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While accountability demands and economic pressures sparked educators鈥� drive to bring dropouts back to school, those efforts are largely being powered by online and hybrid credit-recovery programs.

But the advent of such innovations also gives some industry experts and educators cause for concern: Will dropout recovery鈥檚 promise be derailed by programs that offer uneven academic rigor and insufficient social and emotional support for this very vulnerable group of returning students?

鈥淚 worry that the growth of access in this space has outpaced quality,鈥� says Michael B. Horn, a co-author of Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns, published in 2008 by McGraw-Hill. 鈥淵ou鈥檝e started to solidify models that focus on getting students to graduation as opposed to an outcome measure focused on the actual learning.鈥�

Dropout recovery is a textbook example of an education area ripe for disrupting traditional instructional models: For more than 40 years, high school has not worked for as many as a third of students. Because districts take a hit in both per-pupil funding and accountability ratings when students walk out on school, many are eager for outside help with tough-to-teach students.

More than 60 percent of online courses now are being taken for credit recovery, according to Patte Barth, the director of the Center for Public Education, an initiative of the Alexandria, Va.-based National School Boards Association, and supporting them now are 鈥渁 lot of players"鈥攏onprofit community-based organizations, schools, universities, and a 鈥渂ig for-profit field emerging,鈥� she says.

John Murray, the chairman and chief executive officer of AdvancePath Academics Inc., a hybrid dropout-recovery company based in Williamsburg, Va., believes a lot of good has come from new schooling models that pair proficiency-based credit鈥攔ather than seat-time requirements鈥攚ith social and often psychological support. A former dropout himself, Murray says recovery programs can help students integrate education with work and family duties, as well as overcome the previous trauma or academic failure that killed their motivation to learn.

鈥楴oise and Distraction鈥�

However, he also sees 鈥渁 lot of noise and distraction鈥� in the dropout-recovery market, particularly in online and blended learning. 鈥淔unding doesn鈥檛 make quality, and my concern is a lot of these guys are going to chase the money and do a bad job,鈥� he says.

A similar opportunity arose in 2002, when billions in federal funding supported new tutoring programs called supplemental educational services, or SES. Hundreds of new companies sprang up, but the program burned itself out within a decade, hammered by the mistrust of school districts and the lack of consistent ways to evaluate the quality of tutoring programs.

鈥淲e are hoping to avoid another situation like SES,鈥� says Steven Pines, the executive director of the Education Industry Association, a Vienna, Va.-based trade group. Districts and for-profit providers seem to be more willing partners in dropout recovery than they were in the federally driven tutoring programs that drained their budgets. But then, as now, Pines says, 鈥渢he expectations are hyped, and, if you don鈥檛 deliver, it sours relationships for the whole industry鈥攖he blowback can be far reaching.鈥�

Horn attributes the 鈥淪ES blowup鈥� to the lack of a yardstick to evaluate the quality of services鈥攁n equal or greater danger for dropout-recovery providers, he says.

鈥淵ou have to innovate around student outcomes, not just service,鈥� says Horn, the education executive director of the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation, a San Mateo, Calif.-based education and health research group. 鈥淲e鈥檙e already behind the eight ball on the quality-control piece. There鈥檚 a reasonable concern by many people that the standards are low in some of these, that they can become diploma mills in many cases.鈥�

That could discourage returning students from sticking with the program and undermine the value of the diploma they obtain, adds Russell W. Rumberger, an education professor and the director of the California Dropout Research Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara. 鈥淭here鈥檚 concern that the graduation rate is rising, but it鈥檚 doing so because students are able to get credit for not much work,鈥� he says. 鈥淎s far as I know, there鈥檚 no oversight at all.鈥�

That鈥檚 true at the federal level, which has no clear requirements for a rigorous credit-recovery curriculum. In general, states require only that credits earned via an online or hybrid course be roughly equivalent to the same brick-and-mortar course鈥攎eaning that both must cover the same state standards. There are no requirements for the depth and rigor of that coverage.

New York University education historian Diane Ravitch has seen screen shots of questions from credit-recovery courses that she says were 鈥渢he lowest-level true-false questions.鈥�

鈥淭he fact that a student can make up a semester鈥檚 worth of credit in a few days or a week is reason enough to suspect that credit recovery is a scam,鈥� Ravitch says. 鈥淭he quality of the online programs was extremely low. It was an easy way to get credits and a diploma without educational value.鈥�

Providers and educators alike agree that the industry has been spotty, with limited independent validation of models.

鈥淭here鈥檚 no standardization at all in terms of what credit recovery means,鈥� says the NSBA鈥檚 Barth. 鈥淲e鈥檙e finding credit recovery working, not working, working under these certain conditions. There isn鈥檛 much evidence, and that鈥檚 something policymakers and parents need to understand.鈥�

The Washington-based Thomas B. Fordham Institute is in the early stages of a large-scale study to determine the quality and rigor of the most common credit-recovery services, using Florida鈥檚 massive student-data system.

Florida is one of the few states to code courses on student transcripts to note whether a course credit came from repeating a traditional course, taking a proficiency-based hybrid or online course, or learning in an alternative school, says Winkler. The study will judge the passage rates for students earning credits in different ways, the time taken to complete the credits, and students鈥� long-term academic outcomes.

鈥淭here鈥檚 a fundamental belief that kids deserve a second chance, but is this a high-quality intervention that will help them?鈥� says Amber M. Winkler, Fordham鈥檚 vice president for research. 鈥淚f you think the be-all and end-all is to demonstrate mastery, you had better have a great independent end-of-course assessment, and right now, we don鈥檛.鈥�

Taking Responsibility

There are ways to work around the lack of standardization, educators say.

Larry M. Perondi, the superintendent of the 20,300-student Oceanside, Calif., district, says the school system audits both curriculum and instructional practice in the online courses used with the 170 students in its alternative education programs.

鈥淲e work really hard to maintain credibility,鈥� Perondi says. 鈥淭he worst thing that can happen to a program for dropouts is to have the kids labeled as doing something less and getting more credit for it; that would be disastrous.鈥�

Similarly, Superintendent Heath E. Morrison of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools in North Carolina, says he backed up academic progress reported by dropout-recovery programs by administering the Accuplacer college-placement exam to ensure that students completing the programs can go directly into higher education without getting stuck in more remedial classes.

鈥淲e鈥檝e done a bad job of selling credit recovery, because it鈥檚 actually content recovery,鈥� says BethAnn Berliner, a senior research associate and dropout expert at WestEd, in San Francisco. 鈥淲e鈥檙e setting students up for a very limited future if we don鈥檛 give them the content. ... They need to be knowledgeable, not just get units.鈥�

Even academic mastery isn鈥檛 enough when it comes to dropout recovery, as opposed to simple credit recovery, says Lili Allen, the director of the Boston-based Jobs For the Future鈥檚 Back on Track dropout-recovery initiative. Struggling students must have a rigorous curriculum, she says, but they also must learn the noncognitive skills that are vital to academic success, such as organization, self-control, and resilience.

鈥淲e have proven pretty consistently that giving an at-risk kid a user name and password and saying, 鈥榞ood luck鈥� is a recipe for failure,鈥� says Rebekah Richards, the founder and chief academic officer of NoDropouts, an initiative of the online provider American Academy, based in Salt Lake City. 鈥淭hey need a significant increase in support.鈥�

鈥楻elationship Innovation鈥�

For example, Richards says, the returning NoDropouts students take courses that are 鈥渋ndividually paced, but not self-paced.鈥� Courses are entirely online, but each student is assigned a teacher who helps set a graduation-date goal and timeline and then monitors the student鈥檚 progress in meeting academic goals. Students also meet weekly with a 鈥渓ocal advocate,鈥� a social worker who helps address nonacademic issues.

鈥淚n the private sector, there鈥檚 been a lot of innovation on the technology side鈥攐r at least a lot of money spent there,鈥� says Mark Claypool, the president and chief executive officer of the Nashville, Tenn.-based Educational Services of America Inc., which provides dropout-recovery programs in 24 states.

鈥淭here needs to be a lot more innovation on the relationships side, helping teachers understand how to connect with these kids and support them,鈥� Claypool says.

Horn, of the Disruptive Innovation Institute, agrees that the most effective dropout-recovery programs have actively involved, caring teachers who understand both content and the things that can motivate or discourage at-risk students.

鈥淲e鈥檝e seen dropout recovery across the country where the teacher was saying, 鈥榃ell, the computer replaced me,鈥� and was sitting back, and those were terrible for the students,鈥� Horn says.

鈥淭he practice around dropout recovery is very specific, very intensive, and very comprehensive,鈥� says Richards of the American Academy鈥檚 NoDropouts program.

鈥淭oo often, there鈥檚 an idea that 鈥� a single program can meet the needs of all students,鈥� Richards says. 鈥淲e need to be a piece in the puzzle, but not the whole solution.鈥�