Tools 
Capacity 
Point 
Exemplary
Featured
Having trouble viewing a PDF file? You may need to download the latest Adobe Reader available FREE from the following site.
Adobe Acrobat Reader Official Download
Degree of Educational Difficulty & Resource Requirements
To successfully confront the graduation rate crisis, policy makers, educators and communities need to understand the scope and nature of the challenges that must be overcome. These include the degree of educational difficulty that schools with large numbers of dropouts face, and the level and types of resources that they have to meet these challenges. It also includes good information on the cost of effective interventions and the gap between available resources and needs. EGC researchers are working on both these issues.
Extreme Degree of Difficulty
Despite the growth of a variety of alternatives to the neighborhood high school, most students in big-city school systems still attend large comprehensive high schools that serve a particular residential area. The authors contend that the extreme concentration of educational need at these schools is often overlooked by policymakers, school reform programs, and even district personnel. To illustrate the challenges facing neighborhood high schools, this article examines key academic characteristics of 9th-graders in Philadelphia during the 1999–2000 school year. The authors find that a large percentage of 9th graders at neighborhood high schools have been 9th graders for 2 or more years. Many of the 1st-time 9th graders either are over-age, are 2 or more years below grade level in reading and math, or had weak attendance in 8th grade. These data suggest that large and sustained investments of human and financial capital are desperately needed in the many neighborhood schools that serve primarily, and often almost exclusively, students with multiple risk factors for academic failure.
An Extreme Degree of Difficulty: The Educational Demographics of Urban Neighborhood High Schools Ruth Curran Neild, Robert Balfanz Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk, 11(2), 123–141 Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. View the paper here.
What do Small Learning Communities Cost?
Little is known about what it actually costs to operate a high school organized into
Small Learning Communities (SLCs). As a result, many of the cost estimates and
subsequent funding decisions made when high schools are converted into SLCs are often
based on little more than guesswork. They are often determined as much by the amount
of funding readily available or the desire to spread it to as many high schools as possible
as by good analysis of the actual costs involved in mounting and sustaining effective high
school reforms. Yet such analysis is essential. Without it many efforts to restructure high
schools into SLCs may fizzle after the initial start-up funding disappears or scarce funds
might be wasted through duplicative efforts. One reason that this analysis does not occur
is that not enough information exists to support it. The goal of this paper is to change
this situation by answering three related questions:
- What can be learned about the costs associated with operating a high school organized into Small Learning Communities?
- Based on what is learned about the costs of operating a high school organized
into SLCs, what can be inferred about the adequacy of existing resources?
- Can existing federal, state, and foundation funds be used to close any gaps between existing resources and those needed to establish fully implemented SLCs?
What Does it Cost to Operate a High School
Organized into Small Learning Communities? When Are Additional
Resources Needed? How Can Efficiencies Be Achieved? Robert Balfanz. Johns Hopkins University. View the paper here.
Randomized Evaluation Study of High School Dropout Prevention Program
In this study of a dropout prevention program in two Baltimore high schools (in its fourth and final year), students were randomly assigned to participation in the program or inclusion in the control group. The study, which included surveys and focus groups with program and comparison students in Year 1 (9th grade), has followed outcomes (primarily attendance and persistence in school) for students over four years. Thus far, there is evidence of a small but significant program effect. Program students are less likely to have dropped out of school than comparison students. At the same time, eighth grade attendance is a better predictor of remaining in school than is participation in the program.