By the 1960s, high schools had become mass institutions saddled with the expectation of universal education for America's youth. Ironically, with this broadening of clientele and mission came the idea and phenomenon of the dropout. The consolidation of a dropout stereotype focused on the presumed dependency and delinquency of dropouts, with the resulting programs focusing on guidance and vocational training. Why the problem persists is the topic of this study with more constructive perspectives on dropping out.

Higher education today faces a host of challenges, from quality to cost. But too little attention gets paid to a startling fact: four out of ten students -- that's more than ten percent of the entire population - -who start college drop out. The situation is particularly dire for black and Latino students, those from poor families, and those who are first in their families to attend college. In The College Dropout Scandal, David Kirp outlines the scale of the problem and shows that it's fixable - -we already have the tools to boost graduation rates and shrink the achievement gap. Many college administrators know what has to be done, but many of them are not doing the job - -the dropout rate hasn't decreased for decades. It's not elite schools like Harvard or Williams who are setting the example, but places like City University of New York and Long Beach State, which are doing the hard work to assure that more students have a better education and a diploma. As in his New York Times columns, Kirp relies on vivid, on-the-ground reporting, conversations with campus leaders, faculty and students, as well as cogent overviews of cutting-edge research to identify the institutional reforms--like using big data to quickly identify at-risk students and get them the support they need -- and the behavioral strategies -- from nudges to mindset changes - -that have been proven to work. Through engaging stories that shine a light on an underappreciated problem in colleges today, David Kirp's hopeful book will prompt colleges to make student success a top priority and push more students across the finish line, keeping their hopes of achieving the American Dream alive.

If like millions of others you know deep down that you deserve to do better than where you are today, than this book is for you. Not a book based on old fashion theories or textbook scenarios, The Millionaire Dropout is instead based on tried and tested methods of increasing personal skills, increasing your wealth, improving your life-style and releasing all the personal power that is locked up inside you. Based on the author’s firsthand experience of bootstrapping himself out of failure, The Millionaire Dropout is for anyone who wants to learn the secrets for increasing their income and their standard of living. Divided into three sections readers will walk through the stages for taking control of their life, learning how to make more money, and learning how be smart with their successes. Everyone owes it to themselves to invest a little time and effort into increasing their standard of living and releasing the personal power that is locked up inside of us all.

As a school psychologist, Daniel Hectorman has lost all faith and confidence that meddling therapists like himself really help anyone at all. That's too bad, because Hectorman could use some counseling of his own. His marriage is starved. His job is imperiled. His parents are deep in decline, with his mom shrunk by Alzheimer's and his father enraged and suicidal. Even Hectorman's doting secretary, Mrs. Tweed, has gone batty. Then there's this kid. Trevor Winkle is a fourteen-year-old sharpie foisted on Hectorman by a vampy old flame who insists that the boy is his son. Hectorman knows he is not. But the boy is redeeming. Clever, industrious, unselfish and oddly sedate, he could open a path for Hectorman, if only the psychologist didn't reject Trevor so relentlessly. Humorous and insightful, The Dropout is a novel about repairing human connections. As characters collide and careen, Daniel Hectorman must recognize that to end his travails he must embrace people he once strenuously neglected. That can begin as casually as conversation over one good meal.

These engaging narratives and unique insights will help readers to better understand the interplay of school-related and personal factors that lead students to drop out of school. It is essential reading for K12 educators, school principals, counselors, psychologists, and everyone concerned with our nations dropout crisis.

In this provocative book, authors Washor and Mojkowski observe that beneath the worrisome levels of dropouts from our nation’s high school lurks a more insidious problem: student disengagement from school and from deep and productive learning. To keep students in school and engaged as productive learners through to graduation, schools must provide experiences in which all students do some of their learning outside school as a formal part of their programs of study. All students need to leave school—frequently, regularly, and, of course, temporarily—to stay in school and persist in their learning. To accomplish this, schools must combine academic learning with experiential learning, allowing students to bring real-world learning back into the school, where it should be recognized, assessed, and awarded academic credit. Learning outside of school, as a complement to in-school learning, provides opportunities for deep engagement in rigorous learning.

The role played by testing in the nation's public school system has been increasing steadily-and growing more complicated-for more than 20 years. The Committee on Educational Excellence and Testing Equity (CEETE) was formed to monitor the effects of education reform, particularly testing, on students at risk for academic failure because of poverty, lack of proficiency in English, disability, or membership in population subgroups that have been educationally disadvantaged. The committee recognizes the important potential benefits of standards-based reforms and of test results in revealing the impact of reform efforts on these students. The committee also recognizes the valuable role graduation tests can potentially play in making requirements concrete, in increasing the value of a diploma, and in motivating students and educators alike to work to higher standards. At the same time, educational testing is a complicated endeavor, that reality can fall far short of the model, and that testing cannot by itself provide the desired benefits. If testing is improperly used, it can have negative effects, such as encouraging school leaving, that can hit disadvantaged students hardest. The committee was concerned that the recent proliferation of high school exit examinations could have the unintended effect of increasing dropout rates among students whose rates are already far higher than the average, and has taken a close look at what is known about influences on dropout behavior and at the available data on dropouts and school completion.