
calculate status dropout rates for each state. However, because of the 
small sample sizes for some states the margins of error are large and 
there is no statistically significant difference in the dropout rate 
between many states with similar rates. 

Measure/source: Cohort Dropout Rate; 
Description: Measures what portion of a group of students, usually in a 
single grade, drop out over a period of time. 

Measure/source: Cohort Rate (NCES); 
Description: Based on data collected through its National Education 
Longitudinal Study of 1988 —which followed an 1988 eighth-grade student 
cohort through four waves of data collection (1988, 1990, 1992, and 
1994)—NCES periodically reports a cohort dropout rate for various time 
intervals between 1988 and 1994.[A] 

Measure/source: Completion Measures; 
Description: Represent the proportion of young adults, not enrolled in 
high school or below, who are defined as having completed high school. 
Depending on the measure, “completion” may be characterized by a single 
benchmark, such as receipt of a diploma, or, more frequently, includes 
high-school equivalence (e.g., GED) and, in some cases, nondegree 
certification (e.g., certificate of attendance). 

Measure/source: National and State High School Completion Rates (NCES); 
Description: Using data from the CPS, NCES computes completion rates, 
which it defines as the proportion of 18- to 24-year-olds, not 
currently enrolled in high school or below, who have a high school 
diploma or the equivalent. NCES typically also reports completion rates 
excluding alternative credentials, but did not do so in Dropout Rates 
in the United States: 2000 and probably will not do so in its 2001 
report because of changes being made to the CPS. State rates are based 
on a 3-year average of data while national rates are computed from both 
3-year and 1-year databases. 

Measure/source: National and State “Regular” High School Graduation 
Rates (Center for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education); 
Description: This rate represents the number of students who, in a 
given year, complete a regular high school program and earn a diploma. 
This rate compares the number of diploma-earning graduates with the 
number of students enrolled in the ninth-grade 4 years earlier. The 
data for this measure are collected by NCES through the CCD collection 
from state education agencies. 

[A] In addition, in its publications, NCES has compared these rates 
with those obtained a decade earlier through its related longitudinal 
study, High School & Beyond (HS&B). 

Sources: NCES, Dropout Rates in the United States: 2000, Dropout Rates 
in the United States: 1998, and Dropout Rates in the United States: 
1995, U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and 
Improvement; High School Dropout Rates, U.S. Department of Education, 
Office of Educational Research and Improvement, National Institute on 
the Education of At-Risk Students, Consumer Guide, Number 16, March 
1996; Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2001 Kids Count Data Book; and 
Mortenson, Thomas G., High School Graduation Trends and Patterns 1981 
to 2000, Postsecondary Education Opportunity, June 2001. 

[End of table] 

[End of section] 

Appendix III: Federal Programs That Can Be Used for Dropout Prevention: 

Table 4 lists 23 federal programs that federal, state, and local 
officials identified as programs from which funds are used to serve at-
risk youth, which in turn could help to prevent their dropping out. 
Thus, these programs provide funds that can be used for dropout 
prevention activities. 

Table 4: Federal Programs That Can Be Used for Dropout Prevention: 

Program: Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC); 
Federal Department: U.S. Department of Defense. 

Program: 21st Century Community Learning Centers; 
Federal Department: U.S. Department of Education. 

Program: Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act of 
1998; 
Federal Department: U.S. Department of Education. 

Program: Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration Program; 
Federal Department: U.S. Department of Education. 

Program: Developing Hispanic-Serving Institutions; 
Federal Department: U.S. Department of Education. 

Program: Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) Title I, part A 
– Basic Grants; 
Federal Department: U.S. Department of Education. 

Program: Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate 
Programs; 
Federal Department: U.S. Department of Education. 

Program: High School Reform State Grant Program; 
Federal Department: U.S. Department of Education. 

Program: Indian Education Discretionary Grants; 
Federal Department: U.S. Department of Education. 

Program: Indian Education Formula Grants; 
Federal Department: U.S. Department of Education. 

Program: Migrant Education Program; 
Federal Department: U.S. Department of Education. 

Program: Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Governor’s Program; 
Federal Department: U.S. Department of Education. 

Program: Smaller Learning Communities Program; 
Federal Department: U.S. Department of Education. 

Program: Upward Bound; 
Federal Department: U.S. Department of Education. 

Program: Head Start Program; 
Federal Department: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 

Program: Independent Living Program; 
Federal Department: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 

Program: Temporary Assistance to Needy Families; 
Federal Department: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 

Program: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) 
Formula Grants Program; 
Federal Department: U.S. Department of Justice. 

Program: Title V Community Prevention Grants Program; 
Federal Department: U.S. Department of Justice. 

Program: OJJDP’s Truancy Reduction Demonstration Program; 
Federal Department: U.S. Department of Justice. 

Program: Migrant Seasonal Farmworker Program; 
Federal Department: U.S. Department of Labor. 

Program: Youth Activities; 
Federal Department: U.S. Department of Labor. 

Program: Youth Opportunity Grants; 
Federal Department: U.S. Department of Labor. 

[End of table] 

[End of section] 

Appendix IV: High School Completion Rates, October 1998 Through 2000: 

State: Alabama: 
Completion rate: 81.6%. 

State: Alaska: 
Completion rate: 93.3%. 

State: Arizona: 
Completion rate: 73.5%. 

State: Arkansas: 
Completion rate: 84.1%. 

State: California: 
Completion rate: 82.5%. 

State: Colorado: 
Completion rate: 81.6%. 

State: Connecticut: 
Completion rate: 91.7%. 

State: Delaware: 
Completion rate: 91.0%. 

State: District of Columbia: 
Completion rate: 88.0%. 

State: Florida: 
Completion rate: 84.6%. 

State: Georgia: 
Completion rate: 83.5%. 

State: Hawaii: 
Completion rate: 91.8%. 

State: Idaho: 
Completion rate: 86.4%. 

State: Illinois: 
Completion rate: 87.1%. 

State: Indiana: 
Completion rate: 89.4%. 

State: Iowa: 
Completion rate: 90.8%. 

State: Kansas: 
Completion rate: 90.4%. 

State: Kentucky: 
Completion rate: 86.2%. 

State: Louisiana: 
Completion rate: 82.1%. 

State: Maine: 
Completion rate: 94.5%. 

State: Maryland: 
Completion rate: 87.4%. 

State: Massachusetts: 
Completion rate: 90.9%. 

State: Michigan: 
Completion rate: 89.2%. 

State: Minnesota: 
Completion rate: 91.9%. 

State: Mississippi: 
Completion rate: 82.3%. 

State: Missouri: 
Completion rate: 92.6%. 

State: Montana: 
Completion rate: 91.1%. 

State: Nebraska: 
Completion rate: 91.3%. 

State: Nevada: 
Completion rate: 77.9%. 

State: New Hampshire: 
Completion rate: 85.1%. 

State: New Jersey: 
Completion rate: 90.1%. 

State: New Mexico: 
Completion rate: 83.0%. 

State: New York: 
Completion rate: 86.3%. 

State: North Carolina: 
Completion rate: 86.1%. 

State: North Dakota: 
Completion rate: 94.4%. 

State: Ohio: 
Completion rate: 87.7%. 

State: Oklahoma: 
Completion rate: 85.7%. 

State: Oregon: 
Completion rate: 82.3%. 

State: Pennsylvania: 
Completion rate: 89.0%. 

State: Rhode Island: 
Completion rate: 87.9%. 

State: South Carolina: 
Completion rate: 85.1%. 

State: South Dakota: 
Completion rate: 92.0%. 

State: Tennessee: 
Completion rate: 89.0%. 

State: Texas: 
Completion rate: 79.4%. 

State: Utah: 
Completion rate: 90.0%. 

State: Vermont: 
Completion rate: 90.8%. 

State: Virginia: 
Completion rate: 87.3%. 

State: Washington: 
Completion rate: 87.4%. 

State: West Virginia: 
Completion rate: 89.6%. 

State: Wisconsin: 
Completion rate: 90.0%. 

State: Wyoming: 
Completion rate: 86.5%. 

Note: This appendix presents high school completion rates of 18- 
through 24-year-olds not currently enrolled in high school or below. 

Source: Dropout Rates in the United States: 2000, U.S. Department of 
Education, National Center for Education Statistics, NCES 2002-114, 
Washington, D.C., November 2001, table B9, pp. 41-42. 

[End of table] 

[End of section] 

Appendix V: Comments From the Department of Education: 

United States Department Of Education: 
The Deputy Secretary: 
400 Maryland Ave., S.W. 
Washington, D.C. 20202-0500: 
[hyperlink, http://www.ed.gov]: 
"Our mission is to ensure equal access to education and to promote 
educational excellence throughout the Nation." 

January 14, 2002: 

Ms. Mamie S. Shaul: 
Director, Education, Workforce, and Income Security Issues: 
General Accounting Office: 
Washington, DC 20548: 

Dear Ms. Shaul: 

Thank you for the opportunity to review and comment on the draft 
report, School Dropouts: Education Could Play a Stronger Role in 
Identifying and Disseminating Promising Prevention Strategies. The 
Secretary and I appreciate your helping to highlight both the extent of 
the national dropout problem and the need for further efforts to 
address it. 

We concur with your assessment that dropping out is a serious issue for 
American schools. An overall dropout rate of close to 12 percent over 
the last decade is unacceptable, as are the even higher rates of 
dropout experienced in some regions of the country and among some 
groups of students. We view these statistics as a further call for the 
school improvement efforts proposed by the President in his No Child 
Left Behind education blueprint and adopted by Congress in the 
reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. In this 
letter we would like to provide additional information about relevant 
Department programs and activities, and to respond to your 
recommendations regarding research, evaluation, and dissemination 
activities. 

New Efforts to Promote Student Success: 

The Department considers high school completion to be a key indicator 
of student and school success, and is actively taking steps to ensure 
that more students achieve this important milestone. These steps 
include two aimed directly at high schools: 

* High School Accountability: Provisions in the recently passed No 
Child Left Behind Act emphasize improvement in high school graduation 
rates as a measure against which Title I schools will be held 
accountable. 

* New High School Initiative: The Department is planning for a new 
"high school" initiative, designed to improve academic performance and 
preparation for college and careers; raising graduation rates will be 
one objective of this effort. 

The report also notes that dropping out of school is a result of a long 
process of disengagement from school. The No Child Left Behind Act is 
an important opportunity to reform schools and promote student success 
in the early grades, before the process of disengagement can begin or 
take hold. 

Research has shown, for example, that poor academic performance is the 
best predictor of who will drop out of school. Students who receive low 
grades, perform poorly on tests, are retained in grade, or are absent 
frequently are more likely to drop out before completing high school 
than are their peers. No Child Left Behind will apply proven 
strategies -- high state standards, annual testing of students in 
grades three through eight in reading and mathematics, increased 
accountability for student performance, reduced bureaucracy and greater 
flexibility for states, school districts, and schools, and expanded 
options for parents to make choices for their children's education -- 
to strengthen federal support for state and local efforts to improve 
student achievement. Annual testing of students in reading and 
mathematics should provide teachers with current information on a 
child's progress in school and enable teachers to arrange for the types 
of support and remediation that are most likely to help that child 
succeed academically. 

The Need for Additional Research, Evaluation and Dissemination on 
Dropout Prevention: 

The Department supports a variety of information-gathering activities 
about dropout prevention programs and strategies. Currently, several 
national research and development centers funded by the Department's 
Office of Educational Research and Improvement are working on topics 
related to improving student retention and achievement; these include 
the Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed at Risk, 
the Laboratory for Success, and the Center for Research on Education, 
Diversity, and Excellence. As indicated in the report, the Department 
also funds evaluations of federal dropout prevention programs. An 
important addition to that discussion would be the use of experimental 
methods, the most rigorous approach to analyzing program effectiveness, 
in several of those evaluations. The discussion should also underscore 
the difficulty presented by the use of numerous definitions of dropout 
rates. The report mentions the multiple definitions that are used to 
count dropouts, but does not discuss whether it is advantageous to 
create a uniform definition that states would be required to report on 
as a condition of receiving financial assistance. 

We agree that additional rigorous evidence is needed. In response to 
your recommendation to review the quality of existing research, the 
Department will consider commissioning a systematic review of the 
literature on this topic, of the kind and quality prepared by the 
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development on early 
reading strategies. 

It is the Department's intention that all of these activities maintain 
the highest standards of evidence. In particular, new studies of 
federally funded programs and other state and local dropout and reentry 
programs will emphasize the use of experimental designs and other 
rigorous methods. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to address the important issues the 
report raises. 

Sincerely, 

Signed by: 

William D. Hansen: 

[End of section] 

Appendix VI: GAO Contacts and Acknowledgments: 

GAO Contacts: 
Diana M. Pietrowiak, (202) 512-6239: 
Charles M. Novak, (206) 287-4794: 

Acknowledgments: 

In addition to those named above, Susan Chin, Amy Gleason Carroll, 
Jeffrey Rueckhaus, Charles Shervey, and Anjali Tekchandani made key 
contributions to this report. 

[End of section] 

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[End of section] 

Footnotes: 

[1] This report focuses on the status dropout rate. According to NCES, 
this rate reveals the extent of the dropout problem in the population 
and can be used to estimate the need for further education and training 
designed to help dropouts participate fully in the economy and life of 
the nation. This rate includes individuals who may not have attended 
school in the United States. 

[2] Based on a 1996 study of 25- to 34-year-olds who had dropped out of 
high school after completing 9 to 11 years of school. 

[3] Wirt, John, Thomas Snyder, Jennifer Sable, Susan P. Choy, Yupin 
Bae, Janis Stennett, Allison Gruner, Marianne Perie, The Condition of 
Education 1998, U.S. Department of Education, National Center for 
Education Statistics, NCES 98-013, Washington, D.C., (Oct. 1998). 

[4] School Dropouts: Survey of Local Programs, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO/HRD-87-108], July 20, 1987. 

[5] Kaufman, Phillip, Martha Naomi Alt, and Christopher D. Chapman, 
Dropout Rates in the United States: 2000, U.S. Department of Education, 
National Center for Education Statistics, NCES 2002-114,Washington, 
D.C., (Nov. 2001). 

[6] See app. II for a description of each type of dropout and high 
school completion rate. 

[7] The dropout rate referred to in this section of the report is the 
status dropout rate, which is the proportion of all 16- through 24-year-
olds who are not enrolled in a high school program and have not 
completed high school. This measure is used because it reveals the 
extent of the dropout problem in the population and can be used to 
estimate the need for further education and training for dropouts. See 
app. II for a description of each type of dropout and high school 
completion rate. 

[8] For an expanded discussion of the nature and extent of the school 
dropout problems among Hispanics see Hispanics’ Schooling: Risk Factors 
for Dropping Out and Barriers to Resuming Education [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO/PEMD-94-24], July 27, 1994. 

[9] McMillen, Marilyn,Dropout Rates in the United States: 1995, U.S. 
Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, NCES 
97-473,Washington, D.C., July 1997, tables 16 and 20. 

[10] See app. IV for a list of the completion rate for each state and 
the District of Columbia. 

[11] Our analysis is based on high school completion rates among 18- 
through 24-year-olds who are no longer enrolled in high school or lower 
grades, a somewhat different measure than the status dropout rates used 
earlier in the discussion. We used the high school completion rate 
because NCES had state-by-state data for all 50 states and the District 
of Columbia, but did not have status dropout rate data by state. 

[12] Kaufman, Philip, Denise Bradby, Characteristics of At-Risk 
Students in NELS:88, U.S. Department of Education, National Center for 
Education Statistics, NCES 92-042, Washington, D.C., 1992. 

[13] Kaufman, Philip, Denise Bradby, (as above). 

[14] Cotton, Kathleen, School Size, School Climate, and Student 
Performance, School Improvement Research Series, Close-Up #20, 
Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, 1997. 

[15] Alexander, Karl, Doris Entwisle and Nader Kabbani, The Dropout 
Process in Life Course Perspective: Part I, Profiling Risk Factors at 
Home and School, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, 2000. 

[16] Finn, Jeremy D., Withdrawing From School, Review of Educational 
Research, Summer 1989, Volume 59, Number 2, p.131. 

[17] Cardenas,Jose A., Maria Robledo Montecel, Josie D. Supik, Richard 
J. Harris,The Coca-Cola Valued Youth Program: Dropout Prevention 
Strategies for At-Risk Students, Texas Researcher, Volume 3, Winter 
1992. 

[18] For an expanded discussion of school-community partnerships see At-
Risk Youth: School-Community Collaborations Focus on Improving Student 
Outcomes [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-01-66], 
Oct.10, 2000. 

[19] CIS is a national nonprofit organization that aims to keep kids in 
school and prepare them for success in life by bringing health and 
social services into schools. 

[20] Philadelphia Education Fund. The Talent Development High School: 
First-year Results of the Ninth Grade Success Academy in Two 
Philadelphia Schools, 1999-2000. 

[21] For an expanded discussion of career academies see At-Risk Youth: 
School-Community Collaborations Focus on Improving Student Outcomes, 
pp. 16-17 [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-01-66], 
Oct. 10, 2000. 

[22] Kemple, James J., Jason C. Snipes, Career Academies: Impact on 
Students’ Engagement and Performance in High School, New York: Manpower 
Demonstration Research Corporation, 2000. 

[23] Kemple, James J., Career Academies: Impact on Students’ Initial 
Transitions to Post-Secondary Education and Employment, New York: 
Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation, December 2001. 

[24] States with statewide dropout programs: California, Florida, 
Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, 
Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin. 

[25] States with no statewide programs for at-risk students: Alaska, 
Connecticut, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and West 
Virginia. 

[26] On January 8, 2002, President Bush signed into law the No Child 
Left Behind Act of 2001 (P.L. 107-110). Part H of Title I of the Act is 
entitled the Dropout Prevention Act, which calls for a coordinated 
national strategy and creation of a National School Dropout Prevention 
Initiative to provide for school dropout prevention and reentry and to 
raise academic achievement levels by providing grants to schools 
through state and local educational agencies. 

[27] For additional discussion of the multiple federal programs that 
could fund similar services for at-risk youth and for school dropouts 
see, At-Risk and Delinquent Youth: Multiple Federal Programs Raise 
Efficiency Questions [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-
bin/getrpt?GAO/HEHS-96-34], Mar. 6, 1996. 

[28] The authority provided by the School-to-Work Opportunities Act of 
1994 terminated on October 1, 2001. 

[29] Dynarski, Mark, Phillip Gleason, Anu Rangarajan, Robert Wood, 
Impacts of Dropout Prevention Programs, Final Report, Mathematica 
Policy Research, Inc, Princeton, New Jersey, 1998. 

[30] Students in high-intensity programs generally remained in the 
program for the full school day with smaller classes and accelerated 
curricula designed to help them catch up to their peers. 

[31] Dynarski, Mark, Phillip Gleason, Anu Rangarajan, Robert Wood, 
Impacts of School Restructuring Initiatives, Final Report, Mathematica 
Policy Research, Inc., Princeton, New Jersey, 1998. 

[32] Restructuring strategies include (1) developing curricular and 
instructional methods where students have an opportunity to learn more, 
(2) having teachers play a more active role in managing schools, and 
(3) encouraging schools to be more sensitive to the concerns of parents 
and students. 

[33] Rossi, Robert J, Evaluation of Projects Funded by the School 
Dropout Demonstration Assistance Program, Final Evaluation Report, 
American Institutes for Research, Palo Alto, California, 1993. 

[34] Most recently, Kaufman, Phillip, Martha Naomi Alt, Christopher D. 
Chapman, Dropout Rates in the United States: 2000, U.S. Department of 
Education, National Center for Education Statistics, NCES 2002-
114,Washington, D.C., November 2001. 

[35] Recently, Kaufman, Phillip, Jin Y. Kwon, Steve Klein, Christopher 
D. Chapman, Dropout Rates in the United States: 1998, U.S. Department 
of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, NCES 2000-
022,Washington, D.C., November 1999. 

[36] Recently, 2001 Kids Count Data Book, Annie E. Casey Foundation. 

[37] Recently, Mortenson, Thomas G., High School Graduation Trends and 
Patterns 1981 to 2000, Postsecondary Education Opportunity, June 2001. 

[End of section] 

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