The Fiscal Consequences of Dropping Out of High School and Failing to Complete Additional Years of Post-Secondary Schooling in Connecticut

Prepared by: Andrew Sum, Ishwar Khatiwada, Joseph McLaughlin, with Sheila Palma, Center for Labor Market Studies, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts

Prepared for: Our Piece of the Pie, Hartford, Connecticut

October 2009

An ever-increasing proportion of high school students in the United States today aspire to graduate from college. Yet statistics indicate that the percentage of college students receiving bachelorâ??s degrees has remained relatively constant over the past 25 years, that it now takes on average 6 years to get a four-year college degree, and that somewhere between 30 percent and 60 percent of students now require remedial education upon entry to college, depending on the type of instruction they attend. Also, over the past 25 years, SAT and ACT scores have risen only slightly in math and have been relatively constant in reading, high school grade point average has gradually risen, and the proportion of students taking college preparatory courses has grown as well. Given these statistics, what must be done to create a more aligned educational system that prepares students for college success? This paper tells you how.

The Advanced Placement Expansion project of the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) was one component of a large-scale initiative launched in 2005 to redesign the American high school.  Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maine, Nevada, and Wisconsinreceived funding to expand Advanced Placement (AP) courses to minority and low-income students at 51 pilot high schools in rural and urban school districts. The NGA Center, working in partnership with the College Board, has demonstrated that it is possible for states to raise rigor and get results at scale.

This paper focuses on the 10 actions that states should take to ensure that all stakeholders use state longitudinal data effectively for continuous improvement.

To inform policy and practice, the Office of Vocational and Adult Education of the U.S. Department of Education sponsored a study that examined six purposively selected dropout recovery programs. The purpose of the study was to explore how programs seek to engage and teach participants, to identify implementation challenges programs face, to understand how they seek to overcome these challenges, and to explore implications for policymakers, program practitioners, and researchers. The six programs selected for the study include three that prepare participants for a GED, two that prepare them for a high school diploma, and one that provides both GED and high school diploma options. All of these programs also offer participants some preparation for postsecondary education, training, or assistance finding jobs. Drawing on site visit interviews as well as outcome data, this report presents findings on five topics: (1) program goals and partners, (2) admissions and attendance policies, (3) instructional approaches and academic outcomes, (4) methods used to address participantsâ?? personal issues, and (5) strategies to prepare participants for postsecondary education and jobs. The report concludes with some observations about issues facing policymakers and practitioners, and with questions for future studies.
Authors: R. Buschmann, J. Haimson, Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. Prepared for the U.S. Dept. of Education Office of Vocational & Adult Education

This report by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University found that there is a wide variance in the quality of the nation's several thousand charter schools with, in the aggregate, students in charter schools not faring as well as students in traditional public schools. The report found that the academic success of students in charter schools was affected by the individual state policy environment. This report is the first detailed national assessment of charter school impacts since its longitudinal, student-level analysis covers more than 70 percent of the nation's students attending charter schools. The peer-reviewed analysis looks at student achievement growth on state achievement tests in both reading and math with controls for student demographics and eligibility for program support such as free or reduced-price lunch and special education. The analysis includes the most current student achievement data from 15 states (AR, AZ, CA, CO, FL, GA, IL, LA, MN, MO, NC, NM, OH, TX) and the District of Columbia and gauges whether students who attend charter schools fare better than if they would have attended a traditional public school. This link enables access to the executive summary, full report, technical appendix and press release.