While some students drop out because of significant academic challenges, most dropouts are students who could have, and believe they could have, succeeded in school. This survey of young people who left high school without graduating suggests that, despite career aspirations that require education beyond high school and a majority having grades of a C or better, circumstances in students’ lives and an inadequate response to those circumstances from the schools led to dropping out.

What Works Clearing House: Dropout Prevention
(Department of Education Institute of Education Sciences)

This report focuses on three outcome domains: staying in school, progressing in school, and completing school.  The interventions reviewed provide a mix of services, such as counseling, monitoring, school restructuring, curriculum redesign, financial incentives, and community services to mitigate factors impeding academic success.

Freshman Year: The Make-it or Break-it Year
(The Consortium on Chicago School Research at the University of Chicago)

Researchers at the University of Chicago—the Consortium on Chicago School Research—have spent years trying to understand what really matters when it comes to graduating from Chicago Public Schools.  Working in cooperation with the district, the Consortium researchers have analyzed years of data—surveys, standardized tests, student grades, attendance records—and uncovered some surprising connections.  According to this article, freshman year is the most important year and a crucial chance for a fresh start and that schools can improve their graduation rates by paying attention to the right things and the right freshman right away. 

Graduation Matters: Improving Accountability for High School Graduation
(The Education Trust)

Every one in four students starting ninth grade will drop out before high school graduation and for African American and Latino students, it’s closer to one and three.  These figures represent an incalculable loss of talent and carry profound civic and economic consequences. For years, however, they were hidden from public view by state reporting systems that dramatically undercounted dropouts.  To spur improvement, we need accurate data. But we also need to set ambitious graduation-rate goals for all groups of students, measure whether schools are meeting them, and provide strategic supports to struggling students and schools.

The American High School Graduation Rate: Trends and Levels
(Institute for the Study of Labor)

This paper uses multiple data sources and a unified methodology to estimate the trends and levels of the U.S. high school graduation rate.

Portland Public Schools: From Data and Decisions to Implementation and Results on
Dropout Prevention
(The Bridgespan Group)

Portland Public Schools has made notable progress towards reducing the number of dropouts and ensuring that students earn high school diplomas in a timely manner.  This case study tells the story of how Portland Public Schools (PPS) began to have a positive impact in addressing the dropout problem over the course of one calendar year. In particular, it follows the district leaders’ actions as they moved from data and decisions to implementation and results for those high school students most at risk of dropping out as they transitioned into the 9th grade.