| Elizabeth Zachry
Harvard University
Taking a second chance? Investigating minority dropout from K-12 education, and their subsequent re-engagement through the General Educational Development (GED) diploma
FINAL REPORT:
Strong academic skills have become increasingly important for success in America's marketplace (Levy and Murnane, 2004). However, numerous Americans have not completed high school, particularly among the African-American, Latino, and poor communities (Lasater and Elliott, 2004). While previous research has linked race, class, and school completion, little is known about the interplay between these factors in predicting school dropout and dropouts' subsequent school completion.
In this study, I explored the relationship between race, class, and gender on school dropout and dropouts' school completion with a high school or GED diploma. Utilizing data from the NELS:88, I investigated the educational progress of 1988 eighth graders through 2000. I used discrete-time survival analysis to investigate how race, socio-economic status, and gender affected whether and when: 1) students dropped out of school, and 2) dropouts' completion of a GED or high school diploma.
I found that race, gender, and socio-economic status are indeed related to school dropout and dropouts' subsequent school completion. Race had a significant, negative effect on African-American and Latino students' risk of school dropout. However, when considering socio-economic status, the effect of race was less important, with African-Americans, Latinos and Whites having similar dropout risks.
With dropouts' educational re-engagement, the effect of race and gender varied depending on the method of school completion. Females were more likely than males to complete a GED while males were more likely than females to complete a diploma. African-Americans were slightly less likely than Whites to complete a GED, but equally as likely as Whites to complete a diploma. Finally, no statistically significant differences were found between Whites' and Latinos' GED completion; however, Latino males were more likely to complete a diploma than Whites.
When considering socio-economic status, the effect of race and gender was again varied. Race was not statistically significant in predicting GED completion but had a negative relationship with diploma completion. Here, African-American and Latino dropouts were slightly more likely to receive a diploma than Whites. Alternately, gender was important in predicting GED completion, with females more likely to complete a GED than males. However, gender was not statistically significant in predicting diploma completion.
These findings suggest a number of ways that policies could be reshaped to better reach students who are most likely to dropout and remain dropouts. First, because socio-economic status has a large effect on dropout and subsequent school completion, policymakers should focus ways to improve the educational mechanisms supporting low-income individuals. Additionally, because early school leavers are much less likely to return, policymakers and educators should pay close attention to students who are at-risk of dropping out early in their school careers and explicitly focus on the needs and concerns of young high school attendees. With each grade spent in school having a large effect on students' ultimate school completion, programs which support students to stay in school as long as possible are likely to benefit them in the long run, whether they complete school on time or drop out and look towards completing school later in life. Consonant with this, researchers should include early high school grades in their analyses of school dropout in order to examine further how these dropouts differ from their older peers.
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