Contact Douglas Levin, (703) 684-4000 x1109

The National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE) is pleased to announce that Mary Lord, a member of the District of Columbia State Board of Education, has been chosen to serve on a year-long NASBE study group, convened in partnership with Communities in Schools (the nation’s largest dropout prevention organization), to identify unique policy and community-state partnership solutions to the devastating dropout rates facing some of the nation’s most impacted communities.

“With a long track-record of state-based work on high school reform, the NASBE membership has recommitted itself to identifying ways to serve all students, including those most at risk of dropping out of school,” said Brenda Welburn, NASBE Executive Director. “It is vital to identify and implement state education policies that transform the conditions that contribute to dropping out of school and increase rates of student success. Fostering effective school, family, and community partnerships will be a key component of any solution.”

As part of the 17-member national study group, Lord will meet with other state policymakers, student dropout prevention experts, and education reform leaders over the course of the year to examine high school dropout issues with direct policy implications for State Boards of Education and other national, state, and local education policymakers.

Specifically, the NASBE study group will explore in-depth the various reasons students drop out of school, the unique and complementary roles of schools, families, communities, and businesses in supporting students to stay in school; and innovative state policies, initiatives and strategies to effectively address the issue.

The study group will issue a comprehensive report in October 2009 at the NASBE Annual Conference in Cincinnati. Policy recommendations also will be distributed to all governors, state superintendents, other state and local education policymakers, national education groups, Congress, and federal officials.

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NASBE, nasbe.org, represents America’s state and territorial boards of education. Our principal objectives are to strengthen state leadership in education policymaking; advocate equality of access to educational opportunity; promote excellence in the education of all students; and assure responsible lay governance of education.