WEBVTT 00:00:05.406 --> 00:00:06.476 Hello, I'm Mark Dynarski. 00:00:06.476 --> 00:00:10.356 I'm a Vice-President at Mathematica Policy Research here in Princeton, New Jersey. 00:00:10.856 --> 00:00:13.406 I'm also the Director of the What Works Clearinghouse, 00:00:13.466 --> 00:00:19.426 and I was the Chair of a Practice Guide Panel that looked at the dropout prevention problem 00:00:19.426 --> 00:00:22.216 and tried to recommend practices for educators to use 00:00:22.636 --> 00:00:25.366 that would be effective in tackling the dropout problem. 00:00:25.946 --> 00:00:32.676 Dropping out as a problem has proven to be quite of longstanding duration. 00:00:32.676 --> 00:00:36.446 It's about a half million kids a year who drop out of school. 00:00:36.946 --> 00:00:41.026 It has not changed very much in the last 20 to 30 years. 00:00:41.076 --> 00:00:44.346 The practices break down roughly into three categories. 00:00:44.416 --> 00:00:52.706 The first is what we think of is a diagnosis phase, which is that schools and educators need 00:00:52.706 --> 00:00:59.086 to understand how many dropouts they have, how many kids are leaving, why they are leaving. 00:00:59.356 --> 00:01:04.586 The practice that we're recommending is that schools and educators should use more 00:01:04.586 --> 00:01:10.386 of their data systems to develop a better understanding of how many kids are dropping out 00:01:10.386 --> 00:01:12.956 and also why they are dropping out. 00:01:13.416 --> 00:01:18.496 The panel really feels that the diagnostic phase here is really essential, 00:01:18.496 --> 00:01:24.476 that the other five practices essentially start from a good understanding from the data 00:01:24.476 --> 00:01:27.806 of the size of the problem and the kinds of kids 00:01:28.216 --> 00:01:30.406 in the school district who are likely to experience it. 00:01:31.696 --> 00:01:36.636 Now with respect to the other two categories of practice, 00:01:36.636 --> 00:01:42.326 we call one a targeted intervention approach and the other one a school-wide approach. 00:01:42.646 --> 00:01:45.306 These are differentiated by essentially the scale 00:01:45.306 --> 00:01:48.946 at which we see the intervention being undertaken. 00:01:49.426 --> 00:01:52.146 A targeted intervention can operate inside a school, 00:01:52.576 --> 00:01:56.636 focusing on a set of students for whom it's services are being delivered. 00:01:57.096 --> 00:02:02.786 One is assign an adult advocate for each of the students who are deemed at risk. 00:02:03.386 --> 00:02:09.186 There is actually very strong evidence about the effectiveness of having an adult advocate. 00:02:09.776 --> 00:02:11.866 They can intervene at all levels with these kids. 00:02:11.866 --> 00:02:14.306 They can intervene with their families; they can intervene in the community; 00:02:14.306 --> 00:02:19.216 they can intervene with other teachers, possibly understanding why students aren't doing well 00:02:19.216 --> 00:02:21.906 in classes or whether there's been personality disputes 00:02:21.906 --> 00:02:24.416 or other kinds of impediments to progress. 00:02:24.616 --> 00:02:29.336 The second of the targeted intervention practices that the panel recommends is 00:02:29.336 --> 00:02:31.826 to provide academic enrichment and support. 00:02:32.946 --> 00:02:39.736 This really has two sub-practices that we saw inside it. 00:02:39.736 --> 00:02:48.026 One is to provide remediation and support for things like how to take a test, how to study, 00:02:48.026 --> 00:02:54.136 how to properly set up the kinds of circumstances that enable young people 00:02:54.136 --> 00:02:57.016 to tackle their regular academic classwork. 00:02:57.696 --> 00:03:03.786 The second of the sub-practices under this is to actually try to develop ways for young people 00:03:03.786 --> 00:03:05.956 to catch up in school if they've fallen behind. 00:03:06.606 --> 00:03:11.736 The panel recommended that schools take steps to get them to accelerate their progress 00:03:11.736 --> 00:03:15.836 through school through-such as doubling up on curriculum and the like, 00:03:15.836 --> 00:03:18.156 so that they can catch up with their age peers, 00:03:19.136 --> 00:03:22.686 which helps to mitigate the kind of social pressure that young people feel 00:03:22.686 --> 00:03:25.736 if they are much older than their peers. 00:03:25.826 --> 00:03:31.036 The third of the targeted intervention recommendations is to focus on student behavior 00:03:31.036 --> 00:03:36.476 and on programs and services that can help young people tackle the kinds of issues that come 00:03:36.476 --> 00:03:38.626 up in social settings of high schools. 00:03:38.946 --> 00:03:41.346 So, this could be conflict resolution, for example; 00:03:42.016 --> 00:03:46.726 it could be programs that help to build social skills, 00:03:46.726 --> 00:03:49.396 that help people learn to interact and respect diversity. 00:03:49.866 --> 00:03:55.636 The next two recommendations are more about what we envision for whole-school reform. 00:03:56.056 --> 00:03:58.966 The first is to personalize the learning environment, 00:04:00.036 --> 00:04:04.276 and this is in a way an attempt to address large scale, 00:04:04.916 --> 00:04:08.866 or very large high schools may have-they may be overcrowded, 00:04:08.866 --> 00:04:11.276 there may be very large numbers of kids per class. 00:04:11.456 --> 00:04:16.276 And in these circumstances, young people may feel alienated, just a number, 00:04:16.745 --> 00:04:19.166 no one really pays any attention to them, 00:04:19.166 --> 00:04:21.315 no one really is caring whether they are learning or not. 00:04:21.396 --> 00:04:26.786 For example, team teaching, so two teachers are in the class interacting with young people; 00:04:27.716 --> 00:04:31.116 it could be it's just smaller class sizes, per se. 00:04:31.456 --> 00:04:35.916 The second of the school-wides, the schoolwide intervention strategies, 00:04:36.506 --> 00:04:45.006 is basically to think about helping students to be more forward-looking in their perspective 00:04:45.006 --> 00:04:51.736 about what it means to move on to what an educator would call postsecondary outcome. 00:04:52.116 --> 00:04:57.306 This could be, for example, exposing young people to career opportunities through job shadowing 00:04:57.306 --> 00:05:04.006 and other kinds of activities-help them see the workplace and help them find an identity 00:05:04.006 --> 00:05:06.666 of what they might want to do as they grow up. 00:05:07.316 --> 00:05:12.416 And then also, that for many young people college is, in fact, 00:05:12.486 --> 00:05:19.116 affordable and presents a great opportunity for furthering their education, 00:05:19.116 --> 00:05:22.426 and it's certainly going continue to be a big premium in the economy. 00:05:23.066 --> 00:05:26.636 And so taking them to colleges, helping them talk with counselors, 00:05:26.636 --> 00:05:30.606 understand that this is possible for them, can be a great motivating force. 00:05:30.796 --> 00:05:33.386 None of these practices really stands on their own. 00:05:34.036 --> 00:05:40.566 They are really designed for schools and educators to look at and say that some 00:05:40.566 --> 00:05:42.966 of these should be part of a strategy. 00:05:43.536 --> 00:05:47.446 It really depends a lot on the school's context, the size of the problem, 00:05:47.446 --> 00:05:51.386 the kinds of problems that the kids are facing, and the reasons why they're dropping out. 00:05:51.896 --> 00:05:55.556 You need the data to tell you what kinds of kids are the ones 00:05:55.556 --> 00:06:02.886 that you should be concerned about, and then use research as a way to become more attuned 00:06:02.886 --> 00:06:05.966 to what has been shown to work for those kinds of kids.