Why do so many high school students fail to graduate?
If a student drops out of high school, he or she must be stupid, right? Well, no. Nationwide 88% of dropouts had passing grades. Most people, including teenagers, do what they must do to survive. Even if those choices seem destructive there is usually a reason behind the choice. (That’s not to say it’s a perfectly logical choice.) I am going to assume that every high school student knows that their prospects in life are greatly reduced when they don’t graduate. High school dropouts are 72% more likely to be unemployed compared to graduates. (U.S. Dept of Labor) I think that every kid contemplating dropping out of school knows that. I don’t think there are many kids that want to be failures and plan to be failures.
If our school board wants to admit that there is a problem and do something about it then the first thing they must do is talk to the dropouts. Find out why are they not getting a diploma. I think the answers will be things like, economic necessity; serious problems with getting along with teachers and students; and some students have fallen behind and feel like hopeless failures. These students don’t need a 1950’s style “high school experience”. They don’t care about school spirit, the marching band, the cheerleading squad and the basketball team. They need a path that they can follow to survive and hopefully there will be a high school diploma on that path. However, only when the school listens to those students can the school then provide a program that can fit their needs.
Idea:
Design a special high school program that focuses only of getting a diploma. The school day might be 5 hours. 2 or 3 different shifts would be available. No extracurricular activities, no homeroom, no electives, no homework, no grading periods, no semesters, no grades, no science labs, no breakfast, no lunch. There would be heavy emphasis on remedial work. This is not college prep. This is aimed at those students that want to get the diploma with none of the usual high school social stuff. I think that many kids that drop out of high school cannot make good use of the so called “high school experience”. So just offer a program that is bare-bones education. Work would be a self-paced series of exercises and reading in a study hall setting with teachers available as needed for individual attention. The goal would be only to satisfy the requirements for graduation.
Admittedly, this idea is sort of far fetched. But if a student needed to go to work to save his family, he or she could do that and still have a way to get a diploma. Taking a month off would not have any penalty. The student would simply continue where they left off. Some students can’t tolerate the social aspects of an 800-student population high school. This program would have 50 or 75 students per shift.
In any case, the low graduation rate is destructive to our community and country. Our school board needs to address and solve this problem. Business as usual will not suffice.
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1 comment:
It's about time someone brought the spot light on local education.
In my humble opinion, education could or should be the solution for many of our local problems with unemployment, unskilled workers, teen marriages, grandparents in their late 30's, and I could go on but won't.
Our schools should accept more responsibility than educating and preparing the brightest and best for college. Most of which will never come back. At a minimum, there should be equal focus on those who are at risk of not even completing high school.
Notice I didn't blame education. But if education can't fix these problems, then I can't imagine who can.
Some months ago I called you a jackass. Sorry about that. I can see that you do sometimes, maybe mostly but not always, focus your efforts on the most worthwhile local issues. Education should be at the top of all our lists for local improvement and involvement!
And I agree. It certainly has to begin with the School Board!
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