Closing 'Dropout Factories'.

The article presents the authors' comments on the graduation rate in the U.S. About 15 percent of the nation's high schools produce close to half of its dropouts. These 2,000 high schools are the nation's dropout factories. They have weak promoting power, the number of seniors is routinely 60 percent or less than the number of freshmen four years earlier, and large numbers of their students are not making steady progress toward graduation. Hence, one reason that the 9th grade finishes off so many students is that they may already have been struggling with and disengaging from school for three years or more.