For years, we have considered school dropout rates as a problem occurring at the high-school level. However, this is actually an issue that originates and develops in elementary school. In Do Children Drop Out of School in Kindergarten? Gregory Hickman and Randy Heinrich show how high school dropouts in many ways drop out of school long before they reach high school. Using a comprehensive systems approach, Hickman and Heinrich argue that our policy makers, educators, parents, and community members need to scrutinize our education system, moving past fixing short-term symptoms to engaging core, long-term problems for deep, effective change. For real change to take place, our national agenda needs to address the dropout problem at the elementary level, long before kids enter high school.

"For this thick description of a longitudinal study, Hickman (Walden Univ.) and Heinrich (Argosy Univ. Online) examined various data (e.g., grades, achievement tests, and absenteeism) to determine the reasons students drop out of school. The authors' major findings include the following: dropouts and graduates are very different as early as kindergarten, dropouts are absent from school more often than graduates, and dropouts demonstrate lower levels of academic performance than graduates. These findings were well documented in prior research, but more detailed analyses of the results from this study yielded some new information. For example, the authors found that dropouts tended to perform better on standardized tests than they did in classrooms. Furthermore, they found that the gap between the performance of dropouts on standardized measures and classroom performance increased over time....Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above." - CHOICE