On his book Dropping Out: Why Students Drop Out of High School and What Can Be Done About It
Cover Interview of December 01, 2011
Lastly
My wish is that this book will prove valuable to all stakeholders with an interest in and a commitment to solving the nation’s dropout crisis.
For scholars, the book provides a comprehensive review of the research literature on dropouts, citing more than 700 references.
For educators, the book provides an overview of the various intervention strategies for solving the dropout crisis, from programmatic interventions that targets students most at risk for dropping out to systemic interventions. It reviews the various methods for determining the effectiveness of educational interventions and the research evidence on the effectiveness of specific interventions. At the same time, it points out some contradictions in several reviews of the research literature.
For policymakers, the book describes current approaches to addressing the dropout problem at the national, state, and local levels; the limitations of these approaches; and five recommendations for addressing the dropout crisis at a more fundamental level.
[T]he Holocaust transformed our whole way of thinking about war and heroism. War is no longer a proving ground for heroism in the same way it used to be. Instead, war now is something that we must avoid at all costs—because genocides often take place under the cover of war. We are no longer all potential soldiers (though we are that too), but we are all potential victims of the traumas war creates. This, at least, is one important development in the way Western populations envision war, even if it does not always predominate in the thinking of our political leaders.Carolyn J. Dean, Interview of February 01, 2011
The dominant premise in evolution and economics is that a person is being loyal to natural law if he or she attends to self’s interest and welfare before being concerned with the needs and demands of family or community. The public does not realize that this statement is not an established scientific principle but an ethical preference. Nonetheless, this belief has created a moral confusion among North Americans and Europeans because the evolution of our species was accompanied by the disposition to worry about kin and the collectives to which one belongs.Jerome Kagan, Interview of September 17, 2009
Lastly
My wish is that this book will prove valuable to all stakeholders with an interest in and a commitment to solving the nation’s dropout crisis.
For scholars, the book provides a comprehensive review of the research literature on dropouts, citing more than 700 references.
For educators, the book provides an overview of the various intervention strategies for solving the dropout crisis, from programmatic interventions that targets students most at risk for dropping out to systemic interventions. It reviews the various methods for determining the effectiveness of educational interventions and the research evidence on the effectiveness of specific interventions. At the same time, it points out some contradictions in several reviews of the research literature.
For policymakers, the book describes current approaches to addressing the dropout problem at the national, state, and local levels; the limitations of these approaches; and five recommendations for addressing the dropout crisis at a more fundamental level.