"Frontline" studies education & election.

• Position: WHAT'S NEW? - Brief article - Calendar

What does it take to save a student? Every year, hundreds of thousands of teenagers in the U.S. quit high school without diplomas--an epidemic so out of control that nobody knows the exact number. What is clear is that massive dropout rates cripple individual career prospects and cloud the country's future.

At Houston's Sharpstown High, once a notorious "dropout factory," a high-stakes experiment is underway to rescue students from the edge. "FRONTLINE" spent a semester immersed in Sharpstown to produce a portrait of four students in crisis and the teachers, counselors, and principal waging a daily, personal struggle to get them to graduation. A troubling and inspiring journey through the maze of an inner-city high school, "Dropout Nation" (9 p.m. Sept. 25) investigates the causes, challenges and potential solutions of a national emergency.

At 9 p.m. on Oct. 9, meanwhile, "FRONTLINE" makes its Season 31 premiere with "The Choice 2012," a two-hour documentary that journeys into the places, people, and decisive moments that made the men who are competing for...