“Within our dreams and aspirations we find our opportunities.” - Sugar Ray Leonard

George Will Speaks Out on “Education Lessons We Left Behind” - Washington Post, 4/24/08

In an Op-Ed piece, Will asserts that the United States' education system is in greater peril than at any other time in its history, despite the efforts of No Child Left Behind. Citing a recent memoir by Chester Finn (see citation below), a former aide to Sen. Patrick Moynihan and now president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, Will tracks the decline in graduation rates and reflects on the intentions of “A Nation at Risk,” published 25 years ago. With dropout rates on the rise he concludes, “A nation at risk? Now more than ever.”

Urban Youth Continue the Struggle to Stay in School – FinalCall.com News, 5/4/08

Marc H. Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League, and former mayor of New Orleans, recently spoke out on the dropout crisis. After participating in a recent America's Promise Alliance conference, he learned that every 26 seconds one American high school student drops out of school, and urban youth make up a disproportionately large number of those dropouts. Writing in a guest editorial he stated, “We have both a national and a moral obligation to make sure that all of our children get the education they need to succeed. I’m not talking about throwing money at the problem-I’m talking about investing in human capital.” Read more >>>

Success Highways Customer News

“Nevada State College (NV) Supports Crossroads Program with Success Highways

Two hundred Nevada middle school students are now benefiting from the school-life-work connections of the Success Highways program, thanks to a grant written by Dr. Rene Cantu, vice president of Multicultural Affairs at Nevada State College. Select lessons from the Success Highways program are being implemented and used as a springboard for other activities during the four Spring 2008 session dates, which are being administered by six Nevada College staff, assisted by counselors from middle schools and mentors.

New Release

Finn, Chester E. Troublemaker: A Personal History of School Reform Since Sputnik. Princeton University Press, 2008. ISBN: 978-0691129907

No one in education is spared in Finn's exhaustive history of the last 40 years of school reform. Highly respected by educators, researchers, and politicians, Finn is no “party-liner,” and weighs in on vouchers, business involvement in education, failure of NCLB, and virtually every subject involved with American education, including issues related to student retention programs, and solving the dropout problem.

Events of Interest

NCASA Leadership Institute Series: A Conference on Dropout Prevention, Policies, Programs and Data - July 24-25, 2008, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC

The first program in NCASA's Leadership Institute Series is designed to address how policies, program and data can help or hurt efforts to reduce school dropouts. The conference is geared toward middle and high school educators, with a special focus on preventing dropouts in ninth grade, which is when the largest group of students leave school in North Carolina. For more information and to register, click here.

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About this Newsletter

Success Highways News is brought to you by ScholarCentric, publisher of Success Highways, a dropout prevention program for students in grades 7-9. You can reach us at info@scholarcentric.com, visit our Web site at http://www.scholarcentric.com, or call us at our toll free number 800-995-8779.

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