Dive Brief:

• Bronx Arena High School in New York City offers a personalized online courseload to about 200 students between the ages of 16 and 21 who have left their original high schools and are all at different points on the path toward graduation.
• The Hechinger Report writes this personalized learning approach and companion personalization of services based on students’ emotional, social and material needs are at the center of the school’s effort to help kids meet graduation requirements by the time they turn 21, even if those who attend high school for longer than six years aren’t counted in official graduation rate statistics.
• While students spend much of their class time on computers, their progress is tracked in a digital hub created for the school, and teachers and counselors step in when students get off track. The state pays more than $20,000 per pupil, with additional federal Title I funding and a partnership with the SCO Family of Services agency supplementing the total spend.

Dive Insight:

Students who do not graduate from high school are at a severe disadvantage in the workforce, which puts them at risk for a range of hardships throughout their lives. While it is expensive to run a school serving a population of students who already fell through the cracks of the traditional system, it is easy to rationalize the investment when comparing it to the national average amount states spends on high school dropouts, recently pegged at $300,000.

While the latest GradNation campaign report finds today’s high school upperclassmen are part of the first cohort in 50 years to see rising educational attainment as well as shrinking opportunity gaps among them, researchers do not expect today’s first through 10th graders to replicate the progress. More schools like Bronx Arena might combat these negative expectations and get more students on the path to a diploma.