Description:

Beyond the Indicators provides an integrated framework that schools and districts can use to build a foundation to prevent students from dropping out.  Based on a tiered public health model, this framework provides universal and schoolwide practices designed to produce high attendance, positive behavior, and successful academic achievement for the majority of students.  It includes implementing early warning systems that identify students at risk of dropping out, and tiered interventions to insure that struggling students stay on track to graduate. 

The webinar (June 5, 2009) includes background information on developing an indicator system to identify students at-risk of dropping out, but goes beyond identification to offer a multi-tiered approach to keeping students in schools.

This report (August 2009) summarizes the research on why students drop out of school, explains the research implications for how to create an integrated dropout prevention strategy, and highlights an innovative pilot project that yielded results in a matter of months—a how-to example that works.

Authors:

Martha Mac Iver, research scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Everyone Graduates Center, is a political scientist who studies the effectiveness of school and district educational interventions designed to improve student achievement. She is currently leading a research initiative in Colorado aimed at curbing the dropout rate.

Douglas Mac Iver, principal research scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Everyone Graduates Center, studies how to change classrooms, schools, and districts in ways that make them more effective in promoting student learning and engagement. He is part of a research and development team that created the Talent Development Middle Grades Model, a whole-school reform model.