Population of At-Risk Students

...tends to encompass the following major groups: poverty children (21 percent of student enrollments K-12); minority students (some 30 percent), especially immigrant children who speak a language other than English (15 percent); and handicapped students (12 percent)...(p. 376).

In addition, Papalia and Olds (1995) report that the at-risk group has been expanded by many educators so as to include children who are abused or neglected, or homeless, or who were born with crack cocaine or other drugs in their systems.

Ornstein and Hunkins (1997) further point out that at-risk students are "at risk" for far more than school failure. Other probable outcomes facing this population include low salaried jobs, substance abuse, and participation in crime.

Until very recently, the educational focus with respect to at-risk students has been upon using educational interventions to increase their chances of school success (Papalia & Olds, 1995). However, longitudinal research conducted on such interventions has, over the years, shown very poor success rates for many of these programs. For example, Le Tendre (1991) reported that of 1,200 such programs and projects developed and implemented during the 1970s and 1980s to help at-risk students, only ten were found to be effective on the basis of statistical re-analysis.

In addition to the foregoing, Ornstein and Hunkins (1997) point o

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th adults; (2) positive use of time; (3) motivation through encouragement and high expectations; and (4) acknowledgment through recognition and accomplishment. According to the authors: The support system enhances the development of personal traits such as self-efficacy, goal orientation, personal responsibility, optimism, internal expectations, and coping ability. (p.1) Pisapia and Westfall (1994) also stated that there were concrete steps schools/school districts could take to operationalize the resiliency model, the first of which was to be aware of the model and disseminate its concepts. A school that decides to implement the four factors of the model must analyze its own performance and then identify the strategies that will bring about these objectives. It was pointed out that there are no quick and easy answers to solving the problems of at-risk students, but putting the factors of the resiliency model into place will operate to provide a process schools can use to develop a climate that encourages the development of resilient traits. In another study, Worrell (1996) examined the impact of variables related to competence and identity as protective factors in a group of at-risk dropouts and at-risk graduates of high s
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Approximate Pages = 21 (250 words per page)

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