Struggling Student Research Initiative

The Background

The Florida Education Foundation Board of Directors determined that in the coming months they would focus attention on the issue of struggling students, those K-12 students who fall through the cracks and are least likely to graduate.

The Board then sought third party, independent assessments of existing programs that address the struggling student issue and found independent studies lacking.  Current independent studies were limited to comparisons of 2 to 3 mentoring programs, and a more comprehensive study of multiple statewide intervention programs unavailable.

Next steps

The FEF Board of Directors intends to launch an independent third party study of existing drop-out prevention programs that includes the following:  

• Based on data currently available, identify K-12 students who are highly unlikely to graduate and identify their common threads or shared predictors
• Identify the effectiveness of various drop-out prevention programs that attempt to address these common predictors and determine which programs provide the most effective results and best return on investment.

The information gathered in the study will be beneficial to individuals and businesses as they consider where to commit future resources.