What Can Be Done To Improve Struggling High Schools?

T he task faced by high schools is perhaps the most diffi cult in all of education. High schools not only are charged with preparing students for college, but also with serving the needs of the many students who will directly enter the workforce. High schools have to offer greater portfolios of options and sort students appropriately across those options. At the same time, compared with lower grade levels, high schools inherit student bodies with more discrepant abilities and competing outside options and infl uences (for example, Clotfelter, Ladd, and Vigdor 2009; Cascio and Staiger 2012). The balancing act is all the more challenging at disadvantaged high schools, where resources are of lower quality and more scarce. The National Center for Education Statistics (Aud et al. 2012) provides a wealth of data showing that many US high schools are struggling. Across all public schools, only around 75 percent of students graduate on time, and approximately 8 percent of students drop out of high school altogether. In large urban school districts, like Chicago, New York City, and Los Angeles, cohort graduation rates hover around 60 to 65 percent. In the lowest income quintile, dropout rates are four times greater than in the highest income quintile. These statistics are especially shocking since What Can Be Done To Improve Struggling High Schools?