Most of the conversation around school reform these days centers on how to improve the quality of education that is offered in our nation's K-12 schools. That's fitting, of course, since the vast majority of American children are educated in school, and since the underlying premise regarding those one million or more youth who drop out each year is that they--and our society as a whole--would do better if we could keep them in school through graduation.

But a New York Times article published last week highlighted the reality that faces many of those high school dropouts today: high school just isn't for everybody. It's not defeatist to point out that even in a drastically improved American education system there will still be a significant number of young people who decide that school is not for them. Our challenge as a nation is to do right by these young people nonetheless. And the Times article describes an interesting program to assist high school dropouts that is, as it turns out, as successful as it is old-school.

The project, called the National Guard Youth ChalleNGe Program, was started in the early 1990s when Congress recognized the value of National Guard training as a means to instill core values in otherwise struggling youth. Each year, the program graduates more than 7,000 high school dropouts between the ages of 16 and 18 who are drug-free, have no felony records, and agree to abide by the rules. The program itself involves two primary phases. The first phase is a 20-week boot-camp type training (hopefully led by persons more adept, if not more effective, than Major Payne portrayed below), where youth participate in daily activities and service in a disciplined atmosphere. The youth wake up at 4:30 every morning, make their beds neatly, go on an hour-long run, wear uniforms, march, and study long hours in classes to prepare them to pass the GED.

After graduating from this initial camp, the second phase is a year-long period during which the graduates either return to their communities and pursue work or higher education, or enter the military. In both cases, the program pairs each graduate with a life mentor to provide support for difficult life choices and to assist in career planning.

The program's impact is hard to argue with. More than 70% of the program participants go on to receive their high school diplomas or GED's, almost double the rate of high school or equivalency completion for similarly situated youth who don't participate. The impacts are also felt in the employment arena, as program participants are almost 50% more likely to have a job within nine months of completing the program than are similar youth. An independent research study done on the program's effectiveness finds consistent results--all at the mere cost to taxpayers of $28 per day per youth (which is far less than the nearly $200 / day per youth for incarceration).

I'll admit - when I first heard about Youth ChalleNGe, my first instinct was to worry that this was an implicit way to stockpile our armed forces with low-income and often minority youth who had largely been failed by their public schools. But it turns out that only one in eight of the program graduates goes on to actually join the military, while more than two in eight continue on in higher education and more than half get paying jobs. In sum, when wayward high school dropouts enroll in the National Guard's youth initiative, commit to participating, and complete the program, they are far more likely to become contributing members of society. Maybe there are other downsides to relying on a military-focused institution to educate these youth, but the alternatives don't seem to be much more compelling.