DOCUMENT RESUME

ED 301 621 UD 026 533

AUTHOR Smith, R. C.; Lincoln, Carol A.TITLE America's Shame, America's Hope: Twelve Million Youth

at Risk.INSTITUTION MDC, Inc., Chapel Hill, N.C.SPONS AGENCY Mott (C.S.) Foundation, Flint, Mich.PUB DATE 88

NOTE 71p.; For executive summary, see UD 026 532. Printedon colored paper.

PUB TYPE Reports - Research/Technical (143)

EDRS PRICE MF01/PC03 Plus Postage.DESCRIPTORS BaElc Skills; Bilingual Education Programs;

Compensatory Education; *Disadvantaged Youth;Dropouts; *Educational Change; Elementary SecondaryEducation; Federal Aid; *Federal Programs; *High RiskStudents; Low Income Groups; Minority Group Children;Outcomes of Education; Preschool Education; RemedialPrograms; Rural Youth; State Aid; *State Programs;Student Needs; *Urban Education

IDENTIFIERS Nation At Risk (L)

ABSTRACTThe undereducation of at-risk youth is a critical

issue overlooked by the education reform movement of the 1980s, asrepresented by the report, "A Nation At Risk." This group, whosemembers are predominantly economically, culturally, racially, andethnically disadvantaged, is leaving school unprepared for furthereducation or available work. Workers' lack of basic skills iscreating an inadequate labor force for the United States to competein a world economy. Three personal narratives illustrate typicalat-risk students. The Federal Government has decreased its financialcommitment to education. Federal support is required by the followinggroups: (1) low-income children in need of preschool education; (2)students in need of remediation; (3) children in need of bilingualeducation; and (4) youth in need of job training. A survey of 49states and the District of Columbia reported efforts in the followingareas: (1) early identification and remediation; (2) careerexploration and vocational education; (3) dropout prevention andschool-to-work transition; (4) dropout retrieval and second chanceprograms; and (5) equal funding. The barriers to assisting at-riskyouth are the following: (1) failure to perceive their need; (2)resistance to institutional change at the state and local levels; and(3) absence of leadership at the federal level. The appendicesinclude the following: (1) summaries of the reform efforts of 14states; (2) a chart of the Federal Program Budget Authorization byState, 1986 and 1987; and (3) a list of State contacts. A list ofresources is also included. (FMW)

************************************************************************ Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made *

* from the original document. *

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Table of Contents

Foreword by Dr Kenneth B Clark ii

Chapters

I Executive Summary 1

II. Young Americans on the Brink 9

III Two Steps Back What the Federal Government Isn't Doing 15

IV A Small Step for At-Risk Youth. What the States "re Doing 19

V. The Future. Can We Get There from Here? 36

Appendix

State Suin-naries 45

Federal Program Budget Authorizations by State, 1986, 1987 53

State Contacts 58

Resources 60

About the Panel and Authors 63

MDC, Inc. 65

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America's Shame, America's HopeTwelve Million Youth At Risk

This report is an inquiry into the education reformmovement of the 1980's with at-risk youth as the frameof reference. The Charles Stewart Mott Foundationasked MDC, Inc, to bring together a distinguishedpanel, knowledgeable in the field o. educating andtraining youth, and to launch a study of how at-riskyouth had fared in the education reform movementwhich began roughly with the publication of theNational Commission on Excellence in Education'sreport, A Nation At Risk, in 1983. This report waswritten by MDC staff R.C. Smith and Carol A. Lincolnwith the advice and review of the panel whose namesappear below.

Kenneth B. Clark, ChairmanKenneth B. Clark and Associates, Inc

Jane Lee J. EddyTaconic Foundation

Vilma S. MartinezMunger, Tolles and Olson, Los Angeles

Robert C. PennAnnie E. Casey Foundation

Frank J. SlobigYouth Service America

Franklin WilliamsPhelps-Stokes Foundation

The following served as fieldresearch associates for the study:Judy Chynoweth, Wayne Daves,James Lott, Jerry Mabe, Robert McPherson,Anthony Redwood, Ray Reis ler, Morton K. Sklar,and David M. Snedeker.

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IF

Foreword

Kenneth B ClarkChairman

The facts and the tragedy of millions of youth atrisk throughout America are made disturbingly clearby this report. It cites previous studies, reports,conferences, and programs designed to reduce theextent of the risks. What is equally clear, however, isthat in spite of these reports, discussions, andprograms, the number of youth at risk throughout thenation has not decreased, but, rather, has increased.

The problems related to at-risk youth appear to beintractable; yet while solutions evade our grasp, societyhas little difficulty diagnosing the versonal,educational, and related social profile of these youth.Reports define the problems in detail. It ic. generallyagreed that a disproportionate number of at-risk youthcome from the socially, racially, and economicallydisadvantaged groups in our society. They are seen asthe human detritus of the ongoing cycle of family andgroup deprivation. The symptoms of this deprivationare constantly negative, but attempts to understand,control, and remedy the causes of the problem aretantalizingly evasive.

As we seek to understand and cure the fundamentalunderlying problems of youth at risk, we areconfronted with the fact that society is not onlyreluctant to face, but, by its rejection, is responsible forperpetuating the problem. At-risk youth areconsciously or unconsciously perceived and treated asif they were expendable. The revelation of theirexpendability begins in the early stages of theireducation where they are subjected to inferior schoolsand low standards of learning. Early in their lives theyare programmed to be victims of the prophecy thatthey cannot benefit from the standards and qualitywhich are provided for children from more privilegedgroups. This pattern of inferior education, of lowstandards and expectations, continues throughsecondary school and culminates in failures, dropouts,and pushouts. The victims become aware that they areignored, rejected, and neglected, and that schoo's,which are the inescapable agents of society, are notpreparing them to play an economically and sociallyconstructive role. They are the unavoidable victims ofthe larger pattern of social, racial, and educationaldiscrimination.

Educational literature has been replete withrationalizations for why at-risk youth cannot be

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taught and cannot be held to normal standards ofachievement. Statements are made to the effect thatthe cultural deprivation of their families blocks theability of these young people to learn, and therefore,they cannot be expected to benefit from effectiveteaching. Earlier explanations for the educationalretardation of atrisk, rejected youth were that theywere genetically inferior. More recent diagnoses aremore sophisticated. Some educators now publiclystate that these young people have quite differentlearning styles" which interfere with their ability tobe taught basic academic subjects. These remain theunstable educational foundations that perpetuate thecycle of youth at iisk.

This mockery of democracy is not resolved by theoccasional programs seeking to help a few of thesestudents while ignoring the plight of theoverwhelming majority of them. It is difficult tounderstand how a society which claims to beconcerned with cost-effectiveness in its overalleconomy could, at the same time, continue to pay thehigh cost of producing increasing numbers of anunproductive underclass. An analysis of the ongoingproblem of at-risk and demeaned youth reveals thatthis most precious of all resources, human beings, isbeing damaged and wasted. The bulk of the youngpeople who are at risk are subjected to psychologicalgenocide. They are robbed of self-esteem and thecapacity to achieve. They are trivialized and relegated,at best, to ever decreasing job levels, and at worst, tocorrectional institutions whose per-capita cost is manytimes greater than the cost of effective education.

Instead of being encouraged to develop the qualitiesessential for a constructive role in a society, thewhole pattern of their life experience is one ofdiscouragement, despair, and internal and externalself-destruction. It is a remarkable achievement whenyoung people, born to these circumstances, can breakout and assume productive lives. Yet the verypresence of success stories shows that at-risk youthpresent not so much an intractable problem as agroup whose potential society chooses to ignore. Wecan rescue at-risk youth for lives of opportunity if wehave the will.

As one wrestles with this persistent cycle of humanand social degradation, one is confronted with a

fundamental proposition: The decisionmakers of oursociety and of our educational system do not identifyor empathize with these rejected youth. We showthem no respect nor the acceptance which is essentialfor them to develop as socialized human beings.

It appears that the very foundation of democracy isbeing corroded as our young people are consignedtoward America's form of social concentration campswithout walls. The plight of youth at risk will not beremedied until the social insensitivities of the largersociety are faced and eliminated. A society whichcontinues to erect excuses for abiding the educationalinferiority of less privileged young people isperpetuating the pattern of at-risk youth and thefundamental risks of the society as a whole.

This report challenges each of us to turn America'sshame into America's hope. All we need is the willto act.

Kenneth B. ClarkJuly 12, 1988

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America's Shame, America's HopeTwelve Million Youth At Risk

Sixth grader, Frank Fabars, painted "Self Portrait" while an art student at the North Central Center for Expressive Arts.The Center is a talent program housed at the Charles R. Drew Elementary School of the Dade County School District.Photo by Ryan Fike.

Chapter 1Executive Summary

Acrisis exists in the back rows of America's publicschool ciassrooms. It has so far eluded the fullattention of tl'e much-bruited education reformmovement of he 1980's. Yet its threat to our economicfuture, and to the lives of millions of American youth,is present, grave, and sure to become more costly tomeet, the longer we delay in meeting it.

The crisis is the undereducation of a body ofstylents presently constituting one in three in ourclassrooms, growing each year as a proportion of oureducable young. Dominant in this body are thechildren of povertyeconomically, culturally, racially,and ethnically disadvantaged. They have come to becalled youth "at risk" because they are at risk ofemerging from school unprepared for further educationor the kind of work there is to do. Often they areready only for lives of alienation and dependency.

They are said to be failing in school, and yet it isclear that it is we who are failing to educate them. Thedanger this failure of education poses to these youthand to all of us grows apace. It is best described first interms of the realities of today's and tomorrow's jobmarket and then in terms of the young Americans whowill be expected to fill these jobs.

By 1990, barely two years from now, three out offour jobs will require educational or technical trainingbeyond high school. Projections for the year 2000-12 years from noware that new jobs will require aworkforce whose median level of education is13.5 years. That means, on the average, that theworkers who fill these jobs will have to have somecollege training. Not to be the boss, mind you, but justto bring home a paycheck. Looked at another way, jobsin which a large proportion of workers have less thanfour years of high school are among the slowestgrowing and poorest paying in the economy, beingoutpaced by jobs requiring higher levels ofmathematics, language, and reasoning skillssmarterjobs, then, and far more of them. The private-sectordemand for employment is expected to reach156.6 millicn by 1990, nearly twice that of 1978.

Who will fill these jobs? Everything points to aserious labor shortage whose shadow is already uponus. The number of young people available for work isdeclining. In 1978, young people 16 to 24 years of agewere 23 percent of our total population. By 1995, theywill be only 16 percent. This translates to a decline ofabout four million. Already, labor shortages have beenreported and "help wanted" signs posted in store fronts;modem, retooled manufacturing plants; and serviceindustries.

Fewer youth, more unfilled jobsthat is theprospect. And of these youth. an increasingly higherpercentage will be minoritiesby the year 2000, oneout of every three Americans. The inescapableconclusion is that the youth who are at risk in schooltoday and tomorrow will have to help fill those jobs ifour economy is to continue to grow. Can they do it? Ifwe had to answer that question as matters stand today,we would have to agree with the most experienced andthoughtful people who have looked at this problem:The answer is no, not a chance.

The children of poverty, who make up adisproportionate percentage of the at-risk population,can truly be described as educationally neglected. Byvirtually every standardized test administered to 9thgraders and above, blacks and Hispanics score at70 percent of white scores. The average black 17-year-old reads at the same level as the average white13-year-old. As these disparities continue, we are indanger of creating the long-feared permanentunderclass of unemployed and working poor at thesame time we create whole new categories of jobs to gobegging. We are on the way to creating a soup-kitchenlabor force in a post-industrial economy.

The underclass has already begun to take form. Therate of dropping out of school has held steady at about25 percent since the 1960's. Yet the real, mean earningsof 20- to 24-year-old male dropouts declined 41.6 percent(from $11,210 to $6,552) between 1973 and 1984. Thedecline for Hispanic young men for the same periodwas 38.6 percent. The decline for young black maleswas 61.3 percent. Interestingly, in the same period,black male college graduates were able to raise theirincome by 16.6 percent. It is not difficult to see whythe gap between our wealthiest and poorest people isgreater than at any time since these statistics were firstkept in 1947. This depressing decline in earningcapacity for undereducated minorities already ismaking its ugly mark on family life, breaking uphomes, forestalling marriage. The truth is that manyyoung Americans no longer can afford to get married.And for too many of our youth, the easy money of thedrug world offers more incentive than our educationsystem. "If you are black, Hispanic, or Indian, and livein the inner cities of this nation," writes Richard Green,Chancellor of the New York City school system, "thereis about a 50-50 chance you will never have a long-term permanent career."

Minority youth make up the preponderance of thisgroup of at-risk youth, but they are not the wholestory. Studies have shown that the single common

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characteristic of at-risk youth is not race or economicdisadvantage, but low scores on tests of basic skillsreading, writing, and computing. One-half of all the1979 juniors who scored in the bottom fifth of theArmed Forces Qualification Test for 16- to 17-year-oldshad not graduated by 1981, whereas only 4 percent ofthose in the top fifth had not graduated. The authorsof the study that recently presented these figures,Gordon Berlin and Andrew Sum, observe:"If we want to reach the lowest-scoring dropouts whoconstitute the core of the dropout problem, WE mustaddress the syndrome that is the major cause of theirleaving school: low achievement, falling behind modalgrade, poor performance, and a sense that they cannotkeep up with their peers."

Each year, nearly one million youth drop out ofschool. A million dropouts per year means that today,within our pre-school and school-age population, thereare 12 million youngsters who will become dropouts bythe year 2000. While a modest numberperhaps2 millionmay earn equivalency diplomas by the timethey reach their twenties, the overwhelming odds arethat at least as many of our high school graduates willbe leaving school without the foundation necessary toobtain adequately paying and secure jobs.

We are not successfully reaching the majority of theseyouth. We are not successfully teaching basic skills ormotivating youth to learn them. The implications forthe youth are tragic as we have seen. The implicationsfor the nation may be no less so. David T. Kearns,chairman and chiet executive officer for Xerox, spokefor many American businessmen when he said: 'Thebasic skills in our workforceparticularly at the entrylevelare simply not good enough for the United Statesto compete in a world economyf

This report is an inquiry into the education reformmovement of the 1980's with at-risk youth as the frameof reference. The Charles Stewart Mott Foundationasked MDC, Inc., to bring together a distinguishedpanel, knowledgeable in the field of educating andtraining youth, and to launch a study of how at-riskyouth had fared in the educational-reform movementwhich began roughly with the publication of theNational Commission on Excellence in Education'sreport, A Nation At Risk, in 1983. The Foundationasked MDC and the panel to look at the federal role ineducation reform during the 1980's and to concentrateits efforts on a survey of how the states, which assumeprimary responsibility for education, were performing.This report was written by MDC staff with the adviceand review of the panel whose names appear elsewherein this report.

It is sometimes forgotten that in A Nation At Risk,the National Commission identified as a federal rolefocusing the national interest on education and helpingfund and support efforts to protect and promote thatinterest. Since the enactment of the Elementary andSecondary Education Act in 1965, the federal role inelementary and secondary education has been closelyidentified with youth who meet the definition of"at risk'=socio-economically disadvantaged, English-deficient, and physically and mentally handicapped.More recently, students who are homeless, victims ofabuse, substance abusers, and delinquents have beenadded to the list of youth drawing federal concern.

Yet, in the 1980'sthe very years in which publicrecognition of the depth of the problem has begun togrowthe federal commitment to education hasdeclined in real dellars by 23 percent. The federalshare of the total education bill has declined from8.95 percent in 1980 to 6.27 percent in 1987. Elsewherein this report, we examine the ways in which thatcommitment has shrunk. At present, the federalcommitment is sufficient only to serve:

One out of every five low-income children inneed of pre-school education.

Two out of every five children in need ofremediation.

One out of every four children in need ofbilingual education.

One out of every 20 youth in need of jobtraining.

What is tragic at this point beyond these dismalnumbers is the lack of any policy toward at-risk youth.It is as though they did not exist, or as though wereally did believe they are expendable, as Dr. KennethClark suggests in the foreword to this study. Despitewarnings from the private sector, from economists,from advocatesindeed, despite repeated publicwarnings from inside the administration itselfthere isno federal comprehension of the problem, no strategyfor its solution.

State and local spending for public schools, onthe other hand, has increased. State spending hasincreased 26 percent beyond inflation since 1980from$46.5 billion to $80.4 billion. Local dollars haveincreased 29 percentfrom $40 billion to $70.5 billion.The bulk of this money, however, has gone toimproving teacher salaries and lengthening the schoolday or school year. One study found that 43 states hadstrengthened high school graduation requirements,14 states had adopted some kind of "merit" pay, and37 had attempted to lure the best candidates among

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college students into teaching through scholarships andother incentives. The researcher who produced thesenumbers noted: "Although standards have been madetougher, only a handful of states have appropriatedadditional moneys for counseling and remediation forthose who will need assistance in reaching thesestandards:' Nobody would question the wisdom ofstates seeking better teachers and motivating them tosucceed. and most educators agree that standards in theclassroom need to be higher. But enacting "instant"stricter standards without helping students alreadybehind meet them can only be regarded as folly.

And that is exactly what we have been doing. TerrelH. Bell, former Secretary of Education and the manunder whose administration A Nation At Risk waswritten, recently observed that the school reformmovement is benefiting 70 percent of the students. 'Theother 30 percent are low-income, minority students andwe are still not effectively educating them:'

Our report confirms this finding. We estimate thatonly 5 percent of state education funds arebeing used specifically for service to at-risk youth.Furthermore, there is evidence in this report that someeducational reforms actually are harming at-risk youth.

In late 1987 and early 1988, we surveyed each of thestates to get a sense of where they were with regard tothe broad spectrum of programs for at-risk youth.Based on the results of that survey, we placed the stateson a four-phase continuum beginning with bareawareness of the problem and culminating withimplementation of a state-wide program for at-riskyouth. That continuum, which can be seen as thevarious stages, or phases, of development of servicesfor at-risk youth, is detailed in Chapter IV.

When MDC surveyed the states' Excellence-in-Education commissions spawned by the A Nation AtRisk report in 1985, we found what we thought was anappalling lack of awareness of at-risk youth in thesebodies. Only 15 of the 54 commissions respondingfrom 32 states had so much as one recommendation foreducational reform aimed at a group that could bedescribed as at risk. We were told, however, intelephone conversations with commission staff andmembers, and other educators, that the statesthemselves were farther ahead. However that may be,our survey now suggests that while all of the stateshave moved into the earliest phase of activity(Awareness), only 14California, Connecticut,Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota,New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas,Washington, and Wisconsincan safely be said to have

reached the second phase of Action. Another 11Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Indiana, Kentucky,Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina,Ohio, and South Carolinaare showing real progresstoward the Action Phase. So, in effect, half of thestates at thi, pointnearing the end of this decade offocus on and funding for excellence in educationarebarely aware of the existence of a problem with at-riskyouth. Based on these results and those of ourexamination of federal involvement in the schools, wepresent findings and recommendations.

Former Secretary of Education William J. Bennett, ina recent report on the educational reform movement,handed out the grade of C+ to the schools but wenton to say that the nation remains at risk. "The absolutelevel at which our improvements are taking place isunacceptably low;' he wrote. 'Too many students donot graduate from our high schools and too many ofthose who do graduate have been poorly educated...Good schools for the disadvantaged and minoritychildren are too rare, and the dropout rate amongblack and Hispanic youth in many of our inner cities isperilously high:'

A level of improvements "unacceptably low" and adropout rate for minorities "perilously high" seem to usto describe what we have seen with regard to servicefor at-risk youth in the American public schools. Wewould agree that the nation remains deeply at risk. Wewould further submit that too many of our youth arealready beyond risk. We could not give the states ofthis nation a passing grade for what has been done foryouth at risk up to now. We would have to hand outan F. At the bottom of the states' report card, we mightwrite: "Still failing but at least beginning to payattention in class:'

For the federal government's own recent stewardshipof the problem we can think of no appropriate grade.'Absent" is he school term that comes most readilyto mind.

One of the more frustrating aspects of our currentdilemma is that if one looks closely at the states, andat the processes and programs in place, it becomesclear that in many places progress is being made, someof it dramatic. It also is clear that we know how toteach at-risk youth and that the means to this end turnout to work for all youth. In our report, you will meeta few young people who have experienced failure andare beginning to experience success. Sadly, many othershave come out of the school systems of our country

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with little more than vague and likely vain hopes.We also have a look at alternative school programsthat work in one of the numerous Americancommunities in which programs like these function.

If we know what to do for our at-risk youthif weknow how to educate American youth bettercan weafford to do it? We are convinced that the mostformidable barriers to assisting at-risk youth do notconcern lack of money but failure to perceive them asin need of specific long-term attention, resistance toinstitutional change at the state and local levels, and anabsence of genuine leadership at the federal level.

That is not to say that money is not an issue.Everything costs money and quality education is noexception. But unlike expenditures for the concrete tobuild roads or the armor for defense, expenditures foreaucation carry a systematic array of expandingsocietal benefits from one generation to another, whilethe failure to spend carries penalties of a severe sort,penalties which we have Seen paying exorbitantly inrecent years. They attach to the quality of life inAmerica, social as well as economic. But, bythemse. yes, the economic benefits of real schoolreform to all of us are worth a look.

The Hudson Institute notes: "If every child whoreaches the age of 17 between now and the year 2000could read sophisticated materials, write clearly, speakarticulately, and solve complex problems requirirgalgebra and statistics, the American economy couldeasily ar?roach or exceed the 4 percent growth of theboom scenario. Unconstrained by shortages ofcompetent, well-educated workers, American industrywould be able to expand and develop as rapidly asworld markets would allow. Boosted by theproductivity of a well-qualified work force, U.S.-basedcompanies would reassert historic American leadershipin old and new industries and the American workerswould enjoy :Fe rising standards of living they enjoyedin the 1950's and 1960's:'

Clearly, the national economic gains would beexponential. Each of us would share in the benefits ofa healthy, expanding economy. Seen this way, theinvestment in a better, quality education for all youngAmericans is probably the soundest one this nationcould make. Against this order of benefits, theincreased educational costs are beggared.

Even if we take the narrower view, focusingeconomically only on the young people themselves, thebright and dark sides of the coin for all of us show insharp relief.

The 973,000 dropouts from the nation's highschools in 1981 will lose $228 billion in personalearnings over their lifetime, while society willlose $68.4 billion in taxes.

On the other hand, the Committee for EconomicDevelopment found that every $1 spent on earlyprevention and intervention can save $4.74 incosts of remedial education, welfare, and crimefurther down the road. If we could but raise themean-tested skills of our nation's 19- to 23-year-olds by one grade equivalenta goal that wouldbe considered within reach for any computer-assisted remediation program in the country in50 hourslifetime earnings would increase by3.6 percent, according to researchers Berlin andSum, "and the likelihood of births out ofwedlock, welfare dependency, and arrests woulddecline by 6.5 percent, 5.2 percent, and6.2 percent respectively:'

It is against this backdrop of cost, wasted money,cost, wasted people, and more cost, that we must lookat a greater investment in our school system. The realquestion is what would it cost us to eliminate some ormuch of this unconsionable waste? Or, to put itanother way, how much are we willing to pay now toavoid paying almost five times as much later?

The William T. Grant Foundation Commission onWork, Family, and Citizenship has recommended thatthe federal government invest in at-risk youth anadditional $5 billion annually over the next 10 years toserve between three and four million additional youtheach year. If this expenditure of $50 billion were to beinvested, it would still be less than society's loss of taxdollars from dropouts in a single school year over theseyouths' lifetime.

We are talking common economic sense here, but weare also talking about equity. In the 1970's, when statebudgets were fatter, a major consideration in educationwas equitythe need to assist the poorer schooldistricts with the bigger burden of economicallydisadvantaged students. In the 1980's, the emphasis hasbeen on excellence in education. But too often, it is asthough we had forgotten equity considerations entirely.The bulk of the new money that has gone intoeducational reform has not been distributed throughequalization formulas. Only a handful of states haveadopted policies for targeting scarce at-risk-youth fundsto districts with the greatest need.

An example of the pernicious nature of this failureof equity is the distribution of computers in our public

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schools today. While teacher tutoring, peer tutoring,and various other components including smaller classsize must be in place for a successful remediationprogram, computer-assisted remediation has proveditself with at-risk adults and youth inside and outsidethe classroom. Yet a recent survey by the EducationalTesting Service shows that only a small percentage ofcomputers in schools are being used directly forteaching basic academic skills, and that these arepreponderantly in the wealthier school districts ratherthan in the poorer ones where they are more needed.

The time has come for us to marry the equityconsiderations of the 1970's with the Excellence-in-Education concerns of the 1980's and begin educating ina way intended to reach every American youth insteadof only those lucky, advantaged ones in the front rows.

Inequities on the order discussed here raise thequestion of whether our at-risk youth are consideredexpendable by the society into which they have beenborn. Every bit of evidence we have seen goes to theconclusion that most at-risk youth can learn and willlearn, given patience, the proper opportunity, and theright tools. And, perhaps, great expectations from askillful teacher. Jaime Escalante, whose high schoolstudents from a Los Angeles barrio have been routinelypassing Advanced Placement calculus exams for severalyears now, is a fine teacher, but he is not alone. Wehave the teachers, wt_ have the tools; db we havethe will?

We have not shown that we do. The ReaganAdministration set as a national goal a 90 percentgraduation rate by 1990. In 1982, the nationalgraduation rate was 69.7 percent. The nationalgraduation rate for 1986 was 71.5 percent, a bare twopercentage points higher than it had been tour yearsbefore. And these were years in which the federalcommitment to education declined.

Do we have the public will to make this possible?The time is propitious. In most polls, the public hasdemonstrated a willingness to support the cost of aquality education system. And in polls conducted overthe last year, two out of three Americans said theywanted the federal government to be very involved inhelping people get an affordable education.

In truth, we all bear a burden for action. Asbusinesspersons and workers, as parents, as citizens,we all owe awareness and the willingness to act tosolve the complex of problems put forth here. Actingfor the future of our youth is not a spectator sport.While the burden of this report goes to what happens

inside the schools, education is a community affair.Significant change will not occur until parents givewilling educators their support, and until we asAmericanswhatever our race, gender, or age --seeour own future and our country's future in the eyes ofall American children.

The states have taken a small step forward toward afuture in which this nation ceases to treat a largeportion of its youth as though they were expendable.Yet much remains to be done and time is short. Weneed a leap forward, a movement of saving grace forthese young people of ours, a tender of this country'sregard for its youth no less than for the survival of itseconomic leadership. The time is now. Thisopportunity will not come again, nor, perhaps, willanother half as full of hope.

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Findings

Awareness that the problems of at-risk youth cannot be solved solely by measures designed to assistadvantaged youth has grown among the educational and political leadership of the states.

Discrete, scattered initiatives on behalf of at-risk youth can be found in all of the states, but often theyare funded on a pilot basis without guarantees that success will result in funding for either continuationor replication.

Although data exist on various sub-categories of at-risk youth, differences in collecting style make itimp..Isible to add the numbers to arrive at an estimate of the size of the at-risk population in each state.

While 45 states report having legislation bearing on the problems of one or more sub-groups of the at-risk population, most of it is piecemeal in nature, typically supporting a limited number of pilotprograms. Funding for programs specifically targeted to at-risk youth rarely exceeds 5 percent of stateeducation expenditures or affects more than 10 percent of the at-risk population.

While policy statements from commissions, task forces, governors' offices, or state educationdepartments can be found in 23 states in either draft or final form, no single state has an overarchingpolicy addressed to at-risk, school-age youth.

Lack of public concern for the problems of at-risk youth stands as a barrier to building comprehensiveapproaches to serving them.

The potential to serve at-risk youth through the federally fuzided Job Training Partnership Actthenation's current national effort at job training and employmenthas not been fully realized in themajority of the states. Nevertheless, national funding for JTPA is insOficient to reach more than a smallpercentage of at-risk youth.

In many states, information about programs for at-risk youth is not shared well at the state level orbetw .en the state and !oval levels.

Although state funding for education has increased since 1980, resources continue to be useddisproportionately for students who begin their education better off.

The at-risk problem is both an urban and rural problem. In the cities, funding cutbacks have worseneda grim situation and in rural areas of the South, Southwest, and Wzst, little is in place to serve at-riskyouth.

Little real evaluation or monitoring is being undertaken on progams for at-risk youth outside thelimited scope of nationally sponsored demonstrations. In consequence, while many interesting-soundingprograms exist, little information is available upon which to base judgments of effectiveness.

Evidence mounts that certain features of the Excellence-in-Education movement are contributing to thedropout Problem

The educational-excellence reform movement has largely overlooked the need to modify instructionaltechniques for at-risk youth.

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Recommendations

That Congress and the President restore the federal partnership in education by increasing the federalfunding commitment to at least 10 percent of all expenditures for pre-school, elementary, and secondaryeducation (at current levels, this would translate to an increase in federal expenditures fromapproximately $10 billion to nearly $18 billion) and that the additional funds be earmarked forprograms and services directly affecting at-risk youth.

That Congress pass legislation charging the Department of Education with responsibility and authorityfor coordinating and managing the federal government's response to the at-risk problem, including thedevelopment of a common definition of "at-risk youth" to be used in designing and targeting futureprograms. This legislation should establish a data base for purposes of documentation, monitoring, andevaluation, and Congress should provide sufficient funds to enable the Department of Education topromote widespread replication of successful program strategies for at-risk youth.

That the Department of Education undertake an analysis of the unintended and negative consequencesfor at-risk youth of current education reform and existing job training and vocational programs, andreport the results and recommendations for change to Congress by September, 1989.

That the White House lead a national crusade to make sure that the equity considerations of the 1970',are joined with the excellence in education concerns of the 1980's in a campaign to raise the educationalattainment level in our public schools for all of our children.

That every governor who has not already done so establish a special standing commission on at-riskyouth to investigate the nature of the problem in the state, examine the unintended consequences for at-risk youth of current state education reform and job-training policy, and recommend a concertedprogram of action that includes clear and progressively challenging goals for addressing the problemsimilar to the continuum of effort described in this report. The membership of the commission shouldinclude representatives from all state agencies serving at-risk youth, business and industry, localschools, parents' groups, community-based organizations, and the public. Governors in states wheresuch a commission or task force is already in place should review membership to assure representationof each of these groups.

That governors vest responsibility in and provide resources to a single cabinet-level agency or arm ofstate government to implement and coordinate the recommendations produced by the standingcommissions.

That as part of its work, each state commission/responsible agency undertake a campaign to make thepublic aware of the needs of at-risk youth and the danger this failure of education poses to the state'sand the nation's future.

That this campaign also include a program to educate schools, Private Industry Councils, andcommunity organizations about federal, state, and local programs and practices already in place for at-risk youth and about models of cooperative intervention.

That each state legislature pass comprehensive legislation establishing state policy for meeting theeducational needs of at-risk youth and for increasing the graduation rate each year until it reaches90 percent. Until the graduation rate equals or exceeds this 90 percent, 60 percent of each new statedollar earmarked for education should be spent for instruction and services for at-risk youth and thelocalities should match this level of effort wherever possible.

That the commissioner or superintendent of education of each state develop recommendations for thestate board and the legislature on ways to facilitate the restructuring of the schools to better meet theneeds of at-risk youth, and that the legislatures provide incentives to local districts to carry outrestructuring measures that will benefit the neediest students in the district.

That the governor and legislature of each state develop measures that will assure equity betwevn richerand poorer school districts in the distribution of funds targeted for educational reform.

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8

Chapter IIYoung Americans on the Brink

Drop in on any city or town, and say that you wantto talk with the kids who are struggling to make it inschool, or who have dropped out, and you will besquired around to a great variety of programs. You willsee effort and some success, too. You will feel thestruggle going on for the future of these youngAmericansyou will feel also the despair goodteachers feel for the multitude of young people who arenot here, not there, not really anywhere.

The names and faces of these kids are similar, cityby city; their stories are similar, as well. If the term "at-risk youth" is familiar, you will recognize those whosestories are briefly told in this chapter. If not, you mayfindwhether or not to your surprisethat these areyour children, too.

Here are three young persons who happen to befrom Albuquerque, New Mexico, but whoseexperiences are typical of many of the nation's youthwho are on the brink. They include both slow and ablelearners, minorities and whites, girls and boys. Thesethree are actually luckier than most of the nation's at-risk youth, because they live in a generally progressivecity of 350,300 with a reputation for having a goodsafety net of programs for youth. Although there is atendency to think that the at-risk youth problem affectsonly megalopolises where it is compounded by sheerweight of numbers, thousands of at-risk youth live insmall and mid-sized towns and in rural outlies; theyare as much in need as youth living anywhere else.And while the nation's 14 largest school districtsNewYork City; Los Angeles; Chicago; Miami (DadeCounty); Philadelphia; Houston; Detroit; Honolulu;Dallas; Fort Lauderdale (Broward County); FairfaxCounty, Virginia; Tampa (Hillsborough County);Baltimore; and San Diegofrequently have adisproportionate number of dropouts, theynevertheless account for only 9 percent of the nation'spublic elementary and secondary enrollment. Wemight have gone to a dozen other cities north, east,south, or west to find what we found one day inAlbuquerque, where we met Carlos, Susan, andMatthew, three youth at risk who had been pulledback from the brink.

Carlos

Slim, animated, a speaker by nature, full of gracefulhand gestures, eyebrow punctuations, expressivelanguage, Carlos was a problem to his high school. Ashe sees it, his high school was a problem to him, aswell. Carlos did not like what he felt was the lockstep

regimentation of the school; for their part, the school'sadministrators did not like the way Carlos washandling the everyday discipline of school life. It was aserious conflict of style between them.

'1 was getting good grades, you see. I always gotpretty good grades, from way back in school. So Iwould say, one day, this is the day I will not go toschool. Then the next clay I would be back and theywould be on my case and I would tell them, o.k., I willmake it up. How can I make it up? They kept sayingno, you don't see, you are missing these days. Notmany days, now, you see, but it was a big deal to themeven though I was keeping up the work and gettinggood grades.

"Well, I got thrown out once and I thought, well, Igot to get back in because, you know, that's the wayschool is. They had me believing that it had to be thatway and I came back. So what happens next? I got intoan argument with an assistant principal. Well, it wasover some of the same kinds of things. And I was outagain, just like that. So I had worked in the summer asa cook, but my mother wanted me to get back inschool. Hey, I wanted to get back in school. Notwanting to be in school is not my problem, believe me:'

Carlos talks about cooking with a passion that isinfectious. "I love it. It is hard, but it is good. I havebeen cooking since I was in the 8th grade. You use youreye, your ear, your sense of smell. Everything comesinto play. You must learn how to make your saucescome up right, consistently, every time. You do thiswith one hand and you are doing two other thingswith your other hand. Pressure? Yes, it is pressure. Youhave to learn how to deal with it. If you love cooking,you deal with it. If it's too much, sometimes you blowit. The waitresses are hollering for their orders andsometimes you blow it and you have to sit downsomewhere and cool it for a while... then you are o.k.again and you apologize to the waitress and you can goback at it. But you learn to keep your ccol. You mustbe ready. Your stove must shine. You must learn tohandle the grease blisters and the standing up and themoving and doing three things at once. A cook doeseverything. If a customer is out there and needs a glassof water and the waitresses are busy, it's your job to getout there and put that water on the table. Everything.Whatever is needed. Yes, I love it:'

If you have had four brothers and three sisters, allgrown now, and you have lived in the South Valley inAlbuquerque all of your life, you know about theSchool on Wheels. It is a school for the kids who are,for whatever reason, out of school. Carlos called. He

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was told to keep calling, every day, until there was anopening. He did. Then one day he was told to showup the next morning.

"I could see it was different right away. Everybodywas so nice. Classes are small-.v. Students have a rightto speak and help resolve things. Everybody respectsyou. Everybody is on a first name basis. You don'thave a hassle. If you don't feel good, you can gohome and come back tomorrow and get it done."

Carlos is 18 now and has moved out of hismother's family's house. HP will graduate next yearwith a high school diploma. He is cooking in a localrestaurant for $4 an hour. One of his teachers told usthat on a bad day not so long ago, Carlos thoughtabout quitting high school, worried that he wouldnot find a college where he could learn to be a chef.She took him to a computer terminal in the school,where they called up several such institutions rightthere in Albuquerque. In the School on Wheels,teachers develop jobs or find additional sources ofeducation for their children, hang in there with themuntil the kids are placed. That is a3 important tothem as seeing that the kids graduate.

Susan

Susan's father has been in and out of prison sinceshe was a little girl. This is not something that youfind out right away, but only after talking with hefor a while. Susan's mother works in a factory, andshe would let Susan deliver her to her job and thentake the car on to school. Only Susan didn't go toschool. She was in the 10th grade and had no creditstoward graduating. She and her friends had a knackfor trouble, though, and were constantly exercising it.She remembers the Susan of tho..! days:

"I had a horrible attitude. It was like I didn't careabout myself or anyone else. I used to argue with mygrandparents terribly and they were just trying tohelp me. It hurts me now to think of that. I know Iwas at fault, but it is true that the teachers in thatschool I was going to did not care if you stayed orwent, it was all the same to them. I don't think itmattered a bit whether I got kicked out or droppedout. One day I wasn't there. That was it."

The South Valley grapevine identified School onWheels to Susan, and she took to it immediately. "Itwas like a family community. My teacher, I call hermy second mother. We go at it a lot, she and I. I'veonly told her I was going to leave her class two

times. (Laughs.) But I love her. It's like everyone hereis your friend. I'm much more responsible now. If itwasn't for School on Wheels, I would be nowhere, Iwould be a dropout."

A pretty girl with her brownish hair tied back onher head, Susan fell in love and gave birth to adaughter two years ago. "I wish I could have waited.We were going to get married. I thought it wasforever. (Shrugs.) I know it's me now, nobody elsebut me. If I want things for me and my daughter, it'sall on me. That's o.k."

Life is better now for Susan. Her mother hasremarried, and Susan respects her stepfather. She andher daughter live with them. It is three years sinceshe first came to School on Wheels. She is workingnow as a receptionist and wants to be a childpsychologist. "I've been through a lot of things, andI've seen a lot of hurt, and I want to be able to helpother kids who are confused and in trouble. I want tomake it better for them than it was for me:'

We talked with Susan in the principal's office whilehe tended to business elsewhere. On his desk was asimple nameplate. It said Felipe. He came back afterthe interview and talked with us. Felipe Perea is arelaxed, smiling man who likes to talk about whatthe school does. It really isn't a school on wheels atall, but a solid, deceptively large building, the lastadobe building in the Albuquerque school system. Itis called a school on wheels because the students needwheels of some sortbikes or cars to get to theirjobs in the afternoon. Classwork in the morning, andjobs in the afternoona pretty good prescription itseems to us after many years of looking at school-to-work transition for kids in need of confidence in thework world as well as academic success. Dropoutsand potential dropouts are the specific province ofthis school. Its academic side is funded by theAlbuquerque Public Schools and its job side isfunded by the federal Job Training Partnership Act.

Mr. Perea explains that students are referred to theschool by administrators in the regular high schoolsystem. Every six weeks new students are enrolled.There are no letter grades, no failures, no dress code.Perhaps because the kids are even allowed to weargang insignia if they really want to, nobody does.Credit is given for school and work, and every sixweeks there is an evaluation of progress.

The goal is a high school diploma. In New Mexico,up until this year, diplomas have been awarded attwo levels, one a simple diploma indicating that the

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required work was done, and another a "gold seal"diploma indicating passage of a proficiency exam.This year the legislature has imposed a competencyexamination that Perea and others consider far moredifficult than the old proficiency examination. "It'sgot chemistry, geometry, some pretty advancedmathematics; it's designed for high school studentspreparing for college:' The kicker is that if you don'tpass this exam, you don't get a diploma at all. Pereainvited local legislators in to visit the School onWheels recently, and they admitted that they had notthought of this school population at all in ccimectionwith the bill.

Perea points out that the Albuquerque publicschool system has a 20 percent dropout ratepresentlyhis own school has a 25 percent rate butthat is, remember, with kids who are alreadydropouts. He is concerned that the rate will be greaterwith the new exam. 'We have to ask ourselves, if weare going to make it harder for these kids tograduate, are we also going to make it possible forthem to reach the point of graduation;' Perea says.

Matthew

Matthew is a slow study, quiet, a bit shy, not oneto create problems for himself or others. He came infrom his job to talk with us and seemed ill at ease atfirst, loosening up gradually. Matthew's trouble wasthat he was slow in school, at least compared to therest in his class in the South Broadway section oftown, where many of Albuquerque's poor blacks live.He was all right in his freshman year in high school,but the water got deep suddenly after that andMatthew dropped out. His sister, employed in foodservice in a local hospital, latched onto him and senthim where she herself had gone, to the YouthDevelopment, Inc., Walter Street Alternative school,where preparation is for a General EducationalDevelopment (GED) diploma. More specifically, shesent him to Janet Schaffer, an effusive, outspokeninstructor who feels that the kid hasn't been born yetthat she can't teach.

Many of the pupils who learn in the ramblingbuilding where she teaches are adjudicated youth,7th, 8th, and 9th grade dropouts who have been introuble with the law. They have failed in school andare told that they are failing in society. "The firstthing they have to learn," she says, "is that they arenot just a piece of junk (she used another word) andthat they matter. They find out right away that they

matter to me. That's something;' she grinned. "Notmud, maybe, but something:'

Matthew dropped out in the 10th grade but MissSchaffer thinks he should never have made it out ofthe 7th. We went over some multiplication exerciseshe did when he first came to this alternative school,and she showed how he customarily reversed thenumber to total and the number to carry. "I stoodhere with him and held his hand and told him thathe would get that right if it took so long that weboth turned into statues," she said. And he got itright. That's individual instruction:' She beamed aproud and at the same time self-deprecatory grin. "Ido individual instruction:'

Slowly, Matthew began to edge ahead. He had thegood example of his sister, another of the 10 childrenliving in this single-parent family, a sweet girl, shylike Matthew, who blossomed under Miss Schaffer.And he had some motivation supplied by a brotherwho joined the Army and is a sergeant stationed inEl Paso, Texas. His mother works as a maid andcounts it as a blessing when one of her childrenmoves up and out of South Broadway. "It was a niceplace to live until a couple of years ago;' Matthewsays. "Now we have people getting shot and stabbed.Money and drugs:'

Miss Sc laffer has a different kind of concern, onethat dovetailed with Perea's, although we talked withthe two separately and without either knowing wewere talking with the other. "They are changing therules on us;' she said. "Beginning in August, as Iunderstand it, they will be requiring a 200-word essayfor the GED. If I tell these kids they have to do that,I will have a lot of stomachaches on my hands. I'vegot some tough cases here, and I'm afraid I will losesome of them:'

The theme of "losing" kids ran through ourconversations here, as in other metropolitan areas wevisited. Miss Schaffer pointed out that a lot of herstudents live in group homes in the area. "We have aclass& runaway group here. One kid got his GED oneday and ran away again the next. We don't want tolose any more of them than we can help. And wedon't want them to struggle and succeed and thenblow it all on some essay. Me? Oh, I'm coaching theessay already:'

Carlos, Susan, and Matthew are success stories, butthere are far more losses than gains in dealing withdropouts and pushouts from the public schoolsystem. The big area of loss is from the 10th grade

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dropout wave. Public schools can't seem to help theseyouth and alternative schools are too few; besides,few of these kids are savvy enough to realize that thealternative schools are different, that they will becoached and helped, and that they can go on and geta diploma. Each kid needs a "connection" to furtherschooling. Most don't find it, at least not for a longwhile. In 1985, over half of the 25-year-olds who haddropped out of school as teen-agers still had noequivalency diploma.

We asked the young people we talked with whatthey would do to make regular school moreresponsive to the needs of similar students. Whileeach had the kind of personal variation you mightexpect, each also mentioned smaller classes and moreindividual attention. "It's not really the teachers'fault;' we heard more than once. 'They areoverwhelmed by numbers." Albuquerque's MissSchaffer, like other individual instruction teachers wehave talked with around the country, does not thinkthat the necessary help has to break the budgetarybank. "If you take a class of 30, figure that six needspecial help. Fifteen minutes a day. I could do fiveclasses of these kids a day, 30 kids. If we were doingthat early enough, we wouldn't have all these basketcases coming up to the 9th and 10th grades. Matthewwould have been able to make it in regular school.Fifteen more kids who dropped out and disappearedwould have been able to make it too:' The idea seemseminently reasonable, especially in the light of recentstudies that show that in regular classrooms studentsare actually engaged in learning only about 12 of the45-50 minutes of the class because of the distractionscaused by classmates, interruptions forannouncements, roll call, directions from the teachers,and the like.

What of the tools of modern technology? TheSchool on Wheels has a computer library where thestudents go to do individualized, self - paced, openentry and open exit learning. They go as fast as theycan and are not pushed beyond their depth. Nobodyfails; some succeed sooner than others. Miss Schafferis one of those no-nonsense individual instructorswho make sure that you know that she believes thatthe computer is just "another tool" and no substitutefor the teacher. Still, she has a new bank of Apple Itsin her classroom and a youth banged happily awayon one of these all during our conversation. Then,with a characteristic burst of enthusiasm, she brokeout an instruction book for her new computers toshow us: Guided Reading Program. 'With this baby:she said, "I just may be able to take learning

disability kids and make real progress with them."

Carlos, Susan, and Matthew are among the luckyones. It takes no special effort to go into an Americancity and find sadder stories. In one Southeastern city,we found a 28-year-old grandmother and a highschool where only one of the 101 students takingcollege boards scored high enough to qualify forentrance to public four-year, post-secondaryinstitutions. Examples of teen-aged suicides related insome way to perceived failure in school are equallyeasy to find. More often, however, the at-risk youthwho falls through the net winds up on the fringe, theoutskirts of society, with nothing much going for himor her. These are the big majority of at-risk youth.Nothing was so telling in our visit to Albuquerque asthe information that perhaps only one of 15 of thehigh school dropouts ended up in an alternativeschool situation. If all of these kids around thecountry are seen as failing in regular school, andmare who could succeed in an alternative situationcannot be placed there, then who is failing whom?And who speaks now for the many, many youth whofall through the net and land, fully grown, in acountry so familiar but at once so alien, that hasnothing for them?

How do we go about defining America's at-riskyouth, and how many of them are there? Definitionsabound, but there is consensus, leaving mostlydifferences that are not really distinctions. Potentialcandidates for at-risk status are economically oreducationally disadvantaged youth. They are teenmothers, limited English-speaking students,handicapped students, truants, juvenile offenders,substance abusers, minorities, children from single-parent homes, victims of abuse, migrants, andhomeless children.

We think that anyone's child can be at risk, if his orher learning styles are not those of the majority. But itis clear as well that the biggest group of at-risk youthare the children of poverty, and that of this group,minorities are preponderant. In 1985, 68.6 percent ofall 15- to 24-year-olds living in poverty were white,but this is changing, with blacks living in povertybecoming a greater part of the total and Hispanicsmoving even faster into the slipstream of poverty. Bythe year 2000, Hispanics, who are generally far behindin terms of literacy (given the nature of languagedifferences) and skills, will be the largest singleminority in the population, ranging from 25 to 30million, 11 percent of the total population.

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Hispanics are the youngest and fastest growingpopulation in the nation, with almost one-third oftheir total population under 15 and two-thirds under34. Many schools have been unready for the biginflux of Hispanic students, with few Hispanicprofessionals on hand to assist non-Hispanicprofessionals in understanding the needs andaspirations of Hispanic children. Additionally manyHispanic children are not placed in strong academicprograms, but in general or vocational programs,often with no real attention paid to their aspirationsor capacity. It is small wonder that the nationalHispanic dropout rate is 39.9 percent.

Migrant students, virtually all minority, often aresaddled with the triple disadvantage of poverty, poorEnglish capability, and constant mobility. They dropout of school at a rate unparalleled by any othergroup in the countryabout 50 percentand usuallyfall into a pattern of low pay and frecuentunemployment. There are proportionately more at-risk youth among migrants than any n'heridentifiable group in the country.

Native Americans constitute another kind ofproblem. Many live on reservations, far from servicesthat other youth take for granted. They have a dropoutrate of 42 percent and often face bleak futures whetherthey remain on the reservation or move to the city.

Youth with physical and mental disabilities make upanother considerable portion of the children at risk.In the age bracket 15 to 24, they numberapproximately four million, and have a dropout rateof around 40 percent and unemployment rates ofbetween 30 and 50 percent. While these children arebeing educated increasingly under the Education forAll Handicapped Children Act of 1975, federalfunding for this act has lagged far behind the need.

Rural children, black and white, face a variety ofproblems. Some rural areas of the Midwest can boastof high graduation rates, yet other rural areas,including some of the counties in Appalachia, havedropout rates as high as 50 percent. The problem iscompounded in a number of poor, southern stateswhere illiteracy among black adults approaches 60percent. Rural areas are sometimes caught in a"damned if you do and damned if you don't"situation. The more they educate their youth, thegreater the likelihood their children will leave the areafur better jobs elsewhere. Yet, the more they recruitnew industry to their area, the greater the probabilitythat older youth will drop out of school to takeadvantage of the new source of jobs.

For purposes of this paper, we have elected toprovide a coverall definition of at-risk youth that issimpler and, we think, adequate to an understandingof the problem:

An at-risk youth is one who has left school or ispredictably in danger of leaving school withcut theskills to be a productive and self-reliant citizen andto succeed in today's workplace and hence, insociety.

Given what we know about these groups in danger,can potential dropouts be predicted? Research suggeststhat the strongest predictors of which students willdrop out include 1) being two or more years behindgrade level, 2) being pregnant, and 3) coming from ahome where the father dropped out of school. GaryWehlage, associate director of the Natioral Center onEffective Secondary Schools at the University ofWisconsin, cites marginal characteristics of at-riskyouth as 1) being typically in the bottom 25 percentof the class; 2) frequently failing some courses; 3)being behind on credits to graduate; 4) lacking basicskills; and 5) having attitude and conduct problems.

Research indicates that boys and girls drop out ofschool at approximately the same rate. While thereare many predictors of dropping out that applyequally to girls and boys, there are others that seemto affect females more than males. These include themother's education level, eariy socializationexperiences that teach girls to be less assertive,cognitive differences in the way girls and boys learn,teacher interaction patterns that favor boys' responsesand learning styles, and curricular selections that mayleave girls without the prerequisites for higher-payingjobs and careers.

As we are teaching in the schools now, theseproblems add up to one million dropouts a year plusan unknown number of youth who graduate but areprepared for little beyond the simplest entry level jobs.

A million dropouts per year means that today,within our pre-school and school-age population,there are 12 million youngsters who will becomedropouts by the year 2000. Last year, nearly three-quarters of the 240,320 17- to 19-year-old dropoutswho took the GED exam passed. At that rate wemight expect to reclaim 2 million at-risk youth beforethey reach their twenties. But the overwhelming oddsare that at least as many of our high school graduateswill be leaving school without the foundationnecesary to obtain adequately paying and secure jobs.

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To say then, that 12 million of our children are atrisk is conservative.

It is clear to anyone who teaches at-risk youngpeople or indeed to anyone who has looked at theproblem in a more than cursory way that their needsare different from and of a greater order than thoseof their brothers and sisters from more fortunatebackgrounds. Other needs, shared by all adolescents,are often felt more by at-risk youth because they arenot so readily filled at home. David A. Hamburg,president of the Carnegie Foundation, has listed theseneeds this way:

The need to find a place in a valued group thatprovides a sense of belonging;

The need to identify tasks that are generallyrecognized in the group as having adaptivevalue and that therefore earn respect when skillis acquired for coping with the task;

The need to feel a sense of worth as a person;

The need for reliable and predictablerelationships with other people. especially a fewrelatively close relationshipsor at least one.

Gary Wehlage and his colleagues have concludedfrom their studies that alienation from teachers andthe school is a common characteristic of youth whodrop out and that other factors may be overrated aspredictors compared to the primary matters ofstudents' perception of teacher Interest in them andthe effectiveness and fairness of school discipline.

Finally, all students need parental support. Abattery of recent studies leaves no doubt that this is acrucial factor in the success of children in school. Theapproval of caring adultsparents and othersoftenmakes the difference between children who succeed inschool and life and children who do not.

The reader should have little difficulty findingCarlos, Susan, and Matthew in these identifyingcharacteristics and needs of at-risk youth. For them,the school system and their family backgroundscombined to form obstacles to their staying in school.They are, each of them, classic dropouts, in the sensethat their experience, taken together, touches on thecommon threads of failure in school.

What can be done? Clearly the schools needhelpfrom parents, from employers, from socialagencies, from the community at large. Just as clearly,

schools have to be the locus for any reform ofeducation. We must begin there. In the upcomingchapters, we will be describing what has been done atthe federal and state levels to assist at-risk youth todate and examining what remains to be done. Butbefore going on we would like to cite one final needof at-risk youth.

It is stated in one sentence spoken by the actorEdward James Olmos, portraying Jaime Escalante, theteaches, in the film "Stand and Deliver:' Speaking todoubters on the faculty, he says: "Kids will live up tothe level of our expectations."

Escalante's kids from Garfield High School in EastLos Angeles were taught calculus in 1982 over theobjections of several faculty members, whoconsidered that these Hispanic youth from the barriowould simply be disillusioned by the experience. Eightof Escalante's 13 students passed the AdvancedPlacement examination and most have since gone onto undergraduate, and in some cases, postgraduatedegrees. Garfield has enjoyed oustanding success sincethen in enabling students to pass the A.P. exam andcurrently has a calculus class numbering 145.

Escalante expected his kids to pass the course. Hedemanded a great deal from them, but he let themknow that he believed in them. For at-risk youth, whooften have had little support in their lives, no singlineed in school would rank higher than the need for askillful teacher with great expectations of them.

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Chapter IIITwo Steps Back: What the Federal Government Isn't Doing

Five years ago, the National Commission onExcellence in Education produced the report, A NationAt Risk, which has since been described as "the 35 pagesthat shook the education world." The language bestremembered from this report reads this way: "Theeducational foundations of our society are presentlybeing eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity thatthreatens our very future as a nation and a people:'

5ut while the call to arms for educational excellencewas clear, it is generally forgotten that this call wasissued to the federal government as well as to thestates. The Commission made it clear that there was arole for every level of government to help reform oureducational system. The federal role, the report said,was the primary oneto identify the national interestin education and to help fund and support efforts toprotect and promote that interest.

So much for public education at large. TheCommission did not dwell on the problems of thelower third of American youth in schools. If it had, itmight have emphasized that it was to this body ofyouththose at risk in schoolthat the federalgovernment had aimed most of its assistance in thepast. Since the enactment of the Elementary andSecondary Education Act in 1965, the federal role inelementary and secondary education has been closelyidentified with programs that meet the needs of socio-economically disadvantaged youth, English-deficientyouth, and physically and mentally handicappedyouth. More recently, students who are homeless,victims of abuse, substance abusers, and delinquentshave been added to the list of youth drawing federalconcern.

Su it is fairthe commission's report to one side fora momentto ask what the federal record has beenfirst for all youth in education in the 1930's. Theanswer is unequivocal:

The federal role in education has neither increasednor has remained the same since 1980. In real dollarsthe federal commitment has declined by 23 percent,and in terms of the share of the education bill footedby the federal government, its contribution has declinedfrom 8.95 percent :n 1980 to 6.27 percent in 1987.

This decrease in federal commitment to educationhas a far greater impact than even these figures suggestfor at-risk youth. For it was here that the federalcontr:aution in dollars was greatest, and it is here thatthe blow falls most harshly. The decrease noted abovecan be seen as nothing less than a direct threat to thewell-being of at-risk youth and to the quality ofeducation offered to one-third of our youth, the one-

third whose inability to move ahead has contributedmost heavily to the tide of mediocrity.

Consider, for example, that in fiscal year 1987, $3.65billion of the federal outlays supported the remediationprogram under Chapter I of the Elementary andSecondary Education Act. Between 1980-87, federalspending for Chapter I actually declined 17.2 percentafter adjustments for inflation. Enrollments dropped bymore than 500,000. Currently the Department ofEducation estimates that Chapter I funds are sufficientto serve only about 40 percent of the youth eligible forservicesthose scoring less than 50 percent onstuidard tests. While the administration proposed a$200 .million increase for fiscal 1988, this amount (5.5percent) would barely offset inflation since 1987.Certainly it cannot offset declines from earlier years ofinflation. Certainly it cannot absorb the significantincrease in children needing help. To imagine that it isappropriate for present circumstances is irresponsible.

Other education programs have fared even worse.Most have not had funding increases in a number ofyears, and several have been scheduled for elimination.A small, but important initiative, the Follow ThroughProgram, is one that has been on the cut list for severalyears. With just $7.2 million in funds, this programdesigns and disseminates outstanding models ofcompensatory education for low-income children in theearly elementary glades, seemingly an especiallyappropriate federal role under "the new federalism:'

Another program that has not been allowed toexpand to meei needs is Head Start, the pre-schoolprogram for low-income children. The consensus isthat Head Start is a successful program, and whilefederal expenditures have grown from $912 million in1982 to $1.1 billion in fiscal year 1987, the 20.6 percentincrease is less than the inflation experienced duringthat period. More to the point, perhaps, the programcurrently serves less than 20 percent of all eligible3- to 5-year-olds.

Head Start and Chapter I funding illustrate anobvious shortfall between what is needed by youngerat-risk youth and what the federal government isproviding. We decided to examine other federalprograms targeted at at-risk youth to see how olderyouth are faring. Our list of federal programs for at-risk youth included education for the handicapped,bilingual education, vocational education (especiallythe set-asides for educationally disadvantaged andhandicapped children) the Job Training PartnershipAct's II -A and B training for youth, Job Corps, and theyouth employment activities supported under theCommunity Service Block Grants. In the appendix is a

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state-by-state listing of the allocations for each of theseprograms as well as for Head Start and Chapter I.

For the nation as a whole, these programs weremaking the following funds available for service to at-risk youth during fiscal year 1987:

Had StartFollow ThroughChapter IEducation for the

HandicappedBilingual EducationVocitiotud Education

Set-irides (youthand adults)

JTPA Title II-AJTPA Title II-BJob CorpsCommunity Service

Block Grants

$ 1.1 billion7.2 million3.65 billion1.3 billion

128.8 million378.0 million

736.0 million (est.)750,0 million612.5 million

6.9 million*

Estimated Total: $ 8.7 billion

*Amount used by states for youth at-risk out of$335 million.

In addition, federal departments are making smallamounts of discretionary funds available fordemonstration programs. Recent grant awards haveprovided $400,000 from the Department of Labor tofive communities to replicate Brooklyn High School'salternative education program; $500,000 from DOLand the Department of Health and Human Services tosix communities to demonstrate integrated serviceprograms for teen-age parents; $325,000 from DOL to18 communities to replicate the Boston Compactschool-to-work programs; $1.6 million from DOL andDHHS to 13 states for Youth 2000 grants; $550,000from DOL to 10 states to implement legislation forat-risk youth; and $24 million from the Departmentof Education to an estimated 125 educational agenciesand community-based organizations for dropoutprevention programs.

As with Head Start and Chapter I programs,however, these programs for older at-risk youth wereat best serving only a small fraction of the youtheligible and in need of service. In our survey of the50 states, we found that JTPA Title II-A programs,which can provide education and training-relatedservices to both in-school and out-of-school youthand dropouts, were reaching only 2.1 percent of the14- to 15-year-olds and 7.3 percent of the 16- to21-year-olds eligible and in need. (Chapter IV provides

greater analysis of the kinds of services youth werereceiving under these programs.)

Federal funding for handicapped youth in schooltypically accounts for only 5 to 15 percent of the totalfunding (including state and local) directed to thistarget group in each state. Federal funding forbilingual education has been decreasing in absolutedollars in most states and accounting for a smallerand smaller portion of the states' overall spending forbilingual education. In our survey of the states, halfreported that the number of limited English-proficientchildren was increasing, and only 8 percent reportedthat the numbers were actually going down duringthis period of federal retrenchment. Some states, suchas New York, have countered the loss of federalrevenues by increasing their own allocations by asmuch as 50 percent.

We were less successful in determining how wellvocational education, community service block grants,and the Job Corps were able to serve thosepotentially eligible for service. States do not generallyaccount for vocational education clients by the ageand at-risk categories we put to them, yet there are atleast four pots of vocational funds that could be usedfor at-risk youth. Two of these, set-asides for grantsto community-based organizations and sex-equitygrants, were touching only an estimated 15,000 at-riskyouth. We found 22 states in which a portion of thecommunity-service block grants were being used forat-risk youth, but usually this amounted to less than5 percent of the total grant. In some of these states,block-grant funds supported just one program in onecommunity. The Job Corps, with a capacity of40,500, was serving approximately 60,000 youth, aged16 to 24 in 1987. (The service level exceeded capacitysince not all youth stayed in the Corps a full year.)

If we add these disparate pieces together, we canget an estimate of the number of youth in needactually being served by federal funds at present:

One out of every five low-income children in needof preschool education.

Two out of every five children in need ofremediation.

One out of every four children in need of bilingualeducation.

One out of every 20 youth in need of lob training.

In addition to being insufficiently funded to comeclose to meeting the needs, these federal programshave a variety of quirks that limit their effectiveness.Chapter I funds, for example, are allocated tocounties and then to school districts based on the

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number of children from low-income families livingwithin their boundaries. The districts may determinein which schools they will use the Chapter I funding,but in general they must locate programs inattendance areas having the highest concentrations oflow-income children. This selection process makes itpossible for a district with 10 very poor schools totarget resources to five of them, for example, whileanother school district with 10 not-so-poor schoolstargets perhaps its poorest two schools. But those twomay have fewer poor children than the five schools inthe first district that received no funding. Studiessupported by the Department of Education haveshown that about 75 percent of all public elementaryschools and 36 percent of all public middle and highschool-, offer Chapter I services. However, because ofthe targeting_and selection processes used, 13 percentof the poorest elementary schools (half or more oftheir students coming from poor families) do not haveChapter I programs. By way of contrast, 57 percentof the wealthiest districts (15 percent or less of theirenrollment from poor families) do have Chapter Iprograms.

JTPA has severe limitations for serving at-riskyouth as well. Under JTPA's predecessor, theComprehensive Employment and Training Act(CETA), economically disadvantaged youth couldparticipate in education and training programs forunlimited time periods and with relatively fewrestrictions regarding the nature of the trainingexperience. Under JTPAwhich was designed more tothe needs of the adult workforceyouthprogramming has taken on different characteristics.For one thing, it is more difficult for operators tooffer long-term services to youth, such as remedialeducation or work experience, because theperformance criteria used to measure effectivenessunder JTPA place premiums on low cost and quickplacements into unsubsidized jobs. In recognition ofthis, Congress specified that 40 percenz of all Title II-A training funds go to serve youth. Unfortunately, thepressure for quick placement has led to a great dealof underspending here. Other funds available underTitle II-A, known as the 8 percent allocation, offergreater flexibility because they are not subject to thesame performance or eligibility criteria, but states arenot bound to use this money for youth and someaswe will see in Chapter IVdo not.

JTPA Title II-B programs for summer employmentof economically disadvantaged youth also havesuffered in terms of ability to serve at-risk youth inthe transition from CETA. Funding levels for 1988,

$718 million, are 4 percent below 1987 levels and 13percent below 1985 levels. These cuts have come atthe same time that requirements to provideremediation have been added to the program, therebyimproving overall quality but lowering the number ofyouth who can be served. In 1987, for example, just565,000 youth were enrolled in the program comparedto 748,000 the previous summer.

The Job Corps has had its problems, too. In 1986,the administration proposed rescinding 32 percent ofthe Corps' Fiscal 1986 appropriation as a budget-cutting measure. This recision plus a proposedreduction in 1987 funding would have reduced theprogram capacity by almost half (40,500 to 22,000) byclosing the more expensive centers, those with arecord of turning out graduates more likely to behired and thus more likely to repay the costs of theirtraining. Although Congress successfully turned backthis effort, the uncertainty of allocations from year toyear has made it difficult for program directors toconsider long-term improvements.

All this suggests that the federal stewardship withrespect to at-risk youth in recent years must becharacterized by the word neglect, and a notespecially benign neglect at that. The performanceleads to our first recommendation:

RECOMMENDATION: That Congress and thePresident restore the federal partnership in educationby increasing the federal funding commitment to atleast 10 percent of all expenditures for pre-school,elementary, and secondary education, (at currentlevels, this would translate to an increase in federalexpenditures from approximately $10 billion to nearly$18 billion) and that the additional funds beearmarked for programs and services directly affectingat-risk youth.

Other problems properly laid at the federaldoorstep have less to do wit!' budgets than with thewill to act. There are urgent needs to work onstandard definitions of dropouts, to improve thenational dropout data collection systems, todisseminate model program descriptions, to promoteprogram replication efforts, and to work on inter-agency communication. One recent report on federalpolicies and programs for youth prepared by J.R.Reingold and Associates, Inc. for the W. T. GrantFoundation Commission on Work, Family andCitizenship, points to a lack of real coordinationwithin federal agencies regarding programs that relateto youth. The report says that the amount of federalcollaboration, cooperation, and coordination in terms

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of resources is small; that federal agencies havedevoted few, or in some cases, no resources tofacilitate inter-agency coordination at the state level;that there are insufficient mechanisms or incentives tofoster investment in multi-year, long-term, institutionalchange demonstrations; and that long-term planninghas been frustrated by proposals for budget reductionsor program eliminations. In view of thesecircumstances, we offer two recommendations:

RECOMMENDATION: That Congress passlegislation charging the Department of Education withresponsibility and authority for coordinating andmanaging the federal government's response to the at-risk problem, including the development of a commondefinition of "at-risk youth" to be used in designingand targeting future programs. This legislation shouldestablish a data base for purposes of documentation,monitoring, and evaluation and Congress shouldprovide sufficient funds to enable the Department ofEducation to promote widespread replication ofsuccessful program strategies for at-risk youth.

RECOMMENDATION: That the Department ofEducation undertake an analysis of the unintendedand negative consequences for at youth of currenteducation reform and existing job training andvocational programs and report the results andrecommendations for change to Congress bySeptember, 1989.

Despite the reduced level of federal participation infunding, the current administration has adopted acuriously optimistic outlook on the race betweeneducating our at-risk youth and failing them. TheAdministration has established a goal of bringing thehigh school graduation rate up to 90 percent by 1990.It might be well to look at how realistic this goalis today.

The annual wallchart of the Secretary of Educationhas been used since the 1983 A Nation at Risk reportto track the educational reform movement state bystate. With the first wallchart came a column labeled'President's Challenge: Gains Needed to Meet Goal of90 Percent Graduation Rate by 1990:' In 1982, thenational graduation rate had been 69.7 percent, so by1990to meet the President's goalthe states neededto gain 20.3 percentage points. For some states thechallenge would be greater, as they lagged far behindthe average. For others, like Minnesota, with an88.2 percent rate, the goal may have seemed morereasonable.

In February of this year the wallchart reported on

the graduation rate in the nation for the year 1986.The national rate stood then at 71.5 percent, a baretwo percentage points higher than it had four yearsbefore. If gains continued to be made at that pace,the graduation rate by 1990 would still be below75 percent.

It is difficult to find commitment behind thePresident's goal. In recent years, the federal fundingmuscle to reach that goal has atrophied. It is clear fromstatements made by former Secretary of EducationBennett and the President, that the administrationexpects the states to lift themselves up by their ownbootstraps. Unfortunately, as we will show in ChapterIV, the states cannot do the lifting alone.

What is really tragic at this point is not so muchthe numbers but the lack of any policy toward at-riskyouth. It is as though these youth did not exist, or asthough we all really did believe that they areexpendable. Despite warnings from the private sector,from economists, from advocatesindeed from withinthe current administration itselfthere is no federalcomprehension of the problem, no strategy for itssolution. The time has come for bipartisan support toput the federal government on record as part of thesolution rather than the problem.

RECOMMENDATION: That the White House leada national crusade to make sure that the equityconsiderations of the 1970's are joined with theExcellence-in-Education concerns of the 1980's in acampaign to raise the educational attainment level inour public schools for all of our children.

Is the national will in place to make this possible?As we have suggested, the time is propitious. In mostpolls, the public has demonstrated its willingness tosupport the cost of a quality education system. Inpolls conducted over the last year, two out of threeAmericans said they wanted the federal government tobe very involved in helping people get an affordableeducation and more than a third would like to seeWashington have more influence in improving localpublic schools.

But it is equally clear around the nation that thepublic does not understand the risks we are taking byinaction, or by taking small steps where a bold strideis needed. What cries out for recognition now is theperil facing these youth and the effects of their failureto be a productive part of the labor forceshouldthis happenon all of us in America today. It is nosmall part of the federal responsibility to get themessage out that we will not fail our youth now.

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c` 4

Chapter IVA Small Step for At-Risk Youth: What the States Are Doing

As we have seen, the efforts described in thepreceding chapter do not pretend to serveand do notservethe big majority of at-risk youth. They aredemonstrations or part of the diminishing federalprogram overlay. Taken together, they provide less than7 percent of the money for public elementary andsecondary education. However, the states provide overhalf of the public funding for elementary andsecondary education (53.2 percent) and are in aposition to exercise significant leadership on behalf ofat-risk youth. As the Committee for EconomicDevelopment noted in a recent report: 'Despite thecommitment of the federal government to improveeducation of the disadvantaged, state governmentshave always had primary responsibility for publiceducation."

In preparing the 1985 report Who's Looking Out forAt-Risk Youth, MDC staff found themselves remindedof this historic responsibility at every turn. Statecommissions on excellence in education were notfocusing on at-risk youthonly 15 commissions (27percent of those responding) in 12 states had so muchas one recommendation aimed at at-risk youth.However, some states were moving aheadindependently of commission endeavors. With furthersupport from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, wedetermined to learn how the states were progressing.

We wanted to learn what was going on in thegovernor's office, in the state legislature, and inwhatever task forces had been appointed to look intothe at-risk youth problem. We wanted to learn what wecould about state and local programs designed to assistthese youth. We hoped to find measurements of theneed and the extent to which that need was being met.

So we assembled a group of field research associates,all of whom were highly knowledgeable in the fields ofeducation, employment, and trail ing of at-risk youth.We assigned them to states generally in their area ofthe country, often states were they had producedpertinent studies or where they had worked on relatedinquiries in the past. We familiarized them with thesurvey instrument and sent them into the field to findout as much as they could. We then met at MDCheadquarters for a discussion of the results. Later,during the Spring of 1988, MDC central staff madefollow-up calls to determine the outcome of pendinglegislation and proposals in several states.

Before looking at our general findings, one pointought to be made. The states with megalopolisesIllinois with Chicago, New York with New York City,Florida with Miamiare different to ti degree that

their influence may not be as visible in these big citiesas elsewhere in the state. Indeed, the heart of programsto serve at-risk youth may in certain states beat morevigorously in the big city than in the state at large.Nevertheless, the great majority of school-aged youthin America (91 percent) live outside the 14 largest schooldistricts, and the state responsibilities are paramount ineducation everywhere. It is these responsibilities thatare examined in this report. Following are our generalfindings, not in order of importance:

FINDING #1: Awareness that the problems of at-riskyouth cannot be solved solely by measures designed toassist advantaged youth has grown among theeducational and political leadership of the states.

The results of our survey of state Excellence-in-Education commissions in 1985 pointed to a lack ofawareness of the problems of at-risk youth. This lackwas typified by responses indicating that generalreform measures of the sort we have discussed wouldnecessarily help all students, and at times, by a stiff-necked defensiveness that took the form of a denialthat a group of students predictably at risk existed.While these attitudes are not entirely gone three yearslater, we found no states that could be fairly describedas unaware of the problem. A few statesnotnecessarily the ones farthest ahead in dealing with theproblemhave public education initiatives designed tobring the situation to the attention of the general public

Nevada's Task Force On At-Risk Youth, forinstance, while producing information on the at-risk problem, has been doing public serviceannouncements about dropouts on television.

Wyoming, using funds from the Mountain BellFoundation, mailed out brochures citing statisticsfor dropouts, substance abuse, teen pregnancy,illiteracy and other problems to every householdin the state in an attempt to build community-based support for problems of at-risk youth.

FINDING #2: Discrete, scattered initiatives on behalfof at-risk youth can be found in all of the states, butoften they are funded on a pilot basis withoutguarantees that success will result in funding for eithercontinuation or replication.

With awareness has come a good bit of casting aboutby the states, almost all of it characterized by a certainhaphazardness, not necessarily indicating lack ofdirection as much as lack of central planning purpose.It seems likely that we will look back on this period inthe development of an approach to the problem of

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at-risk youth as one of trial and error. A number offoundation and corporate-funded demonstrationsexist, most of them focused again on the major ci* ...We looked closely at the membership of state taskforces created to assist in policymaking and could seethe opportunity for progress in collaboration betweeneducators, the private sector, and community forcescommunity-based organizations, social agencies, andparents groups. But there appeared to be norelationship between the number of task forces activeand the progress the state was making for at-riskyouth.

FINDING #3: Although data exists on various sub-categories of at-risk youth, differences in collectingstyle make it impossible to add the numbers to arriveat an estimate of the size of the at-risk population ineach state.

As a result, in a number of states projects areunder way to estimate both the need and the effortbeing put forth in terms of program scope anddollars. Most states that have at-risk initiatives havesimply taken off under the assumption that action ismore important than measurement. Others haveinsisted on trying to learn more about the problemand about what already is being done around thestate by localities to solve it.

The State of Washington is conducting anexhaustive inventory of at-risk youth projects.

Oregon has approached the matter in terms ofdeveloping a standard definition of dropouts(not all at-risk youth) and a reporting system,and could be on the way to producing a modelof this badly needed service function.

The lack of compatible information on either needor resources in most states makes it difficult todevelop national figures with any sense of theirreliability. We see this as an area of need peculiarlysuited to federal attention, and have made arecommendation (see Chapter III).

FINDING #4: While 45 states report havinglegislation bearing on the problems of one or moresub-groups of the at-risk population, most of it ispiecemeal in nature, typically supporting a limitednumber of pilot programs. Funding for programsspecifically targeted to at-risk youth rarely exceeds5 percent of state education expenditures or affectsmore than 10 percent of the at-risk population.

Wisconsin may come closest to havingcomprehensive legislation in place for at-risk

youth, going back to 1985. The legislationdefines "at risk" and requires each leadeducational agency in the state to identify at-riskyouth and implement a p. Ngram for them. Onceidentified, families of these youth must benotified in writing and given a chance to enrolltheir children in the district's at-risk progam.Each district gets $64,000 annually for the plan,plus a 10 percent supplement for meetingperforjnance criteria.

South Carolina's Education Improvement Actgoes back to 1984 and commits $56.8 million tocompensatory and remedial education of 260,000students. In 1987, 10,800 four-year-olds withpredicted readiness deficiencies were served withhome visits and half-day programs at a cost of$11 million.

(If he had lived in a state where programs like thesewere in place, our Albuquerque slow-learner,Matthew, from Chapter II, might have been givenearly assistance and might never have dropped out.)

It is important to put the impact of theseeducational reforms in the context of total spendingfor education.

Oregon's 1986 budget identified $8.45 million instate funds for at-risk youth, but this amountedto less than 2 percent of all state educationexpenditures for elementary and secondaryeducation; when federal and local dollars wereadded to the state's 1986 budget, the percent offunding reserved for at-risk youth climbed toonly 2.28 percent of all education funds.

In Illinois, $59 million of a $90 millioneducation reform package is specifically gearedto meeting needs of at-risk youth, but thismoney comes to only 3 percent of total stateeducation funds.

Indiana's 1987 Educational Opportunity for At-Risk Students Act provides $20 million, witheach school system given an entitlement basedon poverty levels and numbers of single-headedhouseholds and educational level of thecommunity, but the state's expenditures for at-risk youth amount to only 7 percent of all ofits education budget.

By the time these funds filter down to individualdistricts and to schools within those districts, theymay amount to only a few hundred or few thousanddollars per school; seldom do they amount to the

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equivalent of even one new staff position. Elevenstates require school districts to come up with somesort of dropout prevention plan and others havescatter-shot legislation aimed at various of the at-risksub-groups. Most states, however, can be said to be atthe very early stages of developing comprehensivelegislation and have put little money into the problem.

FINDING #5: While policy statements fromcommissions, task forces, governors' offices, or stateeducation departments can be found in 23 states ineither draft or final form, no single state has anoverarching policy addressed to at-risk, school-ageyouth.

It is not difficult to find scattered policy statementsfrom various tasks forces and commissions calling forattention to the problems of at-risk youth, but it isdifficult to find real leadership in the area of policy.Policy apears to be most effective when enunciationof it comes from the governor's office (or from thegovernor's wife, as is the case here and there) or fromthe state superintendent or commissioner of education.Interestingly, where leadership is strongest, attitudinalchanges placing more responsibility with the schoolsfor achievement seem to be taking place.

Governor and Mrs. Bill Clinton in Arkansashave provided recently an example of overallleadership in this area, sponsoring the ArkansasAdvocates for Children and Youth, which hasestablished task forces mobilizing the state tobetter prepare schools and communities to assistat-risk youth.

Impressive results can be achieved in fosteringawareness and making progress when twosuccessive governors have at-risk youth high ontheir priority list as with Governors ReubenAskew and Bob Graham of Florida.

In Georgia, Governor Joe Frank Harris' QualityBasic Education program has shaken up publiceducation, and a recently appointed commissionis charged with making sure that at-risk youthdo not slip through the cracks.

In New Hampshire, Governor John H. Sununuhas made education his highest priority andCommissioner of Education John T MacDonaldhas focused his attention on pending legislationrequiring t I. principal to hold the schoolaccounts fie for educational achievement ofstudents.

A similar theme is struck in Delaware, where atleast one highly placed official in the

Department of Education talks of treatingchildren as "clients" and helping schools changefrom "being opportunity schools to beingresponsible schools, responsible for results:' Thiskind of attitude separates schools that cansucceed with all their students from those whosucceed only with the students who would maketheir way anywhere. (Looking back at ourAlbuquerque youth in Chapter II, it is possibleto see how this kind of attitude might have heldthe budding chef, Carlos, in school.)

For all of this, the complete lack of overarchingpolicy at the state level suggests how far the stateshave to come to begin to face the problem. It isinteresting that nolicywhich is thought to setstandards and goalsoften comes not in thebeginning, when it would be welcome for its guidanceand encouragement if nothing else, but far later in theprocess, and then often serves to define what alreadyhas been done. This leads us to our first tworecommendations for the states:

RECOMMENDATION: That every governor whohas not already done so establish a special standingcommission on at-risk youth to investigate the natureof the problem in the state, examine the unintendedconsequences for at-risk youth of current stateeducation reform and job-training policy, andrecommend a concerted program of action thatincludes clear and progressively challenging goals foraddressing the problem similar to the continuum ofeffort described later in this chapter. The membershipof the commission should include representatives fromall state agencies serving at-risk youth, business andindustry, local schools, parents' groups, community-based organizations, and the public. Governors instates where such a commission or task force isalready in place should review membership to assurerepresentation of each of these groups.

RECOMMENDATION: That governors vestresponsibility in and provide resources to a singlecabinet-level agency or arm of state government toimplement and coordinate the recommendationsproduced by the standing commissions.

FINDING #6: Lack of public concern for theproblems of at-risk youth stands as a barrier tobuilding comprehensive approaches to so-1)11g them.

The sense we have from our state reports is thatstate officials simply do not feel urgency at theconsumer level (the general public, which is calledupon to support the schools) for serving at-risk

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youth. The attitude that these youth are "otherpeople's children," that their lack of success is theirfault, and that schools are better off without themlingers in some quarters.

Colorado and Nebraska are out to change this,using grants to increase public awarenessthrough conferences.

Maine has had some success with a widelydistributed 16-point policy platform on truancy,dropouts, and alternative education.

Surprisingly, perhaps, we found few examples ofefforts to involve and educate at the community level.

Massachusetts provided the single best exampleof how this can be done. Through CommonwealthFuturesa school-to-work transition programthat operates in six sites, with six more to beadded this yearcommunities with highconcentrations of at-risk youth are givingdirection to state policy and helping to formulateit. Under the Public School Improvement Act, apublic school improvement council has beenestablished in each community and is providedfunds ($50 per student) to set up its ownpriorities. One community used this money tobuy a van to transport pregnant and parentingteens to and from school. Others use the moneyto keep schools open in the afternoon for the useof dropouts and other at-risk youth.Commonwealth Futures is partially supported bythe Edna McConnell Clark Foundation and isone of several foundation-funded initiatives thathave helped communities focus attention on at-risk youth.

Significant among other foundation efforts arethe Annie E. Casey Foundation's New Futuresprogram and the Ford Foundation's collaborationproject. Both of these, as well as the NationalAlliance of Business' Boston CompactReplication Project, work directly with medium-sized or larger communities to put in placecomprehensive programs and strategies to meetthe needs of at-risk youth, requiring broad-based and active involvement of business andpublic agencies.

But the lack of public awareness of the crisis of at-risk youth in the big majority of the states isregarded by many as the most serious lack of all. Itleads to our third and fourth recommendations to thestates.

RECOMMENDATION: That as part of its work,each state commission/responsible agency undertake acampaign to make the public aware of the needs ofat-risk youth and the danger this failure of educationposes to the state's and the nation's future.

RECOMMENDATION: That this campaign alsoinclude a program to educate schools, PrivateIndustry Councils, and community organizationsabout federal, state, and local programs and practicesalready in place for at-risk youth and about modelsof cooperative intervention.

FINDING #7: The potential to serve at-risk youththrough the federally funded Job Training PartnershipActthe nation's current national effort at jobtraining and employmenthas not been fully realizedin the majority of the states. Nevertheless, nationalfunding for ]TPA is insufficient to reach more than asmall percentage of at-risk youth.

JTPA is a performance-driven system useful mainlyto adults and to youth needing short-term assistance.Structural problems of using the funds for at-riskyouth, plus JTPA's paucity of discretionary dollarsrelative to its predecessor, the ComprehensiveEmployment and Training Act, make collaborationbetween education, training, and employment for at-risk youth problematical. At the same time, severalstates have showed that a little imagination canalleviate the problem.

In eight states (Kentucky, Minnesota, NewJersey, Pennsylvania, Colorado, West Virginia,Wisconsin, and Nevada) at-risk youth have beendeclared a "family of one," a policy thatfacilitates making them eligible economically forprogram funding.

In New Jersey, where new policy says that if youare a dropout, have problems in school, or aretwo or more grade levels behind, you are at risk,the definitional change is predicted to add 20,000to the 127,000 youth served by JTPA last year.

The JTPA 8 percent discretionary fund is importantfor at-risk youth because this money is not subject tothe same performance standards or eligibility criteriaand can be used to serve youth for longer periods oftime.

At least 8 states (Alaska, Arizona, Maine,Massachusetts, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas,and Wisconsin) target 8 percent money for at-risk youth.

Illinois has made good use of this money to re-

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define performance standards to providemotivation for the service delivery areaslocalrecipients of major JTPA dollarsto serve at-risk youth.

The District of Columbia uses all of its 8percent money for dropouts.

New Mexico uses its 8 percent money to buycomputer-assisted remediation hardware and todevelop guidance systems.

Yet in other states, governors have not chosen touse 8 percent funds for youth. And JTPA has beenreaching few youth. Our statistics show that in moststates only 7.3 percent of 16- to 21-year-olds and 2.1percent of 14- to 15-year-olds eligible for the regular,performance-driven programs of JTPA are actuallybeing served. These figures compare to nationalestimates that JTPA funding is sufficient to serve only5 percent of all youth and adults eligible for service,a fact that leaves little more to say about theadequacy of the act.

FINDING #8: In many states, information aboutprograms for at-risk youth is not shared well at thestate level or between the state and local levels.

Our researchers found instances at the state level inwhich administrators in the same building wereunaware of each other's programs serving at-riskyouth. State JTPA administrators seem not to be wellinformed about what is working or not working atthe local level; education administrators are not wellinformed about what JTPA is doing or about whatother divisions in their own department are doing.

Here, again, experiments such as the one inOregon, which has a state schoolsuperintendent's task force tracking at-riskyouth, and which expects to have all 300-plusschool districts on line this year, may provide amodel for improvement.

FINDING #9: Although stete funding for educationhas increased since 1980, resources continue to beused disproportionately for students who begin theireducation better off.

Lack of funds is often cited by the states as abarrier to further progress in serving at-risk youth.Our reports from the states are replete with evidenceof retrenchment at the state level, reports of budgetcuts feared or in the immediate offing.

It is clear that reductions in federal funding andeconomic downturns in some states (particularly

Wes.ern and Southwestern ones) have had a negativeeffect. In one Southern state, for instance, theeducation budget was scheduled for a 36 percent cutin 1988. Yet, overall state spending for public schoolshas increased 26 percent beyond inflation since1980from $46.5 billion in 1980 to $80.4 billion in1987while local dollars have increased 29 percentfrom $40 billion to $70.5 billion, according to anational study.

Another study suggests where much of this moneyhas gone since the onset of the Ev:ellence-in-Educationmovement, with 43 states having strengthened highschool graduation requirements, 14 states adoptingsome form of "merit" pay, and 37 attempting to lurethe best candidates among college students intoteaching through scholarships and other incentives.The author concludes that "although stane ls havebeen made tougher, only a handful of states haveappropriated ad&Lional money for counseling andremediation for those who will need assistance inreaching the standards:'

Terrel H. Bell, former Secretary of Education, hassaid that the school reform movement is benefitting70 percent of the students. "The 30 percent are low-income, minority students and we are still noteffectively educating them.'

Our report confirms this finding. It is moreexpensive to serve at-risk youth, as they require,virtually by definition, more services. Yet, as we haveseen, the losses in human and economic terms of notserving them are stupendous. Too often, decisions onexpenditures are based on short-term (and short-sighted) educational goals. Nevertheless, there areexamples of states significantly out-matching federaldollars to serve the at-risk population.

North Carolina, for instance, is using $20million in state dollars to supplement $9 millionin JTPA funds currently being used to supportjob placement/dropout centers in the state.

Alaska, the District of Columbia, and New Yorkalso are supplementing federal job-trainingdollars.

But taken as a whole, the performance of the stateshas allowed the situation of at-risk youth to rise tocrisis proportions, and beyond, so that only anallocation policy in an emergency mode makessense now.

RECOMMENDATION: That each state legislaturepass comprehensive legislation establishing state

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policy for meeting the educational needs of at-riskyouth and for increasing the graduation rate eachyear until it reaches 90 percent. Until the graduationrate equals or exceeds this 90 percent, 60 percent ofeach new dollar earmarked for education should bespent for instruction and services for at-risk youthand the localities should match this level of effortwherever possible.

FINDING #10: The at-risk problem is both anurban and rural problem. In the cities, fundingcutbacks have worsened a grim situation and in ruralareas of the South, Southwest, and West, little is inplace to serve at-risk youth.

The sad truth is that the numbers are workingagainst at-risk youth at present. Just as minorities arebecoming a higher proportion of all youth, funds forat-risk youth are perceived as being in short supply.Too many good programs either are facing fundingreductions or are not being increased over levels thatnever were high enough. This is critically true in thebig states such as New York, where our investigatora man with considerable experience working aroundthe country on projects Eke this one--estimated thatdespite allocation of a significant amount of dollars,probably no more than 10 percent of at-risk youthare served. The big cities are probably worse off. InChicago, JTPA funding cutbacks reduced the importantSummer Youth Employment Program by 60 percent in1987. Once again, programs for at-risk youth aremore expensive than the typical training program.Consequently, in a cost-efficient driven JTPA, they areeither given short shrift or skimped. But while themegalopolises suffer from insufficient funding, thereare vast arras of the rural South, Southwest, andWest where few or no services for at-risk youth are inplace. Sadly, this is the case in a number of Westernoil states where funds for education are declining in asour economy.

FINDING #11: Little real evaluation or monitoringis being undertaken on programs for at-risk youthoutside the limited scope of nationally sponsoreddemonstrations. In consequence, while manyinteresting-sounding programs exist, little informationis available upc . which to base judgments ofeffectiveness.

In 1985, the Consortium of Dropout Prevention (agroup of nine school districts across the countryformed to gather and share information aboutdropout prevention practices) surveyed 564 middleand high schools in member districts to look at,among other things, evaluation of programs initiated

to prevent dropouts. It found that 13 percent of theprograms were being formally evaluated, 26 percenthad data of some kind (such as attendance, retention,graduation rates), but that the remaining 61 percentwere unable to provide any data about studentprogress as a result of participation in the program.

These are the conclusions our researchers reachedin reviewing programs in the 50 states. The rareprograms with good data were usually demonstrations,most of them national ones such as the Public/PrivateVentures' evaluations of its Summer Training andEducation Program, which is designed to integratesummer and year-round remediation. We did findthat Florida's 1986 Dropout Prevention Act requiresan evaluation component for every program funded,but the evaluation requirements are not rigorous orstandardized. for the most part, though, programswere simply in place, providing the baselineinformation required by JTPA if they were funded bythis federal program, but more often, where nothingin the way of evaluation is required by the states,providing nothing. Lack of reliable information aboutprograms for at-risk youth, and lack of a commondata base for collecting such information loom aslarge problems in any national effort. Again, ourrecommendation on this point is for assistance at thefederal level (See Chapter III).

FINDING #12: Evidence mounts that certainfeatures of the Excellence-in-Education movement arecontributing to the dropout problem.

While some aspects of general educational reformhave been helpful to at-risk youth as well as otherstudents (lower teacher-to-pupil ratios and betterteacher salaries, for instance), more difficultexaminations and stiffer graduation requirements,without accompanying remediation, seem to beaggravating the dropout problem.

Writing about Florida in a recent report to theNational Commission for Employment Policy,Richard Lacey noted: "One negative, predictableresponse to stiffer standards has been a rise inthe dropout rate...higher academic standardsfor graduation have forced reductions invocational education programs:'

The Consortium on Educational Policy Studiesin Indiana reports that states dropout ratereached its lowest level in 1983 (19.4 percent)but had risen to 22 percent in 1986.

Sum and Berlin noted that few school systems

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in the educational reform movement establishedstandards that took into account the relativestarting points of existing students and schools,relying solely on standardized academicachievement tests, ignoring other relevantyardsticks like dropout rates, attendance, andcollege acceptance. "The results were predictable.Dropout rates tended to increase asdisadvantaged students found themselves fallingeven farther behind."

The Secretary of Education's newest wallchart,which reports annually on state educationtrends, indicates that 28 states now useminimum competency tests to determine whetherstudents may be promoted and/or graduated.

Our researchers found that, in many cases, stateeducators sensitive to the needs of at-risk youthbelieved that these changes were contributing toincreasing the dropout rate. In several states, theaddition of course requirements was cited as makingit difficult for youth to take vocational education orschool-to-work transition-oriented coursework, bothof which had been used by the schools as a dropout-prevention tool. Furthermore, in districts that did notlengthen the school day to provide time for takingthe additional required courses, students were findingit virtually impossible to make up failed courseswithin the normal four years of study.

The problem with the Excellence-in-Educationmovement is that it has demanded more skill ofeveryone instantly, without taking into considerationthat the youth who have been behind need time and,more importantly, help, in catching up.

FINDING #13: The educational-excellence reform,novement has largely overlooked the need to modifyinstructional techniques for at-risk youth.

Despite the substantial increases in funding by thestates for education, very little has changed in thebasic delivery of education to students in elementaryand secondary schools. Teaching is still done largelyby the lecture method. Only a handful of states haveeven reached the talking stage of "restructuring" theirschool systems. Few of the nations schools areoffering individualized education of any sortwhether computer-assisted or notas a basic learningtechnique available as a regular, viable alternative tostudents who are having difficulty keeping up in theregular classroom. And yet evidence of the need andthe worth of individualized instruction abounds. Oneresearcher studying educational reform in the rural

East reports that in a New Hampshire school system,students who are absent from school report first,upon their return to school, to the computer lab tocatch up on material they have missed during theirabsence. Students who have been out two weekscatch up in a day and a half in the lab.

It would seem from our investigation that theeasiest thing to do is to apply more money to theschool system as it is presently constituted and themost difficult thing to do is to change that system inany significant way. Later in this chapter we willdiscuss some basic restructuring and equalizationefforts that are going on presently. But they serve asexamples of what is not going on in the greatmajority of the states, and remind us of howexploratory and tentative efforts to assist at-riskyouth really are.

In looking at the results of our survey, we tried tofind a way of describing where the 50 states are todayin terms of service to at-risk youth. To do this, we setup a progression of developmental phases of service,beginning with a period of pre-awareness of theproblem and continuing on through a final phase offull implementation of policy, legislation, andprogramming in support of this group of youth. Itseemed to us that the phases could be tracked roughlyin four progressive steps: (1) awareness, (2) action, (3)consolidation, and (4) implementation. For each ofthese phases of development, we have drawn up a listof descriptors. (See pages 27 & 28.)

Progress is a relative matter, depending upon theviewpoint of those making the judgment. However,based on studies done during these years, and on ourown earlier look at the states' excellence commissions,the period from 1980-85 saw first stirrings of effortsto assist at-risk, school-age youth. While a fewleading states had made progress, a number of statesremained unaware of the problem. So it may beprogress to note, now, that none of the states fall intothis category. At the same time, the big majority ofthe states, based on this continuum, have notprogressed beyond Phase I. We place 36 of thestates in this stage, some of them so newly come totheir awareness that not all of the descriptors applyto them.

We have identified 14 states that appear to bedescribed more accurately as in Phase II of ourcontinuum. We did not require that each state exhibitall of the descriptors listed for this phase of

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development, but we did insist that to be included thestates had to have (1) awareness, (2) some policy, (3)legislation, and (4) program development. Applyingthese criteria we were able to include, in alphabeticalorder, California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois,Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York,Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas,Washington, and Wisconsin. Brief accounts of majoractivities for at-risk youth in these leading states areincluded in the appendix.

We felt that another 11 states were showing enoughprogress from nase I to merit mention here as statesin a position 1. move quickly into Phase II. Inalphabetical order, they are Arkansas, Colorado,Delaware, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, New Hampshire,New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, and SouthCarolina. In no way do we intend this as a predictionthat these states will reach Phase II before others notmentioned here, who may be preparing to launchmajor efforts.

Even relying on criteria as set forth here, judgmentssuch as these are certain to take on a degree ofsubjectivity. Some will argue with the set of - riaitself and others with our application of it to thestates. While we have tried to be fair, and haveconsulted numerous experts inside the states andoutsideeven up to the last moment beforepublicationany limited look of this sort is subject toerror and any determination of a group of leadingstates is an invitation to complaint by others whomay feel compelled to argue their own case. We riskthis in order to call attention to the leadership statesas examples and to the practices that have enabledthem to move ahead on this most important front.

We would make two observations about theleading states that are only implied in the criteriadeveloped to define the phases. We can think of nostate among them that did not haveand some stillhaveoutstanding leadership from one or moregovernors or, as is the case more than once, fromwives of governors. Secondly, in every case, theeducational leadership of these states has clearlymoved from a philosophical position that the childand its parents are responsible for learning to theposition that the schools are responsible for teaching.

None of the above, however useful in pointing theway ahead, should obscure the basic finding of thisstudy, which is so far from positive as to demandfurther emphasis. As we move into the middle of theeighth year of a decade that has featured a movementto excel in our schools, only 14 of the 50 states

hardly more than one in fourhave moved out ofbare awareness of the situation with regard to at-riskyouth into action. That is to say, only a relativehandful of states have responded at all to a growingminority of students in our public schools whosecontinuing rapid departure from education poses acrushing economic threat to our nation at the sametime it shames our democratic pretensions.

Former Secreta-v of Education Bennett, in a recentreport on the educational-reform movement, handedout the grade of a C+ to the schools but went on tosay that the nation remains at risk. "The absolutelevel at which our improvements are taking place isunacceptably low. Too man; students do not graduatefrom our high schools and too many of those who dograduate have been poorly educated.. Good schoolsfor disadvantaged and minority children are much toorare, and the dropout rate among black and Hispanicyouth in many of our inner cities is perilously high."

A level of improvements "unacceptably low" and adropout rate for minorities "perilously high" seem tous to describe what we have seen with regard to at-risk youth in the American public school near theend of a decade of reform with significant increases inexpenditures for education. We would agree that thenation remains deeply at-risk. We could not give thestates of this nation a passing grade for what hasbeen done for its youth at risk up to now. We wouldhave to hand out an F. At the bottom of the statesreport card, we might write: "Still failing, but at leastbeginning to pay attention in class:'

For the federal government's own recent stewardshipof the problem, we can think of no appropriategrade. "Absent" is the school word that comes mostreadily to mind.

It is clear that the moment for leadership is athand and that we need this leadership at the nationalas well as at the state level. It may be that there aresome states too poor now to be able to do the job ontheir own without some federal help. Somehow, thestates will have to find the strength and the assistanceto move on from the early phases of the continuumwe have created here. It is not possible to tell withany assurance how many of the nation's at-risk youthare currently being served adequately in the publicschools, but the number could be as low as 1 in 25and is certainly no higher than 1 in 10. The last twophases of the progression to full service for at-riskyouth seem to us to represent an evolution to goodschooling for all youth. Whether such goals remainchimerical or are realized may decide more than anyother single factor this nation's future as a

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52

Policy and Program Development Phase-Descriptor Continuum

Pre-Awarenesi

General lack of public discussion. Awarenessonly of a "dropout problem," but not any specificgroup at high risk of becoming dropouts.Concerns center on one or more sub-groups, suchas "teen-age parents:'

a School reform measures aimed at college-bound.,hulents. At this stage, problems of studentsdesc ibed in terms of "truancy" or other termsimp ,ring the student is at fault.

Schiele operate with non-collaborative attitudestov ard other community agencies. No attempt toit those parents or social agencies in thecommunity concerned with youth in school, suchas drug counseling agencies and JTPA.

Overriding philosophy that all ch !oxen start atthe same place in their education and need onlyhave the lessons presented to them, withindividual failure to learn attributed largely tolack of effort.

No policy or legislation dealing with at-riskyouth as a special group in need of long-term,special attention. Some programs exist, but nostate effort to coordinate them or even torecognize them as applicable to a generic groupof students.

PHASE I. Awareness

General discussion occurring among political andeducational leaders with some carryover to thegeneral public The term "at-risk youth" usedPoPularlY.

School reform still focuses generally on successfulstudents. Some awareness that special attentionmust be paid to a group of students who are notsucceeding and are at risk. Dropout preventionbecomes a goal.

Some awareness of the need for collaborationbetween schools and other community agencies,

frequently expressed in the formation of taskforces to study the problems of at-risk youth or tocoordinate efforts to assist them.

Softening of the attitude that all children begintheir education with the same advantages. Someconcomitant efforts here and :here to affect earlychildhood differentials with pre-kindergarten orkindergarten enrichment programs for pooryouth.

Scattered statements of policy, from thegovernor's office, the office of the chiefeducational officer, or one or more of the taskforces. Generally, these all for attention to theproblems of at-risk youth but typically are notenforceable and do not constitute "state policy"as such.

Scattered legislation, usually directed at sub-groups of at-risk youth such as teen-age parents,offenders, drug abusers or others who are ofspecial interest to certain state agencies orofficials. Legislated allocations vary from none(simple empowerment of the localities to fundprograms) to modest. No comprehensivelegislative acts.

Some increase in program initiatives, ofteninvolving national or state demonstrations, and amarked increase in local programming for at-riskyouth.

Preliminary efforts to quantify the problem andsome census-taking to determine the extent ofprogrammatic effort.

PHASE H. Action

Full-scale discussion by the state political andeducational leadership and broad publicdiscussion as well. May be accompanied by thebeginning of a public relations campaign designedto make citizens aware of the implications of theat-risk problem for the economy of the state.

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Better understanding of the proper configurationof true school reform. Awareness that tighteningacademic requirements must go hand-in-handwith remediation for those students notsucceeding under the old requirements.

Serious efforts at collaboration, such asinvolving parents in the educational effort oftheir children, use of private-sector mentoring,and joint programming utilizing federal (TTPA,Chapter I, Vocational Education, etc) fendsalong with state and/or local money.

Recognition that a considerable number of youthin public schools ate, for one reason or another,at risk of failure to graduate or of emergingfrom school unprepared for a working career,and that this problem is associated with povertyalthough not limited to the children of the poor.

Serious progress in state policy-setting, involvinginevitably, the office of the governor. Leadershipstatements of a policy nature, although notnecessarily constituting enforceable, state-widepolicy.

Significant, although not comprehensive, state-wide legislation likely to be labeled for "at-riskyouth"although sub-groups may continue tobe targetedand to involve major state funding.

Widespread state end local programming for at-risk youth, often involving school-to-work andusually involving rernediation in the middleschool grades and even pre-school.

Beginning awareness of the need forrestructuring in both the elementary andsecondary grades, by which is meant somefundamental rethinking of the delivery ofeducation, usually involving some individualteaching (induding computer-assisted education)and sometimes involving experiments with basicchange, in the way the schools are run.

awareness of the need to considerreforms in the distribution of state

funds- to %mitre that funds for poorer districts

actually serve at-risk youth specifically.

PHASE III. Consolidation

Full awareness by educational and politicalleadership of the economic social, and humancosts at-risk youth represent. Full publicdiscussion.

Development and emplacement ofcomprehensive, state-wide policy to assist at-riskyouth, which includes dear goals and strongmechanisms to enforce program accountability.

Passage of comprehensive legislation for at-riskyouth, along with sufficient funding to make itpossible to put policy and planning into effectbeyond pilot communities.

Broad range of program initiatives reaching allsub-groups of at-risk youth and falling withinthe range of policy planning done for the state.

Full consideration of the issue of restructuring ---and equalization, and determination of thedegree to which these reform measures shouldbe enacted in the state.

Deep involvement of the schools with parentsand with other social agencies in thecommunity.

PHASE N Implementation

Implementation of all legislation, policymaking,and planning for at-risk youth.

Implementation of restructuring andequalization measures.

Full collaboration between schools and parentsand social agencies in the .x)mmunity.

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leader or a follower nation.

Another way to look at the efforts made by thestates is across a more-or-less chronologicalcontinuum from pre-kindergarten on through school-to-work transition programs and dropout and second-chance programs. A look at what some of the statesare reported as doing here may be useful to otherstates looking for ways to get into one or anotherprogrammatic phase of service to at-risk youth. Whatfollows here is not an attempt to provide anexhaustive list, but to suggest good practices currentlyunder way and to notewith names and phonenumbers in the appendixa few states involved inthem. For convenience, we have divided thechronology of service into four sections--EarlyIdentification and Remediation; Career Explorationand Vocational Education; Dropout Prevention andSchool-to-Work Transition; and Dropout Retrievaland Second Chance.

Early Identification and Remediation

In a debriefing of our field research associates whohad covered the states, one remarked that a sure signof a state developing awareness of the at-risk youthproblem was an interest in Head Start-type earlyscreening, identification, and remediation programs. Itcertainly is true that the states leading in this area ofintervention include many leaders in overall attentionto the problem.

Colorado has had screening of 4-year-olds forearly identification of problems since 1985 andhas carried this program to the home to assisttransition to school and to reach parents in ruralareas not involved in their children's education.

Illinois has put $12.1 million into an early-childhood education project targeted to childrenat risk of academic failure, from families withlow income, or exhibiting physical signs (lowbirth weight) of potential developmentaldisability.

New Yon( requires a local match and puts $27million in a program serving 12,000disadvantaged children, with parentalinvolvement and small classesbased directlyon the Head Start model.

Washington's $12.6 million pre-school programalso serves as an identification service forhandicapped infants.

Missouri has a Parents as Teachers programwhich helps parents with parenting skills upuntil their child's third birthday.

Early remediation efforts include Arizona's 1984Early Childhood Education Act which distributes$11.7 million by formula, half to improveprograms for all youth K-3, and the other halffor special remediation programs.

Pennsylvania uses $38 million to test at the 3rd,5th, and 8th grades and provide remediation, apractice that it maintains has reduced thenumber requiring remediation by 30,000 in threeyears.

Rhode Island has set-asides for literacyinstruction in K-3 for all students (with classesof 15) and supplementary literacy instruction foreducationally disadvantaged students K-12. Leadeducation officers are held accountable forstudent literacy outcomes.

Louisiana has initiated team training of schoolpersonnelteachers and othersto help themidentify students with substance abuse or otherproblems which put them at risk.

New Mexico's 1986 Education Reform Actexpanded programs for limited English-proficientstudents to the secondary level (to be phased inover four years) and required remediation for allwho needed it in grades 1 to 8 starting with the1988-89 school year.

Virginia's new Passport Literacy program willtest all 6th graders in reading, writing, andarithmetic to see if they are ready for the 7thgrade-4th graders are pre-tested, thoseindicating that they might r,et pass the test inthe 6th grade are given remedial help, and 6thgraders not passing go to summer school.

(It would be impossible for our Albuquerquestudent, Susan, to have reached the 10th grade withno credits for graduation had she been in systems likethese.)

Career Exploration and Vocational Education

In some respects, the middle grades have beenharder to reach insofar as programs attending to theproblems of at-risk youth are concerned. These gradeshave featured career exploration ir. the past, but thecharge has been leveled many times that the

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vocational education classes shunned at-risk youth,considering this a group "too difficult" to work with.Educators with whom we have talked consider that themiddle grades remain a difficult area for interventionon behalf of at-risk youth. Nonetheless, a few statesdid report advances.

Arkansas has an approach involving workingwith vocational education personnel to organizeEducation for Employment task forces composedof business, parents, and educator, to increasebusiness involvement in school-to-workprograms.

Ohio is using $19 million in state funds for astay-in-school program that provides vocationaleducation to 12,000 14- to 15-year-olds, puttingvocational education and JTPA staffs togetherwith the dollars to serve this group.

Rhode Island is using $2.75 million to upgrade itssystem of vocational education and to allowincreased enrollment of 9th graders,disadvantaged, and other needy populations.

Wisconsin is offering employment preparationclasses to all 7 to 12th graders and paid school-supervised work experience to 10 to 12th graders.

Arizona's task force on at-risk youth is focusingon changes in vocational education to serve moreat-risk , outh.

And Wyoming has a state-wide alternativevocational education program targeted to at-riskyouth.

Dropout Prevention and School-to-Work Transition

Looking at programs for at-risk youth across thischronological continuum makes it clear how much ofthe attention on education has gone to dropoutpreventionand how much of that attention has beenfocused, so far, on the grades beyond those wheremost dropping out already has occurred. This isbecause the initial interventions in public school in thelate 1970's and early 1980's were school-to-worktransition programs, good programs but most of themdesigned only to hold seniors in school long enough togain a diploma and then help them get jobs. Manyschools adopted these as "dropout prevention"programs despite their inability to have impact on thebasic at-risk population, most of whom had left schoolbefore their senior year. The fact that dropout rates didnot go down despite these programs focused more

attention on the earlier grades and spawned a newround of efforts designed to reach somewhat lower onthe grade ladder although still, too often, not lowenough.

Not surprisingly, we found a plethora of dropout-prevention programs in place, among them a fewgeneric at-risk programs that seem to cover most of thebases (see California, Connecticut, New York, Texasand Wisconsin in the leader state summaries) Ind anumber of promising-sounding initiatives.

Florida's program, based on the DropoutPrevention Act of 1986, allows local schooldistricts to reprogram $90 million in alternative-education funds based on comprehensive dropoutplans.

Michigan provides higher education grants of$2,000 for at-risk youth successfully completinghigh school.

New York's Governor Mario Cuomo hasproposed Liberty Scholarships to pay collegeexpenses for students eligible for the federal freelunch programthat would be 29 percent of all7th graders in the state.

Minnesota has a bill in the hopper that wouldcommit the state to a 96 percent high schoolgraduation rate by 1996.

Texas passed legislation in 1986 calling forreduction of the dropout rate to 5 percent by the1997-98 school year.

Wisconsin has legislated a goal of an annualdropout rate of just 2 percent by 1992.

Mississippi's pilot program puts youth on an"alternative opportunity track" for a year in thehope that they can return to classes after thatperiod or, if not, have sufficient skills to survivein the labor market.

North Carolina's 1985 reform legislation provided$15.7 million to put a counselor attuned to theneeds of at-risk youth in each school system; nextyear, there will be $19.4 million to put half-timejob placement specialists in each secondaryschool.

The approach in South Dakota is to usevocational education and JTPA funds to providejob-skill training and employability developmentas part of the regular, for-credit curriculum forthe 40 percent of the state's students who do not

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go on to college. Students may substitute thisschool-to-work credit for academic credit neededto graduate.

Alternative schools for many years have been ameans of attempting to hold youth in the academicsetting. And while some have proved to be nothingmore than dumping grounds for "difficult" students,others have done a good job, providing the necessaryindividual attention that the regular school could notor would not provide. Thirty-four of the statesreported using some form of alternative schoolsystem, although it was apparent that very differentpurposes were involved.

Minnesota, for instance, has more alternativeschools and programs (100) than any other stateits sizemany of them targeted at potentialdropouts, and operating with local, state, andfederal funds.

The District of Columbia utilizes a number ofalternative models, including several supportedby JTPA funds.

The real issue regarding alternative schools iswhether or not they are simply an excuse for theregular schools not to bother to try to teach studentswho do not respond readily to the prevalent teachingsystem. We have seen in our Albuquerque examplewhich would have produced the same results indozens of other citieshow costly that practice canbe. Some states are committed to the school-within-a-school concept.

Indiana is one such state and so is Alaska,where a new bill in 1988 would promote school-within-a-school alternatives and certain culturalprograms because the state feels that it isdangerous to label and separate young peopleinto alternative programs.

Kansas, on the other hand, believes in thealternative school, and local educational agenciesrun a number of open-entry, open-exitcomputer-assisted instruction alternativeeducation programs there.

The truth is that many alternative schools havemuch to teach the regular schools about teaching.Providing incentives for learning is an example.

In Miami, the Academy for CommunityEducation program uses a token economy systemin which students earn points for attendanceand academic achievement that can be traded in

for privileges such as participating in field trips.

But in Miami, as elsewhere, alternative schools arefar too few, and hard to get into, with long waitinglists, poor referral systems, and small capacity. Oncethe alternative schools' lessons have been absorbed, itwould seem that ideally what they do best should bedone inside the regular schools to hold the studentsso that they do not drop out. The case seems evenstronger when it is considered that dollars that wouldgo to the regular schools have to flow instead to thealternative schools for this task.

Concern also exists about the granting of highschool diplomas that carry with them something lessthan the full high school accreditation. At least twostates have developed the dual diploma system. Onsuperficial examination, this idea would seem to behelpful to at-risk youth, but the result is too often aninferior education, a bad bargain made without theconsent or understanding of the student or parent. Itis also an inadequate strategy for the present day,when real high school diplomas, meaning realmastery of basic skills, are required.

It was clearly this consideration that promptedthe New Mexico legislature to abolish the two-diploma system.

Under the Commonwealth Futures program,Boston has recently added six alternative schoolsrun by community-based organizations asinstitutions approved to grant full high schooldiplomas.

In our view, it is a grave mistake to award twolevels of high school diplomas, one meaning less thanthe other. No better way could be found to ensurecontinued graduation of students who do not havethe basic skills and the educational background tosucceed. The challenge to the schools is to teachbetter, not reward less. If it takes longer to graduatestudents who begin behind, so be it; the extra costwill be made up for many times by these students'increased economic performance. The extra help theyneed should be seen as a gilt-edged investment inAmerica's future.

Parents have been involved increasingly in efforts tostem the tide of dropouts.

Both Minnesota and Kentucky have programsdesigned to assist parents to gain literacy astheir children gain 1,asic skills. Returns suggestthat parental involvement serves as a majormotivator for the children and that both parentand child benefit immensely.

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New Jersey proposes to have parents workingwith teachers to teach children basic skills athome.

Texas plans to use Chapter II Education andConsolidation Improvement Act funds for threeprojects resulting in development of a parentinvolvement handbook, a model parent tutoringservice, and a model pare' t service center.

Computer-assisted remediation, one of the mostcarefully success-tested, yet seldom employed, ofremediation techniques, may be ready for its day todawn.

South Carolina has long been a leader here,using JTPA 8 percent funds for computer-asssisted remediation in 100 high schools. Calledthe Governor's Remediation Initiative, itprovides grants to schools where at least 40percent of the 11th graders are below standardon mathematics tests.

Six Maryland high schools in Baltimore beginfour years of summer computer-assistedremediation for students who are two gradelevels below the standard in the spring of their8th grade year.

In Oklahoma, private industry (TelexCorporation) is doing successful computer-assisted remediation in vocational-technicalschools.

These are only a few examples of this technique inuse, but the big story remains the scarcity ofcomputer-assisted remediation across the country,given its proven cost-effectiveness.

JTPA funds have been used to good effect here andthere to assist at-risk youth in school, mainly forsummer remediation.

In some instances, incentives are employed, as inIowa, where JTPA policy calls for a reductionfactor in payments to Service Delivery Areas(SDAs) which do not serve at-risk youth.

In some cases, JTPA has taken the policyinitiative as in Maryland where it got thelegislature to provide $2 million for anallowance program for classroom instruction,and another $500,000 for work experience.

But more often the JTPA link is to summerremediation, following Ohio, where 28 SDAs

had JTPA summer program remediation beforeit was required by the U.S. Department ofLabor.

School-to-work transition programs have a kind oflife of their own, to some extent the result of thespread of Jobs for America's Graduates, a federallyand foundation-funded initiative through a number ofstates. These programs traditionally have had goodsuccess assisting seniors (and some juniors) tograduate on time and with the work-orientednecessities. At-risk youth are in considerable numberit, the JAG programs and others similarly modeled innon-JAG states such as North Carolina and Florida,where a similar program called Job Readiness Traininghas taken hold.

Dropout Retrieval and Second Chance

Our survey turned up relatively few programsdesigned to bring dropouts back into the schoolsystem, or to provide second chances for school-agedropouts. To the extent that schools should bearresponsibility for programs with dropouts, the findingseems significant. It probably is not significant insofaras this responsibility rests with community collegesand other public educational, second chanceinstitutions, which we did not survey. JTPA, as notedbefore, is not only underfunded but not really writtenwith severely at-risk youth in mind.

Nonetheless, we did find examples of extendedday school (North Carolina), continuing school(California requires students to attend somekind of school until they are 18, whether or notthis attendance leads to a diploma), and teen-parenting (in Pennsylvania a new teen-parentingprogram is in place with day care and supportservices, reaching 3,000 youth in 1987).

Oklahoma has in place an interesting effort atdropout retrieval. The state requires all schoolsto report monthly on dropouts whose names areturned over to vocational-technical schools,much in the manner of an inter-agency referral.Brochures are sent out to recruit these youth tothe vocational-technical schools-900 studentsresponded to 8,000 brochures last year.

Washington is spending $5.5 million over twoyears to identify dropouts as well as potentialdropouts, and to encourage them to go back toschool.

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In New York, every county must develop a planto get youthful offenders back into the schoolsystem.

Other efforts on behalf of at-risk youth do not fitsecurely in the above chronological scheme, but areoverarching, with the potential to affect at-riskstudents of all grades. One of the most impressive ofthese is teacher trainingthat is, the effort to prepareteachers for the challenge of helping youth who arebehind the others for one reason or another.

Delaware's comprehensive school improvementagenda includes massive teacher training alongthese lines.

The University of Hawaii's laboratory school isworking on ways to prepare teachers better forworking with this population.

A provision of Massachusetts' Public SchoolImprovement Act calls for training teachers inrecognition of potential dropouts in early schoolgrades.

Maryland, Minnesota, and Montana hold in-service training for teachers to improve theirability to work effectively with at-risk students.

In Montana, counselors no.'w must haveclassroom experience as well as counselingcredentials to help them better understand at-risk youth from the teacher's viewpoint.

New Hampshire has provided teacher training inuse of technology for classroom managementand to gain efficiencies in teaching.

Virginia is implementing measures that willmake electronic classrooms available to allstudents. Teachers in the middle schools willhave computers for the classroom and beinstructed in teaching with them, with the statemaking loans to the localities to pay for thehardware.

A related effort deals with changing attitudes ofeducators toward the youth who make up the groupwe call at risk. No effort is more important than thisone, because it strikes at the central prejudices thatctill exist against minority students and, indeed,against all students who have difficulty moving alongsuccessfully with their classmates.

In Delaware education circles, you can heardiscussions which describe students as "clients"and schools as institutions with "responsibilities"to educate them. Compare this attitude with the

long prevalent one that schools exist forstudents to discharge their responsibilities tosociety. Or with the results of a poll in one statewhich showed that teachers believed by 63percent that parents did not care if their kidsgraduated, by 87 percent that the public will notpay for public school improvements, and by 63percent that the schools were better off witl,,,utthe dropouts.

New Jersey has established performance criteriafor schools that resemble in some way theperformance criteria usually associated withgoal-oriented training programs.

California has 28 performance indicators,including dropout rate, test scores, enrollment inacademic courses, that are used to track districtsuccess.

In Tennessee, the legislatLre has required eachdistrict to submit full accountings ofaccomplishments under educational reform, ameasure initiated when former Governor LamarAlexander promised the reform act would berescinded if no evid,,nce of improvement ineducation could be summoned up after fiveyears.

Efforts to improve curriculum also should be notedhere.

Indiana is developing a technology preparationcurriculum based on pilot efforts in Oregon,Texas, Pennsylvania, California, and RhodeIsland. By 1990, they hope to have a programthat includes applied communication,performance-based instruction, and with dualhigh school and college credit to participants.

Florida is allowing school districts to modifystate-approved courses to assist students at risk;districts may make a wide variety of changes,may teach employability skills through Englishcourses or social studies, may add budgetingskills to mathematics courses.

Connecticut has come up with three-year grantsranging from $10,000 to $75,000 to the 25neediest districts to decrease the number ofdropoutswith grant money to be used tounderwrite professional staff and curriculumdevelopment.

All these advances hold promise, yet it must benoted that only the last mentioned requires basicchanges in the way education is delivered in this

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country. Our survey uncovered very little in the wayof major changerestructuringin schools thatwould be intended to benefit all of the students,including at risk.

Minnesota has proposed a School SiteManagement bill that would turn a local schoolover to the teachers and their self-selectedprincipal in an effort to free the school from thetraditional morass of rules and regulations.

In New York, the 500 schools with the worstachievement record are in an effective schoolsconsortium.

Connecticut has a voluntary school effectivenessprogram which attempts to assure mastery inreading, writing, and mathematics by having theprincipal and faculty come up with a plan forimprovement after examining instruction,curriculum organizational dynamics, andcommunity involvement.

Other efforts of this sort have gone on. 3ut,largely, this big area for improvementtiling to findthe best way to educate our coming gttnerations ofchildren, without leaving behind significantnumbershas not been touched.

RECOMMENDATION: That the commissioner orsuperintendent of education of each state developrecommendations for the state boarci and thelegislature on ways to facilitate the restructuring ofthe schools to better meet the needs of at-risk youth,and that the legislatures provide incentives to localdistricts to carry out restructuring measures that willbenefit the neediest students in the district.

Equalization

Equalizationthat is to say, the equalization offunding between the richer and poorer schooldistrictsis a complex subject. The salad days ofequalization were in the 1970's when state budgetswere flush and state funding tended to follow thefederal pattern of categorical programs targeted toareas of need. Three-fourths of the states which arenow doing excellence reform did some equalizationback then, but the bulk of their current educational-excellence spending is not going out by the equityformulas set up in the 1970's. In 1987-88, forinstance, states put about $1.6 billion into reform, yetmost of it went to teachers' salaries, career ladders, andmerit pay outside the equity formulas. Very few states

attempt to equalize teachers' paythe wealthierschool districts continue to pay their teachers morethan the poorer ones can afford to pay. Nor is italways possible to see progress when dollars areticketed specifically for poorer school districts.Sending more money to poorer school districts turnsout to be far from a guarantee that this money willbe used for purposes of assisting the students who arestruggling. Whether formula-funded or fundedthrough some other system, equalization dollars mayor may not land in the hands of the poorest schoolsand may or may not reach at-risk youth. Kentucky'sPower Equalization Fund put $82.5 million out topoor districts, but Kentucky Youth Advocates saysthat did not bring per-pupil spending in poor areasup to that of rich areas. They also criticized themeasure because districtsand this is one drawbackto formula fundingwere not required to spend theadditional monies on poor students.

There are interesting efforts to deal withequalization as applied to at-risk youth currently.

Florida weights at-risk students at 1.657 full-timeenrollment equivalencies for dropout-preventionpurposes, a clear acceptance of the need for moreequalization at the point of greatest risk.

Iowa has new legislation making it possible forlocalities to tax more for dropout preventionand other at-risk needswith the result that 69districts are raising taxes for at-risk programs.

New Hampshire has gone the way of classicequalization, with a formula that distributesfunding based in part on local taxing capacity,providing more for the poorer districts than forthe richer ones.

Pennsylvania is providing $1 million this year todistricts with above average dropout rates tofund special programs.

Connecticut's 1988 bill puts a proxy on studentachievementdistricts with the lowest scoring4th graders get more funds based on a weightingfactor. The state also targets its dropoutprevention grants to the 25 neediest schooldistricts.

Ohio's Disadvantaged Pupil Program fundsschool districts to design and operate specialprograms to improve the educational andcultural status of disadvantaged pupils. It isavailable only to districts that have 50 studentswho come from AFDC homes or whose parent

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community includes 5 percent receiving AFDC

Other states have taken a different approach. Manyhave put grams out on competitive bids. That canmean that poorer districts don't get money.

Maine has a tradition of funding by equalizati.nprinciples and, in fact, has some districts thatget no state aid at all. But with new 1988dropout-prevention funds, the state plans to givesome money to every district so that even thosewith ongoing dropout-prevention efforts willexpand them. However, the bulk of this moneywill continue to go to areas with chronicdropout problems.

Despite these etforts, true equalization continues tobe perhaps the most significant neglected facet ofeducation reform. Equity will continue to remain anissue because the most expensive reforms currentlyunder way have to do with class size, teachers' aides,and the testing and certification of teachers. Thepoorer districts get no more help here than theothers, and will continue to have less of everything.This leads to our last recommendation:

RECOMMENDATION: That the governor andlegislature of each state develop measures that willassure equity between richer and poorer schooldistricts in the distribution of fund- t-irgeted foreducational reform.

It would be difficult to overstate the importance ofrestructuring and equalization efforts for at-riskyouth. The weight of our survey goes to the pointthat the effort to save at-risk youth is beginning lateand has a long way to go. While piecemeal effortscan help, only a major, massive effort on the part ofthe states, with leadership from the federalg wernn ent, can do the job.

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Chapter VThe Future: Can We Get There From Here?

The question that stands as this chapter heading isfar from a rhetorical one. It is as real as the crisis ineducation and training that we have been consideringin this report. Before we try to answer it, we mightlook at where we stand today as a nation with regardto tomorrow's jobs.

Projections for the year 2000only a dozen yearsfrom noware that new jobs will require a workforcewhose median level of education is 13.5 years. Thatmeans, on the average, that the workers who filltomorrow's jobs will have to have some college-leveltraining. Not to be the boss, mind you, but just to holda job.

To put it a little differently, the jobs that will becreated between 1988 and 2000 will be substantiallydifferent from those that have been created in the past.A number of jobs in the least-skilled categories willdisappear, while many high-skilled professions willgrow. Overall the skill mix of the economy will bemoving rapidly upscale and increasing numbers ofworkers will be required to have computer, basicacademic, problemsolving, and interpersonal skills.

This situation by itself is not alarming. Tounderstand it for the crisis it represents, we have tolook at it in conit:nctior with other generally agreed-upon facts.

First, current projections point to a serious laborshortage in only a few years. The number of youngpeople available for work is rapidly declining. In 1978,young people from 16 to 24 were 23 percent of ourtotal population. By Iwo. they will be only 16 percent.This translates to a decline of about four million in thenumber of people available tor work. Already, laborshortages have been reported and "help wanted" signsare posted in storefronts, manufacturing plants, andservice industries. At the same time, new technology isexpected to fuel a private-sector demand foremployment at the level of 156.6 million jobs, nearlytwice that of only 10 years ago, in 1978.

But while the baby boom has gone bust and therewIl :-.1 fewer young workers, everybody agrees thatblat ks and Hispanics will be a far higher proportion ofthese young workers. Minority birth rates continue tooutstrip white birth rates. By the year 2000, one inevery three Americans will be a minoritythe groupcomposing the bulk of the at-risk youth population.

Fewer workers, more unfilled jobsthat is theprospect. The inescapable implication is that the veryyouth we have been looking at today and their youngersisters and brothers will be called upon to f'11

these jobs. If we continue as present, will the childrenat risk in school today be in a position to do the kindof work we are talking about here? Will high schooldropouts and pushouts whose own percentage ofcollege enrollment is declining currently be capable ofhandling this challenge? Only the most unbridledoptimist could answer in the affirmative. Mostthoughtful observers agree with the answer provided ina study by the Hudson Institute:

"If the policies and employment patterns of thepresent continue, it is likely that the demographicopportune., of the 1990's will be missed and that bythe year 2000, the problems of minorityunemployment, crime, and dependency will be worsethan they are now. Without substantial adjustments,blacks and Hispanics will have a smaller fraction of thejobs than they have today, while their share of thoseseeking wirk will have risen:'

In other words, we will have continued to wasteprecious human resources and will be paying anincreasing price for that at the same time the workpotential of our diverse, private-sector-orientedeconomy goes unrealized. We will have a soup-kitchenlabor force in a post-industrial economy.

"If the policies and employment patterns of thepresent continue'fthat is the operative clause. If theycontinue, then the answer to the questic.i posed as thischapter headCan we get there from here?probablyis no, not soon enough to prevent the United Statesfrom losing its position as a world leader. Not soonenough to save millions of American youth from thescrap heap.

We have tried in this report to trace the extent ofchange in the crucial role of the federal governmentand the states in educating at-risk youth. We had toconclude that the federal commitment has lessened,and this at the very time the level of national concernis being raised. We had to conclude in the last chapterthat while change is occurring at the state level, it isoccurring slowly and generally with no sense of greaturgency. For the worst scenario outlined above to beavoided, that sense of urgency must arise and takecommand. If that happens nationally and at the statelevel, it will happen at the local level, in the schools, aswell. In this chapter, we will look in more detail atwhat needs to be done.

Cite of the more encouraging signs is a growingawareness in educational-leadership circles of the gravityof the problem. In the past few years, literally dozensof reports have been issued out of the organizations

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representing this leadership. Along with these reportshave been a number of initiatives worth noting inpassing, and numerous recommendations worth morecareful consideration.

The initiatives include a series of grants to thestates to develop models of one sort or another.These include Youth 2000 grants to 13 states to workon a variety of at-risk interventions; grants of $6,000each to four states by the Education Commission ofthe States to work on development of model taskforces; assistance to 10 states from the Council ofState Policy and Planning Agencies as part of anational academy on dropout prevention; and grantsof $40,000 each to another 10 states by the Councilof Chief State School OfficErs to developcomprehensive at-risk youth legislation.

Two things seem to us to be worth noting aboutthese initiatives. First, they underscore how very earlyit is in the process of developing a comprehensiveattack on problems of at-rick youth. The initiativesdescribed go to fundamental, long-standing needs.Secondly, by demonstration standards they are fundedmodestly, with little sense of genuine crisis. This isnot meant as criticism of the funders, but to illustratehow little fiscal muscle is being applied now to aproblem of crisis proportions.

For all that, the goals of these demonstrations areworthwhile. Model, comprehensive legislationaffecting at-risk youth would represent a quantumleap ahead from where most states are presently.Additionally, the Council of Chief State SchoolOfficers suggested in their Fall, 1987 meeting, thatsuch legislation make 11 guarantees to youth inschool that bear repeating here:

An education program of the quality availableto students who attend schools with high ratesof graduation;

Enrollment in a school which demonstratessubstantial and sustained student progressleading at least to graduation;

Enrollment in a school with systematicallydeveloped and delivered instruction ofdemonstrable effectiveness and with adequate,nd up-to-date learning technologies andmaterials of proven value;

Enrollment in a school with appropriatelycertified staff;

A written guide for teaching and learning for

each student prepared and approved by thestudent and parents which maps the path tohigh school graduation;

Enrollment in a safe, functional school;

A program for participation of families aspartners in learning at home and at school;

A parent and early childhood developmentprogram beginning no later than the age offour;

Effective health and social support services toovercome conditions which put the student atrisk;

Educational information about students, schools,districts, and states to enable identification ofstudents at risk and to report on schoolconditions and performance. The informationmust be sufficient to let one know whether theabove guarantees are being met;

Procedures by which students and parents canbe assured the guarantees are met.

Taken together, these recommendations suggestlegislation that guarantees an equal and fullyadequate education to all of our children. They takeinto consideration that all will not learn at the samerate, that some will need more help than others, andthat providing that help is as much the business ofschools as is the education of those who need onlyhave the assignments handed out. Theserecommendations have about them the ring of a "billof rights" for at-risk youth, although the language is,appropriately, aimed at all children. If they were putinto effect, they might well make the term "at-risk"obsolete. Or in the words of the Council's pastpresident, David Hornbeck, they could "eliminate thedropout as a feature of the educational system in thiscountry by the year 2000:'

It is important to note, however, that at least six ofthese 11 recommendations call for involvement ofparents, health support agencies, and, by implication,others outside the school system. It cannot be saidtoo emphatically that the battle for the future of ourat-risk youth must be won outside as well as insidethe schools. In this battle the schools must realizethat nothing less than a genuine collaboration will do.Too often in the past, educators have tried to draw aline at the school door, asserting that theresponsibilities of parents and the community endedthere. In MDC's earlier report for the Charles StewartMott Foundation on at-risk youth (Who's Looking

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Out for At-Risk Youth), we noted that state educationexcellence commissions took a dim view of the needfor collaboration. Only two of the 54 respondingcommissions saw any need for social service oremployment/training linkages, only one thoughtlinkages with law enforcement and mental healthagencies important, and none saw any role forsubstance abuse agencies working with the schools.

But if these barriers could be overcome and if theschools were helped to assume their new role as thelocus of a holistic learning process, it is possible toimagine great strides. With a little reading betweenthe lines of the Council's recommendations, we mighttry to imagine what a school in the America of todayand tomorrow might look like.

It would be a school, first of all, in which theequity considerations that dominated the 1970's andthe educational excellence considerations that havedominated the 1980's would come together inconsonance. It would be a school that learned toimprove and sharpen education for the brightest anthe slowest, and managed to make that educationrelevant to all and good enough to produce aworkforce capable of competing successfully with thatof any other nation.

It would be a school thai picked up students whoalready had a "head start" as a result of a parent andearly childhood development program, which theschool participated in along with other communitypartners. This effort would capitalize on anotherresearch finding described in the same Councilmeeting by Harold Hodgkinson, senior fellow withthe American Council on Education as='the earlierthe programs, the better the return on theinvestment:'

It would be a school that featured a great deal ofcollaboration and that traded the "closed" atmospherethat dominates too many schools today for a newopenness. It would involve parents in a learning-teaching way, building on a number of models ofhow this can be done successfully. It would involvein providing "effective health and social services'=other agencies in the community who have a vitalstake in the success of the young people in theschools, including employers, employment trainers,and those agencies responsible for our children'shealth and safety. (The kind of special support teen-age parents like Albuquerque's Susan need would beprovided, as would information on preventativemeasures.)

It would be a school dedicated to keeping its

students by teaching them how to succeed. Thisimplies the hiring and continued training='continuousprofessional development' of teachers who see it astheir job to discover the learning styles of theirstudents and talc( the responsibility for teaching tothose styles. 'A written guide for teaching andlearning for each student..:' implies something veryclose to an Individual Educational Program (IEP) ofthe sort required for special education students, asdoes the language that follows it... "prepared withand approved by the student and his or her parents:'There should, of course, be leeway for students tochange their courses of study when they havechanged their goals. (It is difficult to seeAlbuquerque's Carlos dropping out of such a school.)

In turn, this kind of teaching !moles fullest use ofcontemporary technical advances, or in the words ofthe fourth guarantee-='adequate and up-to-datelearning technologies and materials of proven value."Robert Taggart, founder and president of theRemediation and Training Institute, and among themost experienced leaders in remediation, told tieCouncil of Chief State School Officers how to teachbasic skills. What works, he said, is "individualized,self-paced, competency-based, multiple mediainstruction, with high time on task, with self-direction of learners, with one-on-one teaching,frequent feedback, positive reinforcement,accountability, supportive services, and linkages. It's alitany that runs across higher education, secondaryeducation, and our employment and training research.If you can do these things, people will learn basicskills:' Gains of an average of two grade in readingor math per 100 hours of instruction are welldocumented. (Here is a way of teaching that wouldhave helped Matthew enormously.)

Our today and tomorrow school, then, will havecomputer-assisted remediation available to assist notonly at-risk youth, who will put in time at thecomputer bank and join classes working at their skillslevels, but also other students, who may be able tomove ahead in certain subjects at their own pace.Students with special aptitudes would have some timeset aside to pursue these aptitudes in specialprograms. And teachers all would understand whatthe few already are beginning tothat computersdon't replace teachers, but merely free them to teachbetter.

What about class size? There are now 24 pupils inthe typical public elementary school classroom, downfrom 30 in 1961. Research we have seen suggests that

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no significant improvements in achievement occuruntil the class size is reduced to around 10 students.A recent Department of Education report put the costof reducing all classrooms in the nation to 15 at $69billion and termed such a move probably a "waste ofmoney and effort:' Reducing all classrooms to 15students strikes us as reflecting the same kind of lock-step mentality that has created the closed, inflexibleschool thoughtful observers say we must leave behindto history. Yet much research goes to the point thatsmaller classrooms are especially valuable for at-riskyouth. Recent research in connection with Indiana's"Prime Time" program for reduced class sizeconfirmed that both parents and teachers felt that thesmaller class size benefited their primary schoolstudents significantly. Our school would groupstudents according to educational needs, with smallclasses for more individualized instruction, includingteacher and peer tutoring, where that makes sense,and bigger classes, even including some larger lectureand visual instruction classes, where they make sense.

Our today and tomorrow school would not forgetthe lessons we have learned, cited in Chapter II,about the needs of all youth, often even moreimportant to at-risk youth. Sue Berryman, director ofthe Center for Education and Employment atColumbia University, argues that schools shouldmirror life and that they must be relevant in the sensethat they must help students to visualize themselvesbet ofiting in the future. In surveys she found thatmost teen-age single-parent females saw themselves as"mothers" in life after school and may well havebecome pregnant on that account, and thatvocational-education students were happier with theirlearning even in schools isolated from the mainschool because they saw what they were learning asrelevant to their life later.

She also underscored an important lessonsupported by other research. Children learn betterwhen given mutual responsibility. She suggests amodel of Japanese teaching in which grades 1 to 6 areorganized into small ability groups for discipline,chores, and other classroom activities, with thestudents assuming responsibility for correcting eachother's behavior and also for completing work ontime. Japanese schools also assign one student toassist the teacher as a monitor, to keep order, solvinga discipline problem at the same time they teachchildren supervisory and leadership skills. Suchtechniques could be extremely useful in our school ofthe future.

Some of the same ideas emerge from the work of

Gary Wehlage and his colleagues at the NationalCenter on Effective Secondary Schools. They haveidentified characteristics of model alternative-schoolprograms for at-risk youth this way:

Small size (typically 25 to 100 students with twoto six faculty); a clear program identity, teacherautonomy, and a strong sense of collegiality.

Student commitment to clearly stated rulesabout attendance, behavior, and the quantityand quality of work required; and a clearunderstanding of the consequences for breakingthese rules.

Experiential learning that gives students anactive role in meaningful work and exposesthem to adults who exemplify responsibility, thework ethic and positive human relationships.

Is it possible to transport these necessities fromalternative school to regular school settings7 Or areproblf ms of sheer size too great? Research suggeststhat the teaching style of alternative schools willtravel to regular school. Some alternative schoolssucceed at numbers levels well above the optimal.Regular schools with fzr more students take onaspects of alternative schools when the leadership isthere. One alternative school in Miami is experiencingonly a 15 percent dropout ratecompared to 85percent in otherswith only seven teachers for 140pupils, an average classroom size of 20.

Perhaps even more important, evidence suggeststhat as restructuring of the sort discussed here takesplace in regular school, all students benefit from thegreater flexibility that comes into play. It does notseem to be true that reform aimed at the above-average student necessarily "trickles down" to at-riskyouthas we have seen, sometimes actually can beharmful. But there is evidence that the reverse of thisprocessa kind of "radiating up" effect from reformsthat work for the bottom half of the classis helpfulto students at the top. Traditional educational reformof the kind we have had deals mainly with quantity,and with quality as seen as "doing the same thingsbetter:' Reform designed for at-risk youth, on theother hand, deals with learning, functioning, andcollaborative styles and these can profit any and allstudents.

Is it possible, then, that our today and tomorrowschool can become the norm as we move toward the21st Century? Can we recreate the process of learninginside the schoolhouse, involving the crucialparticipants both outside and inside? In shortfor

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this is what these questions come tocan we makethe kind of fundamental changes that will benefit at-risk youth at the same time they raise our nationalexpectations for the education of all? Can we win theequity fought for in the 1970's and at the same timehave the excellence grasped for in the 1980's?

Some will say, no; it is obviously impractical, tooexpensive. Everything costs money and a qualityeducation program would be expensive. But unlikeexpenditures for the concrete to build roads or thearmor for defense, expenditures for education carry asystematic array of expanding societal benefits, whilethe failure to spend carries penalties of a severe sort,which we have been paying exorbitantly in recentyears. They attach to the quality of life in thecountry, social as well as economic. But the economicbenefits of real school reform of the sort outlinedabove are worth a look, first.

Again, the Hudson Institute: "If every child whoreaches the age of 17 between now and the year 2000could read sophisticated materials, write clearly, speakarticulately, and solve complex problems requiringalgebra and statistics, the American economy couldeasily approach or exceed the 4 percent growth of theboom scenario. Unconstrained by shortages ofcompetent, well educated workers, American industrywould be able to expand and develop as rapidly asworld markets would allow. Boosted by theproductivity of a well-qualified workforce, U.S.-basedcompanies would reassert historic Americanleadership in old and new industries and theAmerican workers would enjoy the rising standardsof living they enjoyed in the 1950's and 1960's:'

If the teaching goal cited here seems a bitunrealistic, it can be modified and even the modifiedresults would answer the current challenge toAmerica's economic well-being. The dark underside ofthis coin shows up in the language of corporateexecutives, like David T. Kearns, chairman and chiefexecutive officer of Xerox, in a speech last year: "Thebasic skills in our workforceparticularly at theentry levelare simply not good enough for theUnited States to compete in a world economy."

Economist Lester Thurow agrees: "The bottom halfof the U.S. labor force simply compares poorly withthe rest of the industrial world when it comes to botheducation and skills."

Clearly, the national economic gains from an

equity-excellence education movement would beexponential. Each of us would share in the benefits ofa healthy, expanding economy. Looked at this way,the investment in a better, quality education foryoung Americans is probably the soundest one thenation can make. Against this order of benefits, theincreased educational costs are beggared.

Even if we take the narrower view, and look onlyat direct costs of continued neglect to our nation thepicture should be sufficiently harrowing to stir us toaction. Again let us look at both sides of the coin:

The 973,000 dropouts from the nation's highschools in 1981 will lose $228 billion in personalearnings over their lifetime, while society willlose $68.4 billion in taxes.

On the other hand, the Committee for EconomicDevelopment found: "Every $1 spent on earlyprevention and intervention can save $4.74 incosts of remedial education, welfare, and crimefurther down the road:' If we could raise themean-tested skills of our nation's 19- to 23-year-olds by one grade equivalenta goal that wouldbe considered within reach for any computer-assisted remediation program in the country in50 hourslifetime earnings would increase by3.6 percent," note researchers Berlin and Sum,"and the likelihood of births out of wedlock,welfare dependency, and arrests would declineby 6.5 percent, 5.2 percent, and 6.2 percentrespectively :'

It is against this backdrop of cost, wasted money,cost, wasted people, and more cost, that we mustlook at a greater investment in our school system.The real question is what would it cost us toeliminate some or much of this unconscionable waste?Or, to put it another way, how much are we willingto pay now to avoid paying almost five times asmuch later?

The William T. Grant Foundation's Commission onWork, Family, and Citizenship has recommended thatthe federal government invest in youth an additional$5 billion annually over the next 10 years. By way ofillustrating how this additional funding could help,the Commission estimated that it could serve anadditional 600,000 students in Head Start, 2.5 millionstudents in Chapter I, 19,000 additional person-yearsin the Job Corps, and 500,000 more in JTPA, while atthe same time providing a fund of $200 million to thestates to be used in such ways as youth communityand neighborhood service, cooperative education,high school work study, apprenticeship, youth-

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operated enterprises, and improved career counseling.

It is important to remember that thisrecommendation comes at a time when federalspending is a decreasing rather than increasing shareof the total education dollar, and when a good bit ofthis loss has come from a decline in the mostsignificant federal funding pot for disadvantagedchildren, the Chapter I program.

It is worth noting here that Chapter I is one of themain sources of school funding for computer-assistedremediation, which as we have seen, is a key toimprovement of services to at-risk youth. Estimates ofthe percentage of eligible youth served by Chapter Irun between 40 and 50 percent. Our survey suggeststhat probably no more than 50 percent of thestudents who do get into the program actually usecomputers for regular course work in school. Wefound instances where computers were used foradministration rather than for the students and onecity where an entire bank of new computers weresitting in storage, unused. 'What we are facing," theChapter I executive in that city told us, "is a deeplyentrenched resistance to the use of computer-assistedremediation on the part of some folks in educationaround here:'

Where computers are used, they are not being usedas much for subject areas such as reading, math, andscience as for teaching students how computers work.The Educational Testing Service's just-published 1988study of 24,000 students showed that only 5.7 percentof 7th graders used computers almost every day topractice math, while 62.3 percent said they neverpracticed math on the computer. The contrast waseven sharper for the 7th graders when asked howoften they used the computer to practice reading. Thepercentages were 3.1 for "almost every day" but 78.4for "never:' As these youth move up in grades, thesituation becomes worse. When 11th graders wereasked the same questions, they responded 3.4 percentto 77.9 to the math question and 1.8 to 87.2 percentto the reading question. ETS observes: "In contrast,between 70 percent and 80 percent of studentsindicated that they had used computers to 'playgames' whether in or outside of school:' Asked howmany hours a week they used a computer to aidinstruction in subject areas, only 12.4 percent of the7th graders and 6.3 percent of the 11th gradersindicated more than one hour, while 38.2 percent ofthe 7th graders and 43.9 percent of the 11th grades;said less than 30 minutes. Fully 17.9 percent of the7th graders and 17.3 percent of the 11th graders

responded "none" to this question.

In addition to discovering that computers are notbeing used much for developing reading and mathskills, ETS researchers concluded that equityconsiderations were coming into play. "There are clearracial/ethnic differences in computer competence,favoring white students over black and Hispanicstudents. These differences are present even betweenstudents who ha e comparable levels of experience.But the differences are accentuated by greaterexperience with computers among white students:'The relatively greater experience with computers athome helps the white students in this respect, thestudy concluded, and so does the absence of blackand Hispanic role modelsover 90 percent of thecomputer coordinators in the 7th and 11th gradeclasses were white, the researchers discovered.

These equity considerations are even balder infigures released from another study. The Council ofThe Great City Schools learned that while there arepresently 1.3 computers per 30 students in highschools with less than 5 percent black students, thereare only .9 computers per 30 students in high schoolswith more than 50 percent black students. Putanother way, the same comparison yields .9computers per 30 students in schools with high socio-economic status and .5 computers per 30 students inschools with low socio-economic status. Put moresimply, the schools with the economically better-offstudents have more computers than those with moreat-risk students. And it is the at-risk students whoclearly have the first-line need for computer-assistedinstruction.

In such a situation, leadership may be as importantas the amount of money the federal governmentcontributes. If the Grant Commission's recommendedinvestment of $5 billion a year for the next 10 yearswere accepted the total cost of $50 billion would stillbe less than our society's loss of tax dollars from thedropouts from one single school year, which, asnoted above, will amount to $68.4 billion over thelifetime of the youth. This takes no account of theastronomical costs to society of the rehabilitation ofmany of these young people through drug programsand prison and the rest, or of the economic loss oftheir production to our society, or of the youththemselves and their families.

Given all this, it is difficult to understand whymore effort has not gone into assisting these at-riskyouth. If we do not consider them expendable in oursociety, why have we failed to put into practice the

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lessons that good employment and training programsand good school programs have taught? For morethan two decades, we have been proving that theright combination of support and teaching will workfor them. It has worked in the Job Corps (or youthwho were on the margin between society and a life inprison. It has worked for thousands of youth inschool-to-work transition programs. And more ofteneach year, it is working for at-risk youth in school.

Two examples may serve for many:

The Cass Lake-Bena School District in northernMinnesota is on the Leech Lake IndianReservation. The area has a 70 percentunemployment rate, a high incidence ofalcoholism, a high crime rate, and a largepercentage of children from single-parentfamilies. Native American students make up 48percent of all, and their dropout rate for the1982-83 year was 60 percent. An expansion ofthe Indian Education Program in the districtbrought about a dramatic reduction in thisdropout rate, down to 28.6 percent in threeyears. What were the new services? Tutoring,counseling, home-school liaison, transportationfor medical and dental care, support for Indianclub activities, career exploration and workexperience, inclusion of Ojibwe Indian languageand culture studies in the curriculum, and avariety of recognition and incentive activities.None of these items is super-costly. All of themare tested and have proved successful in avariety of settings across the country.

Six years ago Whitfield County, Georgia, theself-proclaimed Carpet Capital of Ur,- World,was viewed by area educators as the DropoutCapital of the World as well. Only half ofentering 9th graders graduated from high school,lured instead by unskilled jobs in the carpetmills. School officials were the first to sound thealarm, but soon business leaders and parentsjoined in a community-wide campaign to keepstudents in school. While the schools put inplace an early intervention strategy for high-riskyouth and established a school improvementproject in the middle school, the Chamber ofCommerce created a Stay in School Task Forcethat persuaded 207 employers, two-thirds of thetotal in the county, to sign an agreementpromising to limit part-time job offers to onlythose students who maintained satisfactoryattendance and grades and to offer no jobs to

school-age youth lacking a high school diploma.Now when a student talks about quittingschool, a counselor calls one of several localemployers who will drop everything to cometalk to the student and to encourage him to stayin school. The program has been credited withreduc.,:ig the dropout rate to 35 percent and withbringing many dropouts back to school. Whilethe community's dropout problem is far fromresolved, Whitfield County nevertheless providesa model for creating a caring and responsiveenvironment.

When we consider the costs of success against theinfinitely higher costs of failure, the GrantCommission's recommendations seem conservative.They may be more so than President Ronald Reagan'sown stated goal of achieving a national graduationrate of 90 percent by 1990, a goal, incidents y, forwhich no ii imediate funding increases have beensuggested nd for which no plan has been proposed.

Enough is certainly known, as the title of onerecent report on at-risk youth stated, for progress tobe made, and time is too short to delay action. Therecommendations above go to the global issues. Butwhile it is clear that movement can be made, muchremains at issue at the program level. As we havesuggested, it is largely impossible, in the absence ofealuation, to determine which programs work, andhow well, or to conclude which features of theseprograms are essential to making these programswork when they are put in place elsewhere.

Also, there is need for close monitoring of theprogress made by the states over the next few yearstoward the goal of the full implementation of acomprehensive state-wide policy for at-risk youth.Model legislation may work differently in one statethan in another, but yet there may be elements thatare essential to all. Again, the need is for experiencedobservers with no stake in the outcome to look overthe shoulders of the states with an ele towardassisting in making the best choices among severaldifferent, and perhaps mutually exclusive, options.

Perhaps most important of all, there is need fororganizations that can assist in raising nationalconsciousness as to the critical situation in regard toat-risk youth. Ideally, these organizations should nothave constituencies within state government or theeducational superstructure, but should beknowledgeable and in a position to inLuence opinion.

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It is possible that dissemination of the goodpractices, the options available to the states andlocalities, is the most difficult achievement of all. Wehave seen in this report how poorly information isshared between government agencies, educators, andemployment and training agencies locally, and at thestate and federal level. The need here is for honestbrokers who can assist in creation of state andinterstate networks to share results of efforts onbehalf of at-risk youth. Ideally, these networks shouldbe built into some ongoing institutions and so be self-perpetuating, but first, the perpetuating institutionsmust be identified and the networks built.

In truth, we all bear a part of the burden foraction. As businesspersons and parents, as citizens,we all owe awareness and the willingness to act tosolve the complex of problems put forward here.Acting for the future of our youth is not a spectatorsport.

The states have taken a small step forward towarda future in which this nation ceases to treat a largeportion of its youth as though they were expendable.A small stepbut much remains to be done and timeis short. If there is to be a leap forward, a movementof saving grace for these young people of ours, atender of this country's regard for its youth no lessthan for the survival of its economic leadership, thattime is now. This opportunity will not come again,nor, perhaps, will another half as full of hope.

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State Summaries

California

California's reform efforts haw: focused on restoringthe financial support for education that eroded duringthe era of Proposition 13 and on addressing the needsof the growing limited English-proficient population.Compliance review procedures require districts todemonstrate progress toward achieving reform goalsand to structure extra services for special-needsstudents for mastery or core academic subjects; 28indicators such as enrollment and dropout rates andtest scores are used to track success.

Although the state provides $36 million for pre-school programs that serve 19,000 low-income 4-year-olds, the bulk of at-risk initiatives are targeted topotential and actual dropouts. Senate Bill 813, passedin 1983, included provisions which resulted in mostdistricts offering a 10th grade counseling program tofocus guidance services on at-risk students. Senate Bill65, passed in 1985, provides an extra $12 million fordropout prevention activities under a Motivation andMaintenance Program. Funds are targeted to the 50high schools with the highest dropout rates and theirapproximately 150 elementary and junior high "feeder"schools. Eligible districts may file a single applicationfor several educational grants if they develop anacceptable proposal for a set of coordinated preventionefforts. Once the plan is accepted, funding is receivedin a block grant.

California law requires school attendance on a full-time basis until the age of 16 and on at least a part-time basis until graduation or the age of 18. Whilemost districts offer alternative school programs, thestate also funds continuation schools for students 16and over who wish to leave or have been dismissedfrom high school. About a fifth of 11th and 12thgraders opt to enroll is. Regional Occupational Centerswhich provide job-skill training at high school sites,businesses, or training centers for at least one hour per day.

Following Washington's example, the state has set upCalifornia Clinics which provide three hours a day ofinstruction for dropouts. Students may take up to 225hours of instruction after which they are referred to anexisting educational program leading to a diploma orequivalent.

Last year the State Job Training CoordinatingCouncil's Youth Committee prepalcd the report,"Tomorrow's Workers At Risk." As an outgrowth of thereport, the state set aside $1 million of JTPA 6 percentfunds for incentive grants to areas meeting youth-spending requirements, achieving a high-risk-youth

positive termination rate, and implementingremediation programs for at-risk youth.

Connecticut

Connecticut has enacted dropout preventionlegislation, adopted state policy on dropoutprevention, established an interagency task force on at-risk youth, and begun work on a State EducationDepartment Position Paper on At-Risk Students. In1988, the state adopted new distribution procedures todirect more state aid to poor districts and districtsproducing the lowest scores on state-wide masterytests. In addition, for the past eight years, Connecticuthas supported a School Effectiveness Project, providingconsultants to districts volunteering to participate.

Substitute Senate Bill 882, passed in 1987, targetsannual dropout-prevention grants for up to three yearsto the 25 school districts in greatest need. The billreserves funds for a few competitive grants to otherschool districts and requires each grant recipient toidentify at-risk students, collect dropout data using acommon definition and uniform methodology, andengage in a comprehensive planning process and needsassessment. State Board policy encourages all districts,not only grant recipients, to engage in similaractivities.

A Dropout Need Index was developed to identifythose 25 districts most in need of funds from the state's117 school districts. The index factors enrollment lossdata; 4th, 6th, and 8th grade mastery test data; and theconcentration of poverty based on counts of recipientsof Aid to Families with Dependent Children. The sizeof the grants, which ranged from $10,000 to $75,000 inschool year 1987-88, is based on the dropout needindex, relative wealth of the district, and districtenrollment.

While the dropout legislation added $750,000 to1987-88 school funding, a variety of other state-fundedprograms are in place. A Priority School Districtsproject provides help in diagnostic skills testing,teacher training, and curriculum development to the 15districts with the lowest basic-skills test scores. Otherfunds, often available on a competitive basis, support:

8 to 10 summer school grants ($1 million)a demonstration project for high-risk babies withhandicaps or developmental delays ($350,000)15 extended-day kindergarten projects ($1 million)8 adolescent-parents programs and several school-based health clinics (approximately $500,000)breakfast programs for 2-year-olds ($364,000)

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Florida

Florida's attack on the problems faced by at-riskyouth was kicked off in 1970 when the state providedcategorical funding for secondary school occupationalspecialists. These personnel, which continue to workin the schools today, are assigned responsibility foridentifying dropouts, providing counseling services,and conducting exit interviews with studentswithdrawing from school. In 1978, legislationprovided funding for alternative education, which by1982 grew to a state-wide allocation of $90 million.Two years later, a state task force evaluated thoseprograms and developed recommendations whichculminated in 1986 with passage of the DropoutPrevention Act.

The new act encourages districts to reprogram thefunds previously used for alternative education tosupport, in addition, early identification andintervention activities. Districts wishing to receivedropout-prevention funds are required to developcomprehensive plans that include educationalalternative programs, teen-age parent programs,programs for substance abusers, disciplinaryprograms, and youth-services programs (educationalprograms for youth under state care). In additiondistricts must provide for parental, community, andbusiness involvement; interagency coordination ofservices; a system of early identification of potentialdropouts; dropout-retrieval activities; andemployability skills, and other activities related topreparation for work. At least one person must beassigned responsibility for implementation andadministration of the plan and a biennial evaluationplan must be carried out. An optional component ofthe legislation allows districts to modify state-approved courses to produce interdisciplinary coursesor to make other modifications which will enhancethe effectiveness of a dropout-prevention program.

Florida uses a weighted FTE system to determineeach district's allocation level. Students enrolled indropout-prevention programs earned 1.657 FTEs fortheir districts for the time spent in dropout-prevention activities in 1987-88. The 1986 act alsoallocated $4.5 million for competitive community-based dropout-prevention program grants and forsupport of a Center for Dropout Preventioit

Other legislation has established pilot anddemonstration programs for disadvantaged pre-schoolers, at-risk youth needing individualizedplanning and counseling in grades 4 to 8, teenparents, abuse victims, and latchkey children. Floridaalso

funds a compensatory education program, a migranthandicapped pre-school program, and a YouthConservation Corps. In 1987, the state initiated aCompact program which pairs businesspersons withyouth needing mentoring and other services.

Illinois

Early intervention and prevention programsdominate Illinois' strategies for meeting the needs ofat-risk youth. In 1983, the state created Parents TooSoon, a comprehensive teen pregnancy initiative thatnow operates in 125 areas with an annual budget of$12 million. The state also funds a $37 millionreading program for K-6th grade students and a $45million pre-school program. In 1988 the state joinedthe State Policy Academy on Dropout Preventiondirected by the Council of State Policy and PlanningAgencies.

Illinois' 1985 educational-reform package earmarkedover two-thirds ($59 million) of its $90 million budgetfor activities directly affecting at-risk youth. Inaddition to the reading and pre-school programs, thepackage provided for a $10 million Truant'sAlternative and Optional Education Program whichprovides optional educational services for 20,000youth. The pre-school effort, first funded at $12million, is expected to grow to $122 million by FY1990. It targets at-risk 3- and 4-year-olds usingclassroom and home-based formats. Reading fundsare based on district size and need; districts may usethe funds to create special classes or lowerpupil/teacher ratios.

The state has made extensive use of advisorygroups. In 1986, the state received a Clark Foundationgrant to develop state policy for school dropoutprevention and employment readiness fordisadvantaged youth. The Governor established theIllinois State Task Force on At-Risk Youth anddesignated four regional coalitions from areas havingthe highest student attrition rates. The coalitions werecharged with developing a catalog of effectiveprograms and with making policy recommendationsto the Task Force. There also is an ad hoc YouthEmployment Task Force representing state youthservice agencies, community-based groups, andprogram providers that has recommended adoption ofa comprehensive state youth policy. Other groupsinclude a Working Group on Bilingual Training,private citizens' commissions, and an urban dropoutlegislative task force.

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In 1987, Governor James R. Thompson initiated a"Class of 1999" project which serves as an umbrellafor activities aimed at educating a higher percentageof Illinois' youth. One goal of the project is toeliminate youth unemployment by guaranteeing a jobto all youth after high school.

The state JTPA office has attempted to increaseservices to at-risk youth by modifying programperformance standards to encourage longer-termremedial education activities. Eight percent fundssupport a Work Experiena. and Career ExplorationProgram for 14- to 15-year-olds in the 25 districtswith the greatest dropout rates.

Maryland

Support for at-risk youth has come from a varietyof sources in Maryland including the governor'soffice, the legislature, and several state departments.The result has been increased public awareness of theneeds of at-risk youth and a wide variety ofprograms serving this group.

Significant efforts date back to 1973 when an earlyidentification and intervention program that screensall entering first graders for learning disabilities wasinstituted by the legislature. Since that time, 15 otherpieces of legislation affecting at-risk youth havepassed including a $12 million program for childrenwith special education needs that have resulted fromdisadvantaged environments, a $3.3 million extendedelementary education program for 4-year-olds, a$1.7 million adult basic education program for16-year-olds and older, and a $2 million allowanceprogram for youth aged 14 to 21 enrolled in JTPAprograms. Other measures have funded suicide andchild abuse prevention programs and programs fordisruptive and special education students.

Former Governor Harry Hughes declared 1985 theYear of the Child and charged the departments ofhuman resources, education, and mental health andhygiene with developing an interagency plan forchildren with special needs for use in setting programand budget priorities. His successor, GovernorWilliam D. Schaefer, created a sub-cabinet forchildren's needs and elevated to cabinet status theOffice on Youth.

Leadership on the at-risk issue is also coming fromstate Superintendent David Hornbeck who hasproposed that Maryland adopt Wisconsin's policy ofguaranteeing every child an education. The EducationDepartment has developed public awareness materials;

an inventory of programs that serve at-risk youth; in-service training for teachers; and an attendance,follow-up, and evaluation system.

In late 1987, the Governor's Employment andTraining Council's Education Task Force proposed anat-risk policy and program concept that would bringtogether the local educational and Private IndustryCouncil systems to cooperatively plan and implementcomprehensive, integrated, school-based, multi-year,year-round programs for at-risk youth. The proposalwould combine i5 million in state funds with $5million from foundation resources, $10 million fromlocal JTPA summer funds, and $1 million from stateJTPA 8 percent funds. If approved by the legislature,the initiative will provide basic skills remediation,work experience, motivation/leadership development,support services, and school-to-work transitionservices on a year-round basis starting in September,1988.

Massachusetts

Massachusetts is attacking the at-risk youthproblem by giving increased power to localcommunities to generate program and policy ideas.One of the largest efforts is the CommonwealthFutures program which has the long-term goal ofdeveloping a coordinated state-wide strategy forhelping the communities with the highest proportionof at-risk youth deal more effectively with dropoutprevention and reentry.

The Futures program began in the Fall of 1986 withthe identification of 21 communities and two regionalschool districts with the highest concentrations of at-risk youth. Each of these were invited to compete forgrants that would help the communities implementcommunity-wide service plans for at-risk youth. Atthe state level, both a Steering Committee and aninteragency work group assist the project byaddressing barriers to local program implementation,securing necessary funds and technical assistance, andcreating a common request-for-proposal process. By1990 the state expects to have worked with at least 18communities.

The state has adopted a broad definition of at riskto facilitate the use of JTPA and other categoricalfunding for Commonwealth Futures and other at-riskyouth programs. In addition to economicdisadvantage, 11 other criteria may qualify youth forJTPA programs. Efforts are under way to establish acommon information system for use by several state

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agencies serving dropouts and potential dropouts.

Massachusetts' Public School Improvement Act hasprovided $2 million for dropout-prevention programsand authorized the creation of School ImprovementCouncils made up of parents, teachers, andadministration. Schools with councils are eligible toreceive grants totaling $50 per student for locallydesigned improvement programs. Another reformmeasure is helping to improve the ability of teachersto recognize potential dropouts in the early grades.The state has also provided $15 million in support of20 plLs "Carnegie" schools which are testing theprinciples put forth by the Carnegie report oneducation.

During 1987 the Governor requested a $1 millionTeenage Pregnancy Prevention Challenge Fund forcomprehensive prevention and service coordinationprojects. Each participating community must have ateen-age pregnancy coalition that includes stateagency directors, school superintendents, teachers,representatives of colleges and universities, PrivateIndustry Council chairs, municipal officials, locallegislators, parents, teens, and a variety of othercommunity leaders. Other state funds support healthcare clinics for pregnant and parenting teens in sixcities and a state-wide compensatory educationprogram.

Minnesota

Minnesota, with the highest graduation rate of the50 states (91.4 percent), nevertheless has adopted thegoal of increasing its graduation rate to 96 percent by1996. The state began work in 1987 on a draftLearners At Risk policy. Several components of thepolicy have been legislated into effect while othersremain under development. Minnesota is one of 10states participating in the Council of State Policy andPlanning Agencies' policy academy on dropoutprevention.

One of the first pieces of the policy to be enactedwa. the High School Graduation Incentives Programwhich became operational during the 1987-88 schoolyear. The program encourages youth aged 12 to 21who have experienced or are experiencing difficulty inthe traditional education system to enroll inalternative programs. Students may enroll inprograms approved by the State Board (Minnesotahas over 100 alternative education programs),postsecondary courses, or public secondary education

programs. State funds follow the student to theeducation system selected. Eligible students includethose who are performing two grade levels belowother students of the same age, are one year or morebehind in obtaining credits for graduation, arepregnant or parents, or are chemically dependent.Younger students also may qualify if they are absentfrom school excessively. Response from students andparents has exceeded expectations. A surveyconducted in December found that 1,400 youth hadrequested a district or school change; half of thesewere youth who had already dropped out of schooland half were in school at the time of their request.

Another 1987 act created four area learning centerswhich focus on academic and learning skills, tradeand vocational skills, work experience, and transitionservices for secondary pupils and adults. The centerswill receive an initial grant of $37,500 and may use avariety of other funds to support the overall program.Students may elect to attend fulltime or parttime andwill receive a high school diploma; $20,000 has beenreserved for an evaluation of the centers in 1989.

In 1988 the legislature adopted 15 new Learners AtRisk Initiatives. One requires districts to provideeducational programs for pregnant minors and teenparents and to coordinate these programs with socialservices and employment and training programs.Another provides planning grants for developingemployment programs for at-risk youth involvingcreation of housing for the homeless. The sum of$100,000 was allocated for development of televisedGED instruction and $500,000 will be made availableby competitive bids for development of pre-kindergarten programs for poor children withsignificant developmental delay.

New York

New York has implemented a variety ofindependent initiatives affecting at-risk youth and hasproposed many more. In his 1988 State-of-the-Stateaddress, the Governor called for a 50 percent cut inthe dropout rate over the next five years and forcreation of a Liberty Scholarship program. Under thelatter proposal, every 7th grader qualifying for thefree lunch program (about 29 percent of all 7thgraders) would be eligible for financial supportcovering the costs of attendance in college.Meanwhile, the State Job Training CoordinatingCouncil Youth Committee has drafte(' a youth -at -riskpolicy statement and has convened state-wide

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hearings on the statement.

Prior to broadening its concerns to all at-riskyouth, the state focused on programs for teen-ageparents. The Adolescent Pregnancy Program, initiatedin 1984, currently provides $8 million forcomprehensive services delivered through school-basedcenters. Offenders also have received special attention.To promote broader use of nonjudicial remedies fortruants and offenders, each county must develop aplan for getting offenders back into school.

In February 1988, the state awarded 58 competitivegrants for Youth-At-Risk and Community PartnershipPrograms. A total of $7 million will be aw-Idedultimately to establish comprehensive edu(..,ional andsocial services programs. Sixty percent of the fundsmust be used by the schools to purchase servicesfrom community agencies.

New York funds its own compensatory educationprogram and supplements federal employment andtraining funds by $54.49 million for at-risk youthinitiatives. The state also supports alternativeprograms for 16- and 17-year-olds and provides $27million for pre-school programs for the economicallydisadvantaged; $28 million supports an Attendance!mprovement/Dropout Prevention effort that offerscounseling, diagnostic screening, alternative educationor work experience to 100,000 plus middle schoolstudents.

To improve the overall quality of education, thestate has supported an effective schools movementwhich involves the 500 schools in the state with thelowest test scores and highest dropout rates. Currentlythe state requires all schools to submit a Cards Planfor 7eporting achievement levels and dropout rates.Although state aid has increased by 57 percent overthe last five years, the Board of Regents has proposedan additional 9.4 percent increase in state aid andnew funds for programs for at-risk you h.

Oregon

Oregon's at-risk youth efforts began taking form in1983 when the state joined a national demonstrationcoordinated by Public/Private Ventures ofPhiladelphia. The State Employment Initiatives forYouth was created to design and implement neweducational and employment stratel :es for youth. A14-member Youth Coordinating Council promotedinteragency cooperation and identified and supportedproven alternative education and employment models.

Today the Council gives policy and funding advice tothe Governor's Student Retention Initiative, a two-year-old effort to help schools and communities startprograms for at-risk youth.

With a two-year budget of $8.1 million (including$5.6 million in federal funds), the Initiative providestechnical assistance, information about modelprograms, strategies for developing adequate localfunding, and seed money for local proposals. Overhalf of the funds are available on a competitive basis;another $2.2 million is distributed to schools on aper-pupil basis for drug-abuse prevention. A goatthe Initiative is to increase the proportion of youthgraduating or participating in alternative education ortraining programs from 75 percent to 90 percent by1992.

At-risk youth are one of six priority concerns ofthe State Board. In 1986, the Board called for a"greater emphasis on early identification an.1 responseto the needs of students at risk of academic failure orunderachievement, and on the provision of alternativeprograms which motivate and encourage potentialdropouts to continue their education." ASuperintendent's Task Force on At-Risk Youth isoverseeing efforts to develop a dropout accountabilitysystem which will require all districts to reportnumbers and characteristics of dropouts starting inSeptember, 1988.

Oregon is using a Youth 2000 grant to help 12 citiesform public/private partnerships of community,business, and education leaders. The Busness LiaisonProject is modeled after Portland's Leader'sRoundtable which formulated a plan of action foryouth ages K-21, with special focus on at-risk youth.The Portland project helped call attention to anunderutilized statute allowing the use of basic schoolsupport money for alternative education. In 1987,Senate Bill 667 facilitated the movement of studentsto alternative schools and extended basic-supportfunds to alternative sites.

JTPA 8 percent funds support education,remediation, and employment models for at-riskyouth. The state also funds five school health clinics,children's mental health service ($1.6 million), and anearly intervention pilot for children at risk ofdeveloping mental or emotio-ial problems.

Pennsylvania

Two major initiatives for at-risk youth came out of

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Pennsylvania's general education reform. The first wasthe Test for Essential Learning and Literacy Skills, aminimum competency testing program administered inthe 3rd, 5th, and 8th grades which allocates $38million for remediation. The second was the StudentAssistance Program which provides counseling andsupport to students with family-related, drug, orother personal problems. However, since 1986, at-riskyouth have been priorities of several state agencies.

In 1987, Governor Robert P. Casey formed theEconomic Development Partnership as a mechanismfor bringing together business, labor, education, andgovernment leaders to address economic concernsfacing the state. As part of that effort, state agenciescompiled a single source of programs related toeconomic development and discovered that more than$700 million was available per year to educate, train,and employ youth. The work of the task forceresulted in several new policies and programs for at-risk youth including a Youth Initiatives Programwhich uses federal vocational education, state, andJTPA 8 percent funds for 12 pilot training and jobplacement programs. Both JTPA and the CommunityServices Block Grant offices made at-risk youth ahigh priority in annual planning guidelines, and JTPAincreased the pool of eligible at-risk youth bydefining as a family of one any youth who is aparent, offender, drug or alcohol abuser, dropout, orat least two grades behind in school.

New initiatives from the Office of theSuperintendent include assignment of a full-time at-risk youth staff advisor and development of aresource book on students at risk. The Superintendentalso established the Secretary's Advisory Council forAt-Risk Youth, composed of business members, highereducation, the United Way, and state and localeducation group leaders to spearhead introduction ofcomprehensive legislation for at-risk youth.Pennsylvania is one of 10 states receiving funds fromthe Council of Chief State School Officers to developcomprehensive legislation within the next year.

In 1987, the legislature passed the Statute onDropouts, requiring the education department togather data and fund programs for dropouts ($1million in competitive grants for 1988-89). The statealso supports a Youth Conservation Corps, 47 TeenPregnancy and Parenting Initiatives ($710,000 tomatch $1.6 million in federal funds). and 18Successful Students Partnership programs thatcoordinate academic, social, and other communityresources to support potential dropouts ($650,000).

The Governor's 1988 budget request seeks expansionof several of these programs and $14 million forincentives to districts that lower dropout rates.

Rhode Island

The Rhode Island Literacy and Dropout PreventionAct of 1987, which went into effect July 1, 1988,seeks to increase the effectiveness of schools bypromoting smaller classes in kindergarten through 3rdgrade and by focusing the instruction of students inthose grade levels on literacy. Under the law, eachdistrict must screen all children first entering schoolto determine their level of educational readiness in theskills of reading, writing, speaking, listening, andmathematics. For grades K-3, districts must focusinstruction on literacy using such techniques as smallclass size and individualized instruction. Districts alsomust provide supplementary literacy instruction foreducationally disadvantaged students in all grades,giving priority to those who are most disadvantaged.An annual allocation of $250,000 supports screeningexpenses, while the literacy programs are fundedthrough state aid set-asides-3 percent of the totalstate operations aid in FY 88-89, 4 percent in FY89-90, and 5 percent thereafter. Other parts of thelaw provide competitive grants for

dropout-prevention programs ($250,000)school-site management programs ($250,000)training programs for parents of pre-schoolchildren and parent-involvement programs($100,000)

An additional $100,000 supports the operation of astate advisory council broadly representative of theschool population, including teachers, parents,administrators, and school board members.

Shortly after passage of this act, Governor EdwardD. DiPrete's 1991 Task Force called for a state-fundedpre-kindergarten program for at-risk 4- year -olds andan extended day kindergarten program for at-riskkindergarten students. The Task Force has also calledfor incentive programs to lower class size and forstate funding of the cost to limit kindergarten classesto 1.`, pupils by 1991.

Rhode Island is engaged in an educational financeprogram that will bring the state's average share ofthe cost of public elementary and secondaryeducation up to par with the average local share by1991. The 1991 Task Force has recommended that the

50

6

balance between state and local funding reach 60/40by 1996. The state has also developed a standardizeddefinition of "dropout" and will, in January 1989,report district-by-district dropout rates. Another $2.75million initiative seeks to upgrade the state'svocational education system and to increaseenrollments of 9th graders disadvantaged students,and other needy groups.

Texas

In 1986, the Intercultural Development ResearchAssociation reported that only 12 percent of Texas'1,080 school districts had a dropout program (despitea state dropout rate of 33 percent) and that dropoutswere costing the state $17.12 billion in lost taxrevenue and increased costs in welfare, crime, andincarceration. The Texas legislature responded in 1987with House Bill 1010 which mandates the assignmentof an at-risk youth coordinator in each school districtand provision of a remedial and support program forany student in grades 7 to 12 testing below stateachievement levels or at risk of dropping out ofschool.

Other provisions of the bill require the stateeducation agency to develop a plan for reducing theprojected cross-sect.Jnal and longitudinal dropoutrates for the state to not more than 5 percent by1997-98 and to establish a state-wide dropoutinformation clearinghouse. The bill also created anInteragency Coordinating Council to coordinatepolicies and services for students who drop out ofschool or who are at risk of dropping out of school.

Earlier in 1987, the state educati 1 agencypresented its long-range plan for 1y86-1990. With at-risk students as one of its focal points, the plan callsfor closing of the achievement gap betweeneducationally disadvantaged students and otherpopulations, and for programs to reduce the dropoutrate. The plan also emphasizes parental involvement,increased community-school partnerships, anddevelopment of methods to accurately identify andassist the slower learner. Two other objectives are tocontinue efforts to realize equalization and equity inthe distribution of state funds and to increase publicawareness of the relationship between changes inTexas' economic base and the concomitant need forstudents to succeed in school.

The Texas legislature has created a Joint Intenm

Study Committee to study the dropout problem andto present its recommendations to the 71st legislaturein January, 1989. There is also a state education TaskForce on Dropouts which is developing a resourcedirectory, a program evaluation model, and standardsfor dropout data collection.

Dropout retrieval efforts have beer. promotedthrough the state JTPA organization which made $1.1million available in 1987-88 for the operation andevaluation of comprehensive alternative modelprograms for dropout and low functioning out-of-school youth. JTPA is a major source of support aswell for 50 comprehensive competencies programcenters which provide individualized, self-pacedinstruction in basic skills for both in-school and out-of-school youth.

Washington

Washington's commitment to at-risk youth has beensteadily growing since the early 1980's. A variety ofpilot programs and special studies have focusedresources on early intervention and preventionstrategies and on second-chance programs for olderstudents.

In 1985, the House Education Committee conducteda study of early school leavers which led to revisedcollection procedures for dropout statistics. One yearlater, another legislatively mandated study forecastthat 344,000 or 36 percent of all students in the statewould be at risk in the year 2000. Currently the stateis using a Youth 2000 grant to inventory youth-at-riskprojects operating in the state.

Among Washington's early intervention strategies isthe $12.6 million Early Childhood Education andAssistance Program which enrolls 2,000 low-incomechildren in pre-school programs modeled after HeadStart. Other efforts include a Remediation AssistanceProgram that serves 28,000 students in grades 2 to 6and 7 to 9; Project Even Start, a $1.6 million literacy-training program for teen-age and other parents ofchildren in pre-school or early grades; and ProjectSuccess, a pilot operating in 11 sites in Spokane andseveral rural counties, which provides individuallydesigned interventions such as home visits, child care,parent education, and parent breakfast clubs to high-risk elementary students and their families.

Programs for older students include 13 modeldropout-prevention programs first funded in 1985 andthe Student Retention and Retrieval Program, a $5.5

51

5 7

million, two-year effort to identify dropouts andpotential dropouts and encourage them to stay in orreturn to school. In addition, state funds support adozen privately operated Educational Clinics whichprovide basic skills or GED training to dropouts andreferrals from the public schools. The Clinics haveachieved a 66 percent successful completion rate. Statedollars also help support over 125 alternative schoolsand supplement federal allocations for migrant andbilingual education.

Recently the Governor appointed a Youth 2000 TaskForce to identify issues, problems, and programsolutions for at-risk youth. Other oversight isprovided by the Washington Roundtable, a group ofinfluential business executives who have helped winlegislative support for at-risk youth programs.

Wisconsin

Wisconsin has a legislated goal of reducing itsannual dropout rate from 3.5 percent (10,000 studentseach year) to 2.0 percent by 1992. The state also hasestablished 20 educational standards intended toguarantee every Wisconsin student equal access to aquality education. Among these standards is aChildren At Risk statute which defines "childi en atrisk" and shifts responsibility for education from thechild to the local school board and community.

Under the 1985 law, each school board mustidentify children at risk in the district, develop andimplement a plan of programs and activities to servetheir needs, notify each child in writing of beingidentified and, upon request of the child or parent,enroll the child in the district's at-risk program. Needsmay be met through curriculum modifications andalternative programs, remedial instruction, parentalinvolvement, pupil support servkes, communitysupport service programs, preparation for workprograms, and other proven approaches.

School districts with 50 or more dropouts or a highschool dropout rate exceeding 5 percent in theprevious school year, must have their plans approvedby the state superintendent. Every district receives$64,000 to implement the plan and to appoint achildren-at-risk coordinator. Districts having adropout rate of 5 percent or more for the previousyear and meeting certain performance criteria areeligible to receive a 10 percent supplement to the per-pupil aid for each at-risk student enrolled in thedistrict program. Each program is tracked andevaluated.

Other state statutes require districts to provideremedial reading services for underachieving studentsin grades K-3 and to administer a standardizedreading test in the 3rd grade. In addition, districtsmust offer interested 7 to 12 graders an Education forEmployment Program that includes employment-preparation classes and paid school-supervised workexperience in grades 10 to 12. This is a cooperativeeffort by the state education agency and the ParkerPen Corporation to help develop Wisconsin'seconomy. Other business/education partnerships onbehalf of at-risk youth are promoted by aninte..4gency task force.

State funds also support pre-school programs and aPrecollege Scholarship Program which provides year-round academic assistance to minority students ingrades 6 to 12. JTPA and Carl Perkins funds aretargeted to school dropouts, at-risk youth, and singleparents. Remediation and services to at-risk youthdominate the use of JTPA 8 percent funds.

5852

Federal Program Budget Authorizations by State, 1986, 1987

These charts provide federal program budgetauthorizations by state for the years 1986 and 1987.

The figure': provide only rough estimates of thefunds available to the states during those years. Inmany cases the states probably had more funds tospend than these figures indicate because they do nottake into account carryover funding from previousyears. The figures also do not take into accountfunding cuts or increases authorized by the Congressafter November, 1987. The purpose of the charts is toindicate the approximate amount of federal fundingavailable to the states that could be used to supportprograms and services for at-risk youth.

Programs Listed:

Head StartFollow Through*Chapter I Compensatory Education, Basic GrantChapter I Neglected and Delinquent Children

Set-AsideChapter I Handicapped Children Set-AsideChapter I Migrants Set-AsideEducationally Handicapped, Early Childhood

Set-AsideEducationally Handicapped, Pre-School Set-AsideEducationally Handicapped, Basic GrantBilingual Education**Emergency Immigrant and Refugee Education**Vocational Education, Basic Grant

(Youth and Adults)Vocational Education, Consumer and

Homemaking Set-Aside (Youth and Adults)Vccational Education, Community-Based

Organizations Set-Aside (Youth and Adults)JTPA Title II-A (Training for Youth and Adults)JTPA Title II-B (Summer Program)Community Service Block Grants (All Uses)

'Follow Through grants are made to sponsoring agencies (universities andrelated institutions) and may or may not be used by these agencies in theirhome states

Figures for Bt lingual Education and the Emergency Immigrant and RefugeeEducation represent actual grants rather than budget authorizations, 1987data unavailable

53

$ in thousands

ALABAMAALASKAARIZONAARKANSASCALIFORNIACOLORADOCONNECTICUTDELAWAREDISTRICT OF COWMBIAFIDRIDAGEORGIAHAWAIIIDAHOILLINOISINDIANAIOWAKANSASKENTUCKYLOUISIANAMAINEMARYLANDMASSACHUSETTSMICHIGANMINNESOTAMISSISSIPPIMISSOURIMONTANANEBRASKANEVADANEW HAMPSHIRENEW JERSEYNEW MEXICONEW YORKNORTH CAROLINANORTH DAKOTAOHIOOKLAHOMAOREGONPENNSYLVANIAPUERTO RICORHODE ISLANDSOUTH CAROLINASOUTH DAKOTATENNESSEETERRITORIESTEXASUTAHVERMONTVIRGINIAWASHINGTONWEST VIRGINIAWISCONSINWYOMINGUNALLOCATED

TOTAL

59

HEAD STARE1986

$20,711 $22.4$2,173$8,757

$10,570$96,399$9,307

$9,602$2,130$5,982

$27,974

$24,049$3,808$2,786

$51,221$14,072$7,420$6,350

$19,629$21,309

$4,235S13,496

$22,323$41,762$10,490

$50,260$17,593

$2,535$4,070$1,434$1,929

$29,856$5,990

$74,868

$21,393$1,471

$41,367$12,148

$8,024$43,004$41,478$3,297

$13,257$2,330

$17,939$5,096

$45,688$4,189$2,006

$14,373$11,200

$8,644$14,817

$1,341$75,261

$2,331.-$9,573

$11,446$105,231 .

$10,033$10,407$2,310$6,416

Salm,$222P$4,146$3,(W7

S$3,546$15.44;$SA?$6021

$21,205,Sus*kW,

$14.642$23,974$4409$11,448$52,822$19,079$2,760$4,444$1,570

$2,091

$374260$6,550

$81,743$23,209$1,625

$4.5,054

$13,100 -$e,710

$44355$1.50556$3,570

$14,437$2,566

$19,5211

$4,936$50,142$4,629$2,01.

$15.711$12,264$0,260

$16,02$1,431fa,*

$1,013,424 51,102,442

CHAPTER I-FOLLOW THROUGH CHAPTER 1-COMP ED CHAPTER I-NEG & DEL HANDICAPPED

1987$362

$2,076$570

$1,528$1,310$2,667$2,249

$2,576$3,064$4,337$1,318

$273$141

$21,448$4,233

$262$1,167$1,496$2,053

$651$1,168

$10,099$7,458

$251

$471$1,180

$382$153$327$512

$3,889$264

$28,501$1,456

$330$4,102

$595$3,585

$14,452$272$549$428$230$563

$436$5,532

$969$1,529

$945$2,314

$884$1,677

$888$0

1986 1987 1986 1987 1986 1987 1986$286 $286 $62,716 $69,979 $312 $359 $385

$0 $0 $5,016 $5,575 $188 $185 $1,944$198 $198 $31,535 $34,398 $536 $513 $551

$76 $76 $36,253 $41,003 $257 $274 $1,503$714 $714 $287,891 $328,981 $2,740 $2,976 $1,421

$54 $54 $28,887 $32,549 $323 $362 $2,558$70 $70 $33,438 $37,732 $1,216 $1,373 $2,206

$0 $0 $8,856 $9,927 $169 $152 $2,486$70 $70 $13,825 $15,476 $482 $570 $2,652

$398 $398 $126,831 $145,715 $1,472 $1,352 $4,705$319 $319 $81,565 $92,033 $803 $768 $1,634$124 $124 $9,890 $10,550 $57 $96 $309

$75 $75 $8,857 $9,932 $57 $87 $154$268 $268 $144,481 $160,260 $942 $1,095 $21,227$158 $158 $46,229 $53,484 $735 $718 $3,865$138 $138 $27,293 $29,937 $365 $350 $307

$67 $67 $21,367 $23,794 $505 $603 $1,071$133 $133 $54,399 $61,207 $3.4 $426 $1,384

$0 $0 $74,544 $85,371 $638 $604 $2,133$0 $0 $13,025 $15,232 $173 $181 $610$0 $0 $52,844 $59,448 $1,239 $1,111 $1,241

$181 $181 $67,789 $79,084 $399 $560 $9,306$284 $284 $122,975 $134,617 $1,404 $1,303 $7,363$84 $84 $37,663 $42,300 $364 $206 $249

$231 $231 $57,448 $64,701 $312 $323 $504$228 $228 $49,643 $55,512 $286 $246 $1,236

$86 $86 $10,071 $11,125 $144 $167 $370$0 $0 $15,948 $17,829 $106 $117 $151$0 $0 $5,443 $5,881 $157 $192 $286$0 $0 $7,161 $8,145 $80 $80 $609

$297 $297 $101,627 $114,164 $1,284 $1,377 $3,482$160 $160 $24,359 $27,058 $300 $316 $206$627 $627 $321,529 $360,701 $3,426 $3,447 $26,467$278 $278 $72,400 $81,753 $973 $1,047 $1,510

27 $27 $7,071 $8,012 $62 $64 $313$173 $173 $109,123 $124,756 $1,488 $1,620 $4,394

$0 $0 $34,646 $35,186 $169 $158 $722$71 $71 $26,950 $29,396 $689 $777 $3,351

$237 $237 $148,850 $176,987 $1,035 $1,132 $12,502$166 $166 $109,268 $111,859 $203 $221 $277

$0 $0 $11,748 $13,172 $18 $8 $408$137 $137 $47,255 $53,351 $673 $738 $480

$0 $0 $9,204 $10,092 $76 $92 $250$121 $121 $64,078 $72,746 $810 $857 $563

$0 $0 $12,598 $14,077 $0 $0 $412$173 $173 $201,061 $234,598 $1,196 $1,415 $5,428

$0 $0 $10,574 $11,794 $163 $194 $789$0 $0 $6,286 $7,637 $88 $132 $1,346

$200 $200 $58,769 $66,643 $610 $631 $969$162 $162 $40,232 $44,299 $75 $75 $2,251

$72 $72 $28,018 $31,906 $193 $192 $800$26 $26 $46,816 $52,414 $706 $612 $1,499

$0 $0 $3,831 $4,287 $149 $162 $873$0 $0 $22,226 $24,835 $0 $0 $0

$7,167 $7,167 $3,062,400 $3,453,500 $31,214 $32,616 $143,713 $150,170

6054

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A

JTPA TITLE U-A1986 1987

JTPA TITLE II-B1986 1987

COMM SERVICEBLOCK GRANT1986 1987

MAMMA $44,191 $41,041 $17,000 $13,001 56,148 $6,947ALASKA $4,896 $5,465 $1,855 $1,761 $1,007 $1,137ARIZONA $18,433 $21,040 $8,338 $6,937 $3,142 $3,550~SAS $20,705 $21,789 $8,072 $7,143 $4,531 $5,121CAISORNIA $189,598 $187,764 $76,760 $61,653 $29,723 $33,5900:XORAVO $17,145 $20,405 $7,162 $6,691 $2,899 $3,277VON OCTICur $13,010 $12,083 $8,943 $6,540 $4,022 $4,545DUAWARE $4,446 $4,588 $1,686 $1,558 $876 $989DISTRICT OF COWMBIA $6,537 $6,071 $7,410 $5,419 $5,475 $6,187NORMA $62,193 $60,379 $27,641 $20,214 $9,689 $10,949GEORGIA $35,029 $37,852 514,639 $12,541 $8,965 $10,132HAWAII $5,268 $5,926 $2,539 $1,974 $1,393 $1,574IDAHO $7,592 $8,826 $3,010 $2,882 $876 $989ILLINOIS $99,856 $105,554 $45,506 $34,163 $15,745 $17,793INDIANA $45,011 $41203 $20,375 $14,900 $4,852 $5,483IOWA $20,170 $21,868 $8,087 $7,116 $3,607 $4,076KANSAS $9,123 $10,437 $4,953 $3,621 $2,720 $3,074KENIDCKY $33,518 $39,581 $14,103 $12,878 $5,619 $6,330LIZ/1=MAMAID

$47,400$7,323

$59,970$6,801

317,353$3,386

$19,338$2,476 $$17,, 875

$7,827$$81,,e 4597 9

MARYLAND $20,897 $19,408 $12,651 $9,252 $4.592 $5,167MASSACHUSETTS $27,706 $25,732 $18,607 $13,607 $8,308 $9,389MIOGGAN $95,763 $89,100 $37,858 $28,821 $12,349 $13,955MINNESOTA $22,127 $23,755 $10,628 $7,823 $4,013 $4,535MISSISSIPPI $28,795 $31,642 $10,778 $10,316 $5,302 $5,992MISSOURI $33,249 $30,879 $15,380 $11,247 $9,223 $10,423MONTANA $6,219 $6,974 $2,364 $2,286 $1,201 $1,358NEBRASKA $5,902 $8,046 $3,247 $2,661 $2,324 $2,626NEVADA $7,064 $7,175 $2,579 $2,327 $876 $989NEW HAMPSHIRE $4,446 $4,588 $2,023 $1,558 $903 $1,020NEW JERSEY $39,730 $37,107 $24,150 $17,661 $9,132 $10,320NEW MEXICO $11,704 $14,630 $4,834 $4,784 $2,138 $2,417NEW YORK $122,489 $120,132 $55,187 $40,358 $28,931 $32,694NORTH CAROUNA $37,703 $35,016 $16,303 $11,922 $8,874 $10,029NORTH DAKOTA $4,446 $4,588 $1,646 $1,558 $876 $989OHIO $91,248 $94,602 $39,276 $30,647 $12,994 $14,684OKLAHOMA $22,136 $25,305 $8,293 $8,261 $4,261 $4,815OREGON $26,487 $25,332 $10,012 $8,220 $2,670 $3,017PENNSYLVANIA $97,824 $90,851 $40,135 $29,351 $14,113 $15,949PUERTO RICO $71,395 $74,045 $26,078 $24,310 $14,041 $15,867RHODE ISLAND $5,976 $5,550 $3,260 $2,384 $1,855 $2,097SOUTH CAROLINA $22,084 $23,829 $9,033 $7,858 $5,126 $5,793SOUTH DAKOTA $4,446 $4,588 $1,646 $1,558 $1,035 $1,169TENNESSEE $40,486 $40,580 $16,351 $13,287 $6,569 $7,424TERRT .ORIES $3,571 $4,878 $1,206 $1,059 $1,371 $1,978TEXAS $95,882 $133,423 $38,662 $43,440 $16,050 $18,138UTAH $9,194 $8,539 $3,613 $2,642 $1,799 $1,468VERMONT $4,446 $4,588 $1,646 $1,558 $934 $1,055VIRGINIA $26,335 $29,887 $14,137 $10,338 $5,336 $6,031WASHING ION $38,477 $35,735 $14,298 $11,175 $4,009 $4,531WEST VIRGINIA $24,773 $23,007 $9,038 $7,108 $3,730 $4,215WISCONSIN $33,040 $32,668 $14,168 $10,666 $4,057 $4,584WYOMING $4,446 $4,588 $1,646 $1,558 $876 $989UNALIDCATED $0 $0 ($133,576) $11,566 $0 $35,944

/am $1,781,930 $1,840,008 $635,976 $635,976 $320,235 5398,236

57

63

State Contacts

Many persons in each state supplied information forthis study. Below are the names and phone numbers ofseveral from each state who would be good contactsfor those who wish to learn more about strategies andpolicies mentioned in this report.

ALABAMA

William RutherfordState Education Department(205) 261-5084

Dennis HopperState JTPA Office(205) 284-8800

Paul CopelandGovernor's Office(205) 261-2500

ALASKAWelles GabierDepartment of Education(907) 465-2800

Carla TimponeOffice of the Governor(907) 465-3155

Jim GurkeState JTPA Office(907) 563-1955

ARIZONATrudy RogersDepartment of Education(602) 255-3729

Diane DuelState JTPA Office(602) 255-3957

Dave SmithState Department of

Education(303) 866-6710

Carmen ValesquezGovernor's Job

Training Office(303) 837-3909

CONNECTICUTElizabeth SchmidtState Department of

Education(203) 566-1961

Eli Gussan(203) 566-4290

DELAWAREClif HuttonDepartment of Public

Instruction(302) 736-4601

Tom SmithState JTPA Office(302) 422-1134

D.C.Cormack LongSecondary School

Improvement Office(202) 724-4191

ARKANSAS Neil ParkerEmployment and

Training Office(202) 639-1145

Donna PavettiMayor's Office

(At-Risk Initiative)(202) 727-6270

FLORIDAAltha Manning

Ed Coleman State Department ofState JTPA Office Education(501) 682-2113 (904) 488-6688

Anne KampsGovernor's Office(501) 371-2345

Ruth SteeleDepartment of Education(501) 371-1464

Max SnowdenArkansas Advocates(501) 371-9678

CALIFORNIABill HonigState Department of

Education(916) 445-4338

Skip JohnsonDepartment of Labor(904) 482-7228

GEORGIARick StancilOffice of the Governor

COLORADO (404) 656-2000

Grace Hardy Hank WeismanGovernor's Office State JTPA Office(303) 866-2974 (404) 656-7392

HAWAIINorma WongOffice of the Governor(808) 548-2211

IDAHOLaura GleasonYouth 2000(208) 334-6299

ILLINOISJim GallowayState Board of Education(217) 782-4870

Tim HarmonState JTPA Office(217) 785-6048

INDIANASte-re DavisState Department of

Education(317) 269-9415

Pat MadarasDepartment of Employment

and Training(317) 232-8480

Gayle HallConsortium on Educational

Policy Studies(812) 335-7445

IOWARay MorleyState Department of

Education(515) 281-3912

Margaret ParksState JTPA Office(515) 281-3727

Arlene DayhoffGovernor's Office(319) 393-9768

KANSASAnn HamsonState Department of

Education(913) 296-3605

Joe de la TorreGovernor's Office(913) 296-3232

Lanna OleenState JTPA Office(913) 296-3369

KENTUCKYJoAnne BrooksState Department of

Education(502) 564-3301

Charles FurrState JTPA Office(502) 564-5360

LOUISIANADean FrostState Department of

Education(504) 342-5430

Elaine GosselinDepartment of Labor(504) 925-4259

MAINEFrank AntonucciDepartment of Educational

and Cultural Services(207) 289-5110

Justin SmithState JTPA Office(207) 289-3375

MARYLANDMartha FieldsState Department of

Education(301) 333-2489

Jim CallahanGovernor's Employment and

Training Council(301) 333-5606

MASSACHUSETTSElaine CataginState Department of

Education(617) 770-7354

Terry GroveCommonwealth Futures(617) 727-0806

Cecilia Rivera-CasaleState JTPA Office(617) 727-2252

MICHIGANGene CainYouth Policy Committee(517) 373-3260

Linda KinneyDepartment of Labor(517) 699-1238

MINNESOTAJo leen DurkenState Department of

Education(612) 296-4080

Barbara Yates(612) 297-2659

58

c 4

Kay TracyState JTPA Office(612) 296-6064

Chuck Johnson(612) 296-2266

MISSISSIPPIJoy TharpDepartment of Job

Development andTraining

(601) 949-2234

MISSOURIJoan Solomon(314) 751-2931

MONTANAMarie McAllourState JTPA Office(406) 444-4500

NEBRASKAMarge HathawayState Department of

Eduction(402) 471-4822

Jim Baud lerState JTPA Office(402) 471-2127

Andrew CunninghamGovernor's Office(402) 471-2414

NEVADAGene PoslovNevada Statewide Taskforce(702) 885-3100

NEW HAMPSHIRENancy E. LevesqueNew Hampshire Job

Training Council(603) 228-9500

Roger CrimState Department of

Education(603) 271-3144

NEW JERSEYJoel BloomState Department of

Education(509) 292-4450

Jacqueline Cusack(509) 984-1890Elaine DavisState Department of

Education(509) 292-4450

NEW MEXICOMary Beavis

State Department ofEducation

(505) 827-6515

Henry TorresDepartment of Labor(505) 841-8482

Marlis MannGovernor's Office(505) 827-3000

NEW YORKSuzanne SennettCouncil on Children

and Families(518) 473-8073

NORTH CAROLINADennis DavisState Department of

Instruction(919) 733-5461

Joel NewState JTPA Office(919) 733-6383

Lee MonroeGovernor's Office(919) 733-4240

NORTH DAKOTAJanet PlacekChildren's Services

Coordinating Committee(701) 224-3586

Mike DeiszJob Services of

North Dakota(701) 224-2825

OHIOMatthew CohenState Department of

Education(614) 466-6385

OKLAHOMAKaren MeekState Department of

Education(405) 521-3549

Clyde BennettState JTPA Office(405) 843-9770

Joe WeaverGovernor's Office(405) 521-2342

OREGONHolly Mil lesState JTPA Office(503) 373-1995John Pendergrass(503) 378-8472

Ted CoonfieldDepartment of Human

Resources(503) 378-5585

PENNSYLVANIAGary LedeburState Department of

Education(717) 783-6777

Pearl MackenBureau of Jcb Training(717) 783-8944

Sheilah Vance-Lewis(717) 783-9785

RHODE ISLANDValerie J. SouthernGovernor's Office(401) 277-2080

SOUTH CAROLINAErnest B. CarnesDepartment of Education(803) 734-8465

Bob LandrethState JTPA Office(803) 734-8924

SOUTH DAKOTATerry HendricksDepartment of Education

and Cultural Affairs(605) 773-5475

TENNESSEEJoletta ReynoldsState Department of

Education(615) 741-2851

Jim BridgesState JTPA Office(615) 741-1031

Nebraska MaysState Department of

Education(615) 741-1090

TEXASDale McCulloughDepartment of

Community Affairs(512) 834-6356

Sylvia GarciaTexas Education Agency(512) 463-9511

Cynthia MoogarourState JTPA Office(512) 834-6352

VERMONTGreg VoorheisDepartment of Employment

and Training(802) 229-0311

Richard TulikangasState Department of

Education(802) 828-3131

VIRGINIARichard LevyState Department of

Education(804) 225-2056

Wayne TurnageState JTPA Office(804) 786-8072

WASHINGTONFrink B. BrouilletState Department of Public

Instruction(206) 586-6904

WEST VIRGINIATheresa WilsonState Department of

Education(304) 348-8830

Paul SkaffState JTPA Office(304) 348-5920

WISCONSINDennis Van Den HeuvelDepartment of Pubiic

Instruction(08) 266-1723

Jeffrey BartzenGovernor's Office(608) 266-1212

Harvey SokolowState JTPA Office(608) 266-0570

WYOMINGAudrey CothermanDepartment of Public

Instruction(3t7) 777-7673

Nancy FreudentralGovernor's Office(307) 777-7437

Frank GalleotosState JTPA Office(307) 777-7671

59

6 5

Resources

A Blueprint for Success: Community MobilizationDropout Prevention, National Foundation for theImprovement of Education, 1987.

'Accelerated Schools for Disadvantaged Students;'Henry M. Levin, Educational Leadership, March 1987.

Allies in EducationSchools and BusinessesWorking Together for At-Risk Youth, Bernard J.McMullan and Phyllis Snyder, 1987.

All One System, Harold L. Hodgkinson, TheInstitute for Educational Leadership, Inc, 1985.

American Education: Making It Work, William J.Bennett, U.S. Department of Education, 1988.

American Youth: A Statistical Snapshot, JamesWetzel, William T. Grant Foundation Commission onYouth and America's Future, 1987.

'A Nation in Crisis: The Dropout Dilemma;' ByronN. Kunisawa, National Education Association, 1988.

Assuring School Success for Students At Risk,Council of Chief State School Officers, 1987.

A Strategic Planning Guide for the New FuturesInitiative, The Center for the Study of Social Policy,The Annie E. Casey Foundation, 1987.

Building the Watertable of Youth Employability:Collaboration to Support Children and Youth At-RiskBetween Ages Nine and Fifteen, Richard A. Lacey,National Commission for Employment Policy, 1Q88.

CBO/School Collaboration Study, Bret Halversonand Christina Mitchell, Bank Street College ofEducation, 1987.

Challenges to Urban Education: Results in theMakin , The Council of the Great City Schools, 1987.

Children at Risk: The Work of the States, Council ofChief State School Officers, 1987.

Children in Need, Investment Strategies for theEducationally Disadvantaged, Committee for EconomicDevelopment, 1987.

Class Size and Public Policy: Politics and Panaceas,Tommy M. Tomlinson , U.S. Office of EducationalResearch and Improvement, 1988

Collecgl National Dropout Statistics, James H.Wittebols, Council of Chief State School Officers,1986.

Community of Purpose: Promoting CollaborationThrough State Action, Esther Rodriguez, PatrickMcQuaid, and Ruth Rosauer, Education Commissionof the States, 1988.

Computer CompetenceThe First NationalAssessment, Michael E. Martinez and Nancy A. Mead,Educational Testing Service, 1988.

"Crisis Over Dropouts: A Look at Two Youths;'Lydia Chavez, The New York Times,February 16, 1988.

Current Federal Policies and Programs for Youth,J.R. Reingold and Associates, Inc, The William T.Grant Foundation Commission on Work, Family zndCitizenship, 1987.

Current Themes in Rural and Urban Education,Southern Education Foundation, Inc., 1986.

Dealing with Dropouts: The Urban Superintendents'Call to Action, Office of Educational Research andImprovement, U.S. Department of Education, 1987.

Dropout Prevention, Lucie Isenhart and SueBechard, Education Commission of the States, 1988.

Dropout Prevention in Appalachia: Lessons for theNation, Campbell Communications, Inc, AppalachianRegional Commission, 1987.

Dropouts in AmericaEnough is Known for Action,Andrew Hahn and Jacqueline Danzberger with BernardLefkowitz, Institute for Educational Leadership, 1987.

"Effects of Reduced Class Size in Primary Classes,"Daniel J. Mueller, Clinton I. Chase, and James D.Walden, Educational Leadership, 1987.

Elements of a Model State Statute to ProvideEducational Entitlements for At-Risk Students, Councilof State School Officers, 1987.

Family Diversitnd School Policy, BarbaraLindner, Education Commission of the States, 1987.

Female Dropouts: A New Perspective, Janice Earle,Virginia Roach and Katherine Fraser, NationalAssociation of State Boards of Education, 1987.

Job CorpsIts Costs, Employment Outcomes, andService to the Public, U.S. General Accounting Office,1986.

E6

Job Training Partnership ActSummer YouthPrograms Increase Emphasis on Education, U.S.General Accounting Office, 1987.

Literacy: Profiles of America's Young Adults, IrwinS. Kirsch and Ann Jungeblut, National Assessment ofEducational Progress, 1988.

"Looking at America's Dropouts: Who Are They?",Larry W. Barber and Mary C. McClellan, Phi DeltaKappan, 1987.

"Make Something Happen," National Commissionon Secondary Schooling for Hispanics, 1984.

Making America WorkProductive PoliciesBringing Down the Barriers, National Governors'Association, 1987.

Mathematics: Are We Measuring Up?, John A.Dossey, National Assessment of Educational Progress,Educational Testing Service, 1988.

Meeting the Needs of Children and Youth At Riskof School Failure, Forum of Educational OrganizationLeaders, 1987.

Migrant Education: A Consolidated View, TheInterstate Migrant Education Council, 1987.

"Obstacles Litter the Path to the Mainstream;' MarcFisher, The Washington Post, April 18, 1988.

Parental Involvement in Education, Barbara Linder,Education Commission of the States, 1988.

Poverty, Achievement and the Distribution ofCompensatory Education Services, Mary M. Kennedy,Richard K. Jung, and Martin E. Orland, Office ofEducational Research and Improvement, U.S.Department of Education, 1986.

Preparing for Life: The Critical Transition ofAdolescence, David A. Hamburg, CarnegieCorporation of New York, 1986.

"Projections 2000," Elinor Abramson, OccupationalOutlook Quarterly, Fall 1987.

Promising Practices for High-Risk Youth in theNorthwest Region: Initial Search, Karen Reed Greenand Andrea Baker, Northwest Regional EducationalLaboratory, 1986.

"Reform in the Schools: 4 Years of Ferment andMixed Results," Robert Reinhold, The New YorkTimes, August 10, 1987.

School DropoutsSurvey of Local Programs, U.S.General Accounting Office, 1987.

School Reform in Perspective, EducationCommission of the States, 1987.

"Schools Should Concentrate on Trying to PreventFailures;' Jack K. Mawdsley, Detroit Free Press,January 1, 1988.

Shadows in the Wings: The Next EducationalReform, Sue E. Berryman, National Center onEducation and Employment, Teachers College,Columbia University, 1987.

Speaking of Leadership, Bill Clinton, EducationCommission of the States, 1987.

Speech by David T. Kearns, Chairman and ChiefExecutive Officer, Xerox Corporation, at EconomicClub of Detroit, October 26, 1987.

Statewide Task Forces and Commissions, EstherRodriguez and Sandra Anderson, EducationCommission of the States, 1987.

Strategies for Financing State Dropout Programs,Joel D. Sherman, Consortium on Education andEmployment Initiatives for Dropout-Prone Youth,1987.

"... the best of educations" Reforming America'sPublic Schools in the 1980's, William Chance, 1986.

The Current Operation of the Chapter I Program,Beatrice F. Birman et al., Office of EducationalResearch and Improvement, U.S. Department ofEducation, 1987.

The Economy, Literacy Requirements, and At-RiskAdults, Sue Berryman, National Center on Educationand Employment, 1988.

The Educationally Disadvantaged: A NationalCrisis, Henry M. Levin, Public/Private Ventures,1985.

The Effectiveness of Chapter I Services, Mary M.Kennedy, Beatrice F. Birman, and Randy E. Demaline,Office of Educational Research and Improvement,U.S. Department of Education, 1986.

The First Step: Understanding the Data, VanDougherty, Education Commission of the States,1987.

61

F7

The Forgotten Half: Non-College Youth in America,William T. Grant Foundation Commission on Work,Family and Citizenship, 1988.

The Fourth RWorkforce Readiness, NationalAlliance of Business, 1987.

The Governors' 1991 Report on EducationResultsin Education: 1987, National Governors' Association.

The Mathematics Report Card: Are We MeasuringIJ2, Educational Testing Service, 1988.

The 1987 GED Statistical Report, The GeneralEducational Development Testing service of theAmerican Council on Education, 1988.

The Second Wave of Educational Reform:Implications for School Leadership, Administrationand Organization, John A. Thompson, EducationCommission of the States, 1986.

Tough Choices for Educational Equity, SouthernEducation Foundation, Inc., 1987.

Toward A More Perfect Union: Basic Skills,PoorFamilies, and Our Economic Future, Gordon Berlinand Andrew Sum, Ford Foundation Project on SocialWelfare and the American Future, 1988.

Trends and Status of Computers in Schools: Use inChapter I Programs and Use with Limited EnglishProficient Students, Office of Technology Assessment,U.S. Congress, 1987.

Vocational Education and Its Roie in DropoutReduction, James M. Weber, The National Center forResearch in Vocational Education, 1986.

Vocational Education and the High SchoolDropout, The National Center for Research inVocational Education, 1983.

What to Do About Youth Dropouts, Margaret TerryOrr, Structured Employment/Economic DevelopmentCorporation, 1987.

Who's Looking Out for At-Risk Youth, R.C. Smithand Edward L. Hester, MDC, Inc., Charles StewartMott Foundation, 1985.

Workforce 2000, Hudson Institute, 1987.

Youth and the Workplace, Thomas J. Smith, GaryWalker, and Rachel A. Baker, Public/PrivateVentures, 1987.

Youth Employment and Career Education, PattyFlakus-Mosqueda, Education Commission of theStates, 1988

Youth Serving the Young, Anne Lewis, YouthService America, 1987.

62

F8

About thePanel and Authors

Kenneth B. ClarkDr. Clark is a distinguished Professor ofPsychology Emeritus of the City University ofNew York and President of Kenneth B. Clark andAssociates, a professional consulting firm. He isthe author of numerous articles and severalbooks, including Prejudice and Your Child (1955),the prize winning Dark Ghetto (1965), andPathos of Power (1975). His work on the effectsof segregation on children was cited by the U.S.Supreme Court in the historic decision of Brownvs. the Board of Education, 1954. Dr. Clarkserved for 20 years as a member of the Board ofRegents of the State of New York.

Jane Lee J. EddyMs. Eddy has been the Executive Director andTrus ze of the Taconic Foundation, Inc. since1958. She is President of Smokey House Projectin Danby, Vermont, and Chairman of the YouthEnergy Corps in New York City. Ms. Eddy haslectured widely and testified before the U.S.Congress on the use of worksite training forenabling young people to learn to work. She is amember of the Board of Rensselaerville Institutein Rensselaerville, New York and of the Board ofthe Graduate School of Political Management inNew York City.

Vilma S. MartinezMs. Martinez is a Partner of Munger, Tolles, andOlson in Los Angeles and Chair of the Board ofthe Achievement Council, a nonprofitorganization concerned with increasing theachievement levels of poor and minority youth.She is the ft,rmer Chairman and current Memberof the Board of Regents of the University ofCalifornia and Vice Chairman of tl-s, Board of theHazen Foundation. Ms. Martinez k he formerPresident and General Counsel of me MexicanAmerican Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Robert C. Pf .nMr. Penn is a Senior Executive with The Annie E.Casey Foundation. Before joining the Foundation,he headed his own company, UniversalManagement Consulting Group, Inc and servedas the first President of New York Works, Inc., aprivate training and placement company for low-income individuals. Mr. Penn was Senior VicePresident of t'ie Manpower DemonstrationResearch Corporation (MDRC), a nationallyrecognized research and demonstration firm, andthe first Commissioner of Human Resources forBuffalo, New York where he also headed twoother municipal departments.

63

1.,

Frank J. SlobigMr. Slobig is Co-Director of Youth ServiceAmerica, a nonprofit organization which serves asthe national catalyst offering financial, technical,and promotional support for youth service,programs. Mr. Slobig has worked in youthprograms as a policymaker, analyst, andadministrator for three decades. From 1982 to1986, he directed the Roosevelt Centennial YouthProject and prior to that served as a U.S.Department of Labor research and evaluationofficer of youth programs. He was director of amulti-service neighborhood center for Milwaukee'sInner-City Development Project, assistant directorof Chicago's Archdiocesan Office of Urban Affairs,and an associate pastor of two inner-city Chicagoparishes during 1961 to 1971.

Franklin H. WilliamsThe Honorable Mr. Williams has been thePresident of the Phelps-Stokes Fund since 1970.Prior to that time, he was the Director of theUrban Center at College University andAmbassador to Ghana from 1965 to 1968. He isChairman of he Boys Choir of Harlem and theHarlem Youth Development Foundation,President of the Bishop Tutu Southern AfricanRefugee Scholarship Fund, and Chairman of theJildicial Commission on Minorities.

R. C. SmithMr. Smith is a Senior Research Associate withMDC, Inc., and an author, columnist, andteacher of journalism at the University of NorthCarolina in Chapel Hill.

Carol A. LincolnMs. Lincoln is a Senior Research Associate withMDC, Inc., and a former staff member of theNational Commission for Employment Policyand tht New York State Manpower ResourcesCommission.

69

Many persons and agencies provided advice andassistance as we carried out this study. We wish toextend special thanks to Robert Palaich, Kent Mc Quire,and Patty Flakus of the Education Commission of theStates for the many times they helped direct us toresources and experts. We also wish to thank the staffsof the governors, the chief state school officers, thestate JTPA agencies, and other state-level staff whowere generous with their time and information. Ourthanks go as well to the following who helped duringthe early or final stages of the project:

Joseph W. BeardNational Association of Bilingual Education

Gordon BerlinNew York City Human Resources Agency

Jon R. Blyth and Judy Same lsonCharles Stewart Mutt Foundation

Jack BriziusBrizius and Foster

Cindy BrownCouncil of Chief State School Officers

Everett CrawfordNational Commission for Employment Policy

Jackie DanzbergerInstitute for Educational Leadership

Jacqueline DennisThe Council of The Great City Schools

Carlos Duran and Jim LarsonAlbuquerque, New Mexico

Janice EarleNational Association of State Boards of Education

Evelyn GanzglasNational Governors' Association

Vance GrantU.S. Department of Education

Bret HalversonBank Street College of Education

Genevieve K. HoweHuman Environment Center

Nathaniel JacksonSouthern Education Foundation

Gary LacyChildren's Defense Fund

Michael LandiniNational Alliance of Business

Charles Law and Pierce HammondSoutheastern Regional Council for Improvement

Milton LittleManpower Demonstration Research Corporation

Jean H. Lowe and Janet BaldwinAmerican Council on Education

Michael E. MartinezEducational Testing Service

Sandy SchifferesU S. Department of Labor

Margaret Terry OrrStructured Employment/Economic

Development Corporation

Tom OwensNorthwest Regional Laboratory

Gary WalkerPublic/Private Ventures

Lucy WatkinsCenter for Law and Education

James M. WeberOhio State University

7.)

MDC, Inc

Founded in 1967, MDC, Inc., is a private nonprofitresearch and demonstration organization concernedwith strengthening the workforce and the economythrough innovations in employment and economicdevelopment policy and programs. In 1985, theCharles Stewart Mott Foundation funded MDC s study,Who's Looking Out For At-Risk Youth, which reportedon the level of attention paid to at-risk youth by thenation's educational excellence commissions.

1717 Legion RoadP.O.Box 2226Chapel Hill, NC 27514

(919) 968-4531