Last week, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) hosted a Webinar, “Utilizing the Village: Building Community Support for Dropout Prevention and Recovery Work in Rural Communities.” It was the first in a series of three Webinars that will focus on dropout prevention and recovery efforts in rural areas. This presentation emphasized that dropout recovery and prevention efforts are not possible without community-wide support and a strong system in …

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Last week, America’s Promise Alliance released its 2012 Grad Nation update on ending high school dropout.  The report reintroduces the Alliance’s Civic Marshal Plan, a series of benchmarks to help attain a nationwide graduation rate of 90 percent by 2020.  While the report showed progress in a number of areas, it also found the improvement in graduation rates “has not been fast enough to achieve the goal of a …

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On Tuesday, February 28, Dr. Laura C. Brown, Director of Georgia Learning Resources System (GLRS), presented a Webinar titled, “GraduateFIRST: The Dropout Prevention Destination.” During this event, Dr. Brown described Georgia’s GraduateFIRST program, identified ways schools can make improvements, shared tools and resources available to schools, and highlighted the successes of specific schools using the program.

GraduateFIRST has a two-fold mission aimed at (1) increasing graduation rates for students with …

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Are you using one of the National High School Center’s Early Warning System (EWS) tools or resources? Are you thinking about using one, but have questions about how they might work for you? If so, please join the National High School Center’s new online Community of Practice for practitioners implementing EWS.

The EWS community is designed to connect users working with the National High School Center’s Early Warning Intervention and …

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The U.S. Department of Education recently released a professional development resource through Doing What Works (DWW) and the National High School Center.  Research-Based Practices for Secondary Schools Professional Development Package contains materials needed to conduct six professional development sessions on implementing research-based practices in secondary schools for three topics: Adolescent Literacy, Dropout Prevention, and Helping Student Navigate the Path to College. Additionally, a supplemental module on the …

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On Thursday, January 12, 2012, the National Evaluation and Technical Assistance Center for the Education of Children and Youth Who Are Neglected, Delinquent, or At Risk (NDTAC) hosted a Webinar highlighting two school- and community- centered truancy prevention programs that target youth who are at risk of dropping out of school, and recovering those who have already dropped out.

Truancy, or unexcused absenteeism, has been linked to higher dropout rates …

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The Alliance for Excellent Education recently released an issue brief, “The Digital Learning Imperative: How Technology and Teaching Meet Today’s Education Challenges.”  The brief highlights several major issues in education and argues that they can be addressed with innovative, technology-based solutions.

One challenge facing high schools is graduating students who are competitive in a changing global workplace.  Too few students are graduating high school, and of those who graduate, many …

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