dropout initiatives

 More than half of all pre-kindergarten children do not have basic school readiness skills. 

  They cannot count to 10. They do not know the alphabet.

  And when they come into school without these basic skills, they are more likely to stay behind — and will drop out of school at a significantly higher rate than their peers. 

Want to serve at-risk students in Texas?

Under Texas Education Agency accountability standards, you'll have to maintain a dropout rate no higher than 20 percent, based on the number of students enrolled in one year who make it through to the next.

We’re all for accountability, but it's time to get real.

North Dakota officials are touting a lower dropout number last year from the state’s high schools.

The 10 percent drop in dropouts goes along with a new effort to address such problems, The Grand Fords Herald reported. 

As students, Chris Balme and Melia Dicker watched many of their peers disengage from their studies, their friends, their communities and their futures — all because they simply couldn't find anything that sparked their interest in school. Others, they saw, graduated high school — and then college — without knowing what they wanted to do, or how to do it, once they received their degree.

In the first wave of funding under a revitalized high school graduation initiative, the U.S. Department of Education is betting nearly $50 million that it can help states and school districts find better ways to hang onto students who might drop out — and to bring back those who already have, Education Week is reporting.