Proven Practices

The National Dropout Prevention Center (NDPC) has identified fifteen strategies that have been proven as effective in preventing at-risk students from dropping out of school. Based on these strategies, the NDPC has developed a model program database of actual programs that use many of these strategies. However, national experts in the area of dropout prevention have noted that whereas model programs are highly reliant on funding sources and thus may be short lived, there are proven practices that are universal in helping at-risk students stay in school and can be implemented at a minimal cost.

The idea of identifying proven practices in education or with dropout prevention activities is certainly not a new idea. Proven practices might have a high level of research evidence to support the valued practice, such as reading aloud, or the practice may simply have a wide acceptance by practitioners about its value.

These proven practices are more specific than the fifteen strategies and may address more than one strategy. For instance, in a mentoring program, the practice of matching business people with students with the same interests can fall under the mentoring strategy but also the career and technical education strategy.

The NDPC has therefore developed an additional database of proven practices that can be utilized as viable resource materials or another tool for practitioners to use in their arsenal to fight the dropout issues.