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Point of View, Robert Balfanz | Comments

A plan to fix ‘dropout factories’

The Christian Science Monitor | November 23, 2007 More students will stay if school is harder, safer, and more relevant. Many communities across the nation have just received alarming news – one or more of their high schools fit the profile of a “dropout factory.” That means two decades after the seminal report, “A Nation […]

Brother's Keeper, Capacity Building, Publications, Reports, Robert Balfanz | Comments

What Your Community Can Do to End Its Dropout Crisis

This is a resource guide that synthesizes what has been learned over the past decade about keeping students on the graduation path. It highlights the importance of four key transition points the early years of schooling, the transition to the middle grades, the transition to high school, and the transition to college and careers. It […]

Preventing Student Disengagement

This article considers the practical, conceptual, and empirical foundations of an early identification and intervention system for middle-grades schools to combat student disengagement and increase graduation rates in our nation’s cities. Many students in urban schools become disengaged at the start of the middle grades, which greatly reduces the odds that they will eventually graduate. […]

Nettie Legters, Point of View, Robert Balfanz | Comments

Making High Expectations Real in All Our High Schools

Baltimore Examiner | January 18, 2007 There is little disagreement about what we want from our public high schools. We want them to graduate all their students prepared for success in college, careers, and civic life. In schools where this is happening, students are engaged, come to school everyday, and try hard to succeed. They […]

Brother's Keeper, Nettie Legters, Point of View, Robert Balfanz | Comments

The Graduation Rate Crisis We Know and What Can be Done About It

Education Week Commentary | July 12, 2006 The debate over how best to measure the nation’s Graduation Rate is important. We need to know who graduates and who does not. Yet in the midst of questions about measurement and data quality we must not lose sight of what lies plainly before us and is loudly […]

Analytics, Brother's Keeper, Locating the Dropout Crisis, Nettie Legters, Publications, Robert Balfanz | Comments

Locating the Dropout Crisis

Approximately 15% of the nation’s high schools produce more than half of its dropouts and close to 75% of its minority dropouts. Half of these schools are found primarily in the cities of the North, Midwest, and West. The other half are found throughout the South and Southwest in urban, suburban, and rural areas. Imagine […]