Leaving schools behind: when students drop out

According to the Children’s Defense Fund (2002), one high school student drops out every nine seconds. That’s an astounding statistic and here are a few more dropout facts: Students most likely to drop out come from Hispanic, African-American, Native American, and low-income backgrounds; live in single-parents homes, and attend large urban schools, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (2002). Dropout rates are highest among students with emotional and behavioral disabilities; half of those students dropped out of school in 1998-99, according to the U.S. Department of Education (2001).

“Dropout statistics are particularly alarming because jobs that pay living wages have virtually disappeared for youth without a high school diploma,” says Sandra Christenson, professor of school psychology in the College of Education and Human Development. She and colleagues have been studying school completion for more than 12 years, using a model they developed called Check & Connect.

How the research works

Check & Connect is an intervention program aimed at marginalized students who have been identified as at-risk for dropping out or school failure, including youth of all ages, with and without disabilities. It is designed to improve student engagement at school and with learning through relationship building, problem solving, and persistence. It has three main components:

• a mentor who works with students and families for a minimum of two years
• regular checks on school adjustment, behavior, and educational progress of students
• timely interventions to re-establish and maintain the students' connection to school and learning and to enhance students’ social and academic competence.

“Relationship building is the cornerstone,” Christenson says. “We have to build trust with both the student and the parents for the program to work. Another key element of the program is intervention that helps the student learn to solve problems and to cope and persist in the face of challenges. Mentors are a persistent source of academic motivation and reinforce a consistent message that education is important for the student’s future.”

Engagement is a key concept for promoting successful school completion, Christenson says. Engagement, in the sense she uses it, encompasses academic behavior, student behavior, cognition (value of education, relevance to future, self-regulation), and psychological (feeling that s/he belongs at school, relationships with teachers and peers). Engagement variables are within the power of families and educators to change; schools and parents can promote school completion.

What the research shows

Check & Connect reduces truancy. In one study, by the end of ninth grade, 91 percent of Check & Connect students versus 70 percent of the control group had persisted in school. Of the Check & Connect group, 68 percent were on track to complete high school within five years, versus 29 percent of the control group. Also, improved attendance rates for students in elementary schools have been demonstrated.

The students in the high school study were highly mobile. Only 10 percent of the 150 students attended the same school for four years and 25 percent attended as many as four schools in a single year. “Their determination to persist with school despite their situations makes these findings even more impressive,” Christenson says.

Check & Connect also has a positive impact on students’ involvement in findings  the right education program that will allow them to complete school and to take responsibility for their own learning. When 150 urban ninth graders were randomly assigned to Check & Connect groups and control groups and followed for four years, researchers found that the Check & Connect students were more likely to access alternative educational programs that better fit their needs and to be involved in their own educational planning.

What others say about this research

“I have been following Dr. Christenson’s research for over 15 years and am most impressed,” says Beth Doll, director of the school psychology program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. “Despite schools’ urgent need to keep students in school through graduation, most empirical research examines high school dropouts too late, in too cursory a fashion, and by focusing on variables that cannot be changed. Dr. Christenson’s research breaks this trend by examining students’ engagement in school beginning in the elementary grades, and by focusing on factors that families and schools can alter by working effectively together. Her emerging results are both encouraging and important.”

Jay Smink, director of the National Dropout Prevention Center at Clemson University, South Carolina, says, “Her continuing research and how it is used in real school environments is vitally important to our understanding of how to reduce the dropout rate. The impact of this research on daily school practices is tremendous and should continue to offer additional insights to program planners and school leaders for years.”

Christine Hurley, school psychologist in the Stillwater, Minn., school district, worked on Check & Connect research as a graduate student in the college and will be implementing some parts of Check & Connect practices with students in her schools. “A piece of Check & Connect that is invaluable is the idea of building a relationship between the mentor and student over time,” Hurley says. “That way no one falls through the cracks. If a student moves to a different school, the mentor follows. It’s also very important that the program focuses on the variables that can be changed. Some of the factors that lead to drop out are not malleable, others are, and those are the ones we work with.”

“The Check & Connect program is one of the few school dropout interventions with solid research to support its efficacy,” says Larry Kortering, professor of language, reading, and exceptionalities in the Reich College of Education, Appalachian State University. “The program, based on what we know about school drop out, utilizes a unique approach that includes an emphasis on personal support for each student and ongoing monitoring, while helping students to make better choices.”

Why this research matters

In a recent article, Christenson answers this question succinctly:

“The costs associated with the present incidence of school dropout are staggering and are estimated in the billions of dollars in lost revenues, welfare, unemployment, underemployment, crime prevention and prosecution (Christenson, Sinclair, Lehr, & Hurley, 2000). Given the consequences to society and to the individual, the importance of facilitating school completion for all students is a critical concern for researchers, policymakers, and educators across the country.”

For more information visit the Web site of Check & Connect.

March 2004