At-Risk Youth

Education, the High School Dropout, and the Creation of the At-Risk Youth

The failure to complete high school, more commonly referred to as “dropping out” in education literature, has been and continues to be a fundamental educational and social phenomenon plaguing the American public school system. In the early 1980s, the system came under scrutiny due to students' inability to meet the minimum course requirements in fulfillment of graduation and resultant retention issues. The heightened awareness and increased concern about this growing problem resulted in numerous reports on education and state reforms to raise the current academic standards.

A Nation at Risk

In 1983, the National Commission on Excellence in Education published A Nation at Risk, a report addressing the risk that less than full participation in the labor market posed to the individual, society, and the nation. Predicated on the belief that all children were equipped with the tools to secure gainful employment in an effort to be self-sufficient, productive citizens of society, the commission concluded that one's inability to fulfill this role would have grave individual, social, and societal costs. The failure to complete high school was considered both detrimental to the individual and a risk to society and the nation as a whole. The commission concluded that individuals ill prepared for the “information age” would inevitably be disenfranchised and unable to participate fully in national life. The commission's characterization of dropping out as an academic failure and a risk to the nation dramatically shifted the way in which the phenomenon of dropping out was both viewed and addressed by academicians, state officials, and the general public.

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