A Program Model for At - Risk High School Students

ropouts enter our communities undereducated. With bleak D prospects for success in the labor market, they are almost certain to become social liabilities and to face lifelong problems of unemployement and welfare dependency. Although educators are looking for interventions to reduce the number of school dropouts, we know more about who has dropped out, and why, than we know about effective school efforts to prevent students from dropping out. What schools can do to retain at-risk students is a persistent problem, but a greater challenge for educators is how to provide educational experiences positive enough to change the lives of these youths. From this perspective, the most important issue facing educators is that of developing a concept of schooling that will be attractive enough to hold these students, but effective enough to promote their learning and development. Attractive and effective schooling should offer something positive to both students and society. First, positive school experiences must negate the discouragement and alienation students have acquired through their previous formal education. Second, these educational experiences should avoid repetitive remediation in lowlevel basic skills and narrow vocational training. The reason for this is clear: acquiring these skills holds out so little promise of a rewarding future that a life on the street or on welfare seems preferable. Educators must find and implement ways to promote broad personal and social development as well as academic skills and knowledge. In the past, favorable conditions in the home, church, and community, have enabled schools to promote social development and positive citizenship in young people. Now, these previously favorable conditions are weak or nonexistent, and the school still is asked to intervene for the good of society. Certainly it does not appear that schools can escape this broader mandate. Educators recognize that a healthy society is tied to disadvantaged youths' gaining the skills and attitudes that will make them productive workers as well as effective parents and good citizens. The discussion of our model program begins with the problems inherent in constructing new school experiences for at-risk students and concludes with observations on positive applications of the model in several school systems.