Old 10-08-2009, 07:02 AM
ilbegone ilbegone is offline
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Conclusion of the essay Does State Policy Help or Hurt the Dropout Problem in California? From the California Drop Out Research Project study.
Quote:
The dropout problem will not be solved by more categorical programs or additional resources. The problem, as noted earlier, has to do with student disengagement from school. As also noted, the reasons for disengagement are multiple, overlapping, and complex. The issue of academic engagement can be addressed by improving the quality of the schooling experience for students.
Some causes of disengagement, however, lie beyond the schools’ control. Consequently, students may need a variety of coordinated social and health (both physical and mental) services that are not readily available or are now simply unavailable. When student behavior does trigger such services, it is often too late, as with the SARB interventions. Again, there is little known about how many districts provide such services and what difference such services may make. We know from the research that the key is early identification and support.
The key to an effective state role is to increase district capacity to identify at-risk students early and provide resources (both academic and social) to those students. The state also needs to find ways of improving district and school capacity to provide quality education services to students who have not been well served by the education system. Students who do not intend to go to college have few or no options for alternative education paths. For those students, there is little incentive to finish high school, particularly if they believe they cannot pass the high school exit exam or if they believe that a diploma is irrelevant. The state needs to provide technical assistance to schools that serve large numbers of at-risk students to develop curricula that is academically challenging and rigorous while it also prepares them for careers.
California currently spends substantial sums of money on various forms of dropout prevention programs; on supplemental instruction; on counseling, mentoring and outreach; career education such as the Regional Occupation Centers and Programs; adult education programs; and special programs for English language learners. Districts that serve students who might generally be referred to as “at-risk” benefit from a large number of categorical programs. The problem for state policy makers is that virtually nothing is known about the success of these various programs and why such programs seem to have so little impact on increasing school completion rates. To be sure, there are success stories, but there is nothing to suggest that any of those programs, either individually or in the aggregate, have a positive effect on student retention. More importantly, as this paper has emphasized throughout this discussion,there is no systematic, reliable data to inform policy makers of either the nature or magnitude of the problem.
Beyond data, it is clear that increasing school completion rates, especially among African American, Hispanic, and Native American students, should be a top priority for state policy makers.
There are, however, no ready answers. It is quite clear that adding more programs to the state’s dropout policy portfolio is not the answer. The answer lies in integrating existing programs and resources and creating greater accountability for those programs that target primarily at-risk students. Policy makers need to evaluate the role and efficacy of existing alternative education programs to understand better what kinds of state interventions are most helpful to those local officials—school and district administrators, counselors, teachers, other agency officials, social workers, and health care specialists—who are ultimately responsible for reducing the number of school dropouts. Curriculum reform certainly ought to figure prominently in the solution; so should mentoring, preschool, and continuing education.
Given the competition for state revenues, it is all the more important for policy makers to invest in those programs that use funds most efficiently and have the highest rates of success for dollars spent (Belfield & Levin, 2007).
To that end, state policy makers should evaluate the costs of various dropout prevention programs in relation to their effectiveness. In the absence of systematic evaluation, it appears that local dropout prevention programs operate idiosyncratically—the result of effort and commitment by individuals—rather than by program design. The question for policy makers is whether there are systematic policy design features of dropout prevention programs that show successful results across a large number of schools.
http://cdrp.ucsb.edu/dropouts/pubs_reports.htm