Dropout Prevention

NCES recently announced the new High School Longitudinal Study of 2009. It is a nationally representative, longitudinal study of 9th graders who will be followed through high school, postsecondary education, and early work experiences to gauge their learning in algebra and their decision-making processes about courses, college, and careers.

As a result of the No Child Left Behind Act, migrant educators must ensure that secondary students receive adequate opportunities to achieve academic success and graduate from high school. Educators face many challenges when serving secondary migrant students who exhibit at-risk behaviors and/or are at risk of dropping out of school. Nearly 25 percent of teen school dropouts were born outside the United States, and nearly 40 percent of these dropouts are recent arrivals to this country who were already behind in school before they left for the United States, according to the 2000 U.S. Census. With the nationwide migrant dropout rate holding at close to 50%, educators need to make informed, evidence-based decisions when designing dropout retrieval programs and raise the graduation rate of secondary migrant and other "at-risk" students.

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The central message of this report is that while some students drop out because of significant academic challenges, most dropouts are students who could have, and believe they could have, succeeded in school. There is no single reason why students drop out of high school. Respondents in this report indicate a variety of reasons: a lack of connection to the school environment; a perception that school is boring; feeling unmotivated; academic challenges; and the weight of real world events. But indications are strong that these barriers to graduation are not insurmountable (p. iii).