High School Marriages and School Policies in Minnesota

The rising incidence of high school dropouts in Minnesota has become a matter of grave concern to parents, educators, and community leaders. This report focuses on the high percentage of these dropouts which occur because of premarital pregnancies and early marriages. The data gathered reveal that administrators of smaller centers of population are more frequently beset by this problem than are their urban counterparts. Findings also show that the handling of premarital pregnancy dropouts is often ineffective because of the defensiveness of some educators, the lack of objectivity among parents, and the confused thinking of the involved students. The following report gives a brief summary of these conditions in Minnesota and discusses proposed measures for combating this serious dropout problem.