2. Youth with Disabilities Leaving Secondary School

Dropout statistics for 1986 indicated that only 55% of dropouts under age 20 were employed, only 31% of male dropouts and one in seven female dropouts were working full-time, and although dropouts were fewer than 20% of the adult population, they constituted 66% of the national prison population (William T. Grant Foundation Commission on Work, Family and Citizenship, 1988). Since that time, the economic costs of dropping out have risen markedly as the workplace increasingly demands better-skilled and more technologically savvy workers. High school dropouts now are 72% more likely to be unemployed and earn 27% less than high school graduates (U.S. Department of Labor, 2005). During the 1990s, as the economic consequences of dropping out were better understood, attention to ameliorating the high dropout rate among students with disabilities increased (e.g., Thurlow, Christenson, Sinclair, Evelo, & Thornton, 1995; Sinclair, Christenson, Evelo, & Hurley, 1998). In the early years of this century a federal commitment was made that “secondary school students with disabilities receive the support they need to complete high school prepared for postsecondary education or employment” (Office of Special Education Programs, 2001, p. 14). As a result, the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) funded the What Works Transition Synthesis Research Project and the National Dropout Prevention Center for Students with Disabilities in 2001 and 2003, respectively, to learn more about prevention and intervention strategies for students with disabilities who have dropped out of high school or are at risk for doing so. Data reported by the states to OSEP annually suggest that efforts since the mid 1990s are paying off. OSEP reports that in the 1999-2000 school year, the dropout rate among youth with disabilities was 29.4%, a decline of 4.7 percentage points over 5 years (U.S. Department of Education, 2002). A comparison of findings regarding school completion from NLTS and NLTS2 permits a longer view of the changing pattern of school completion from 1987 through 2003. It also draws on reports of individual youth with disabilities or their parents, rather than relying on aggregate statistics, which can underestimate dropout rates (U.S. Department of Education, 2002; Wagner, 1991). The following sections identify the rates at which youth with disabilities left high school in a 2-year period. Youth included in these findings from NLTS2 were all in high school in the fall of the 2000-01 school year and had left high school by the time of the 2003 interviews with parents and youth. Youth in NLTS were in school in the fall of the 1985-86 school year and had left school by fall 1987. Rates are calculated by dividing the number of youth reported to have left school in a particular way (e.g., by graduating) by the total number of youth who had left school. Rates are reported for youth with different primary disability classifications, and who differ in age, gender, household income, and race/ethnicity, when significant.