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Communities & Districts
at Work
Communities and districts recognize that they have roles in solving the dropout crisis. Throughout the country, they are working to raise awareness of the situation, to start conversations about what can be done to keep students in school and to mobilize different groups to support schools and students, financially and otherwise. Throughout the last year, districts, states and cities organized dropout prevention summits as starting points for these efforts. The job is far from finished but concerted efforts are under way.
Baltimore Education Research Consortium (BERC)
The Baltimore Education Research Consortium (BERC) is a partnership between Johns Hopkins University, Morgan State University, and the Baltimore City Public School System to enhance Baltimore’s capacity to conduct strategic data analysis that supports improvements in the education of Baltimore’s children.
Visit its website to read two recent reports-one follows a cohort of first graders as they progress through the sixth grade-and a second follows a cohort of sixth graders as they progress through to graduation. BERC is beginning a three year investigation of the factors that enable students to progress and those that prevent students from progressing to graduation on time, with grade level skills.
Colorado Districts Study
The Center for Social Organization of Schools (CSOS) is participating in an initiative aimed at cutting Colorado's dropout rate over the next decade, spearheaded by the Colorado Children's Campaign, the Colorado Foundation for Families and Children, Colorado Youth for a Change and other Colorado organizations. As a first step in designing and implementing district initiatives, CSOS is leading an analytical process to provide useful information for data- informed decision making on the part of districts.
Using de-identified longitudinal student level data provided by several Colorado school districts, CSOS researchers are constructing profiles of the dropout student population in these districts to provide useful data for district decision-making regarding initiatives to prevent dropout outcomes and provide recovery opportunities for overage students who need additional credits for high school graduation. These profiles provide information such as how far away dropouts were from graduation in terms of credits earned, what percentage of dropouts began high school significantly behind grade level (indicating the need for interventions and reform efforts in middle schools), what percentage of the dropout problem is primarily related to attendance problems, etc. In addition, the district analyses provide information on how many current middle school students are at risk of dropping out because of attendance, behavior, or course failure problems, and where these students are concentrated, so that early warning systems and effective interventions can be implemented in those schools.