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Raising high school dropout age is not the answer (2661 hits)

During his State of the Union Address, President Obama strongly urged every state not to allow students to drop out of high school before the age of 18. The president alleges that because Americans with higher levels of education have a lower unemployment rate, requiring students to stay in school will offer a cure to high levels of unemployment.

This is a neat thesis by the President’s administration, but the equation is not nearly so concise. Even if students are required by law to stay in school until they are 18, there is no guarantee that extra time spent in school will make them more prepared to get a job or attend college. For unmotivated students to be required by law to attend class not only robs them of their autonomy as citizens, but is also unfair to already-beleaguered teachers. If a student is in class because he is required by state law to be there, that doesn’t mean he is learning. He is probably far less motivated to participate in a class the state requires of him than he is in one he chooses to attend.

Though the government would like to think of its citizens as perpetual children incapable of choosing for themselves, a student who drops out of school is making a choice. The factors that influence that choice are a far more pressing concern than the age at which a student is allowed to leave school. The factors that lead to a student dropping out are of far more consequence than the age at which a student is allowed to leave school.

If a student is not being prepared by his school to attend college, requiring him to wait a few more birthdays to leave school will not change that. If a student knows at 16 that he won’t have the resources to finance higher education, or if his community does not value higher education, a high school diploma by default of his birthday is unlikely to convince him to work hard and go to college. This proposed policy is unfair to the limited resources of teachers and students who do care to learn and pursue higher studies. If a student does not believe in the value of a high school diploma, using the law to enforce it upon him is unlikely to convince him of the value of learning.

Dropping out of school is, of course, a personal choice. However, it’s a choice precipitated by many complicated factors that would be a much better point of attention for education reform than personal rights of high school students. If area schools, beginning with grade schools, are not preparing students to do well enough to get into college and qualify for scholarships, that’s not because of a lack of motivation from 16-year-olds. If a community does not believe college is possible for its children, that is a far better point of attention for state reform than passing a blanket law that not only doesn’t fix the problem, but reduces dramatically the rights of students and the value of their conscious attention.

Increasing the number of high school graduates by passing over broad state laws will not automatically turn around the economy. If schools continue to fail to educate students and be required pass them regardless of their performance until their 18th birthday, young Americans will continue to be disillusioned by a school system that sees them and their concerns as an equation in which administration and leadership does not factor. Instead of passing a law and absolving responsibility, education leaders should take a look at why students drop out at 16 and whether two more years of cursory attendance will really do anything to fix their problems.

This column was originally published by USA TODAY as part of its Collegiate Correspondence Program.

Source: http://www.desertlamp.com/?p=10811

Posted By: How May I Help You NC
Friday, September 28th 2012 at 10:51AM
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I agree with the USA Today article that education leaders should take a look at why students drop out at 16 and whether two more years of cursory attendance will really do anything to fix their problems. People really have to get in touch with what is happening. As a school administrator myself, this is why I get pissed off sometimes because with all the wisdom and knowledge we claim to have on this forum, PEOPLE REFUSE TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE EDUCATION OF OUR CHILDREN AND OUR CHILDREN'S CHILDREN!!!

The public school system of today is set up to make a pathway for our children (especially our Black boys) to become disconnected from school and end up in prison. Our black boys have no fathers in the homes, thus having no role models in their lives.

The teachers are barely qualified to teach, but none are equipped to deal with aggressive Black boys. So as soon as a young man becomes active in class he is labeled a discipline problem (or ADD) and while other students are being taught he gets busy work or becomes the errand boy.

Once they start falling behind in fifth and sixth grade it is over. In every class they become labeled as the dumb kid. Unlike the streets where they see a collective effort in class all they see is individual achievement. So as they dropout, it is nobody to hangout with other than other dropouts. Is it any wonder why so many Black boys try to gain respect through gang banging?

They have no choice but to succumb to gang banging because no father - or father figure - is around to mold and shape him into the MAN he is supposed to be. Our sons are frustrated because they have the potential to be what ever God has planned them to be, yet no loving and responsible adult is around to help make that happen.
Saturday, September 29th 2012 at 2:59PM
Siebra Muhammad

Between the trials and tribulations of the controversial No Child Left Behind law, the growing issue of bullying in schools, and the feeling that parents, teachers and administrators are all searching for a magic solution to the problem that is the American educational system, here comes more bad news.

Recently, President Barack Obama’s education secretary Arne Duncan stated that every 26 seconds, a student drops out of high school. But things are even worse for black students; a whopping 40 percent of African-American students don’t graduate from high school. These dismal statistics are creating an underclass of African-Americans who have become unemployable, while also affecting the very fibers of the black family structure.

Marc Williams, a high school music theory teacher at Cesar Chavez Charter School in Washington DC, also works with the school’s retention program. He sees a number of different causes for black students not finishing high school.

“Our (African-American) students are dropping out of school for a number of reasons. Aside from the cookie-cutter answers that most folks give that speak to the lack of support from within the household, the fact that many of our students don’t have a ‘set’ of parents, and the obvious idea that many urban schools lack the fiscal resources that other schools have, there are some other things to consider here,” Williams said.

“We, as educators, are failing our students,” he added. “Independent and charter schools (in particular), in order to meet budgets, are spending less money for newer, inexperienced teachers that come fresh off the stage of graduation and into a situation that is a culture shock for them… It’s a set up for failure.”

When you dig deeper, you find that black boys in particular are in a crisis mode. According to the Massachusetts-based Schott Foundation on Public Education, more than half — 53 percent — of black male students drop out of high school without a diploma, compared to 22 percent of white males.

And the problem even extends to elementary school, in one of the best charter school programs in the country. A new study by researchers at Western Michigan reports that 40 percent of 6th to 8th grade black boys in the Knowledge Is Power Program charter schools (KIPP) drop out before completing the program.

It is already tough for high school graduates to compete economically with college graduates, with college graduates earning around $297,893 dollars more than a high school graduate during a lifetime. But without a high school diploma or a General Educational Development (GED), a student basically condemns themselves to underclass status. Individuals without a GED or high school diploma loses about $7,000 dollars per year in comparison to someone with a GED.

And in a modern military, where the ability to understand high tech systems is a premium, dropping out of high school and getting into the military is proving to be an obstacle. Even those with high school degrees are finding it difficult. Thirty nine percent of black applicants with a high school degree are rejected by the military. And those who do make it in are coming into the military with lower scores than white applicants, therefore putting them at a disadvantage when it comes to future advancement.

The real societal cost of a high drop out rate at the high school level is that it attacks the structure of the black family. Black high school drop outs feed a growing black underclass of economically disadvantaged families, making it more difficult to break the cycle of poverty. The state of New York is finding that having a GED helps prevent homelessness, and has created Back to School program in order to get individuals to complete their GED.

But the effects are also found in the college ranks. With black boys struggling to finish high school and go to college, some college systems are finding that when they exclude for college athletes, black male students are a scare commodity. In South Carolina, for example, only 3 percent of the student body at the University of South Carolina, Clemson and the College of Charleston, are black male students. This means that there’s a infinitesimal pool of eligible college educated black women looking for a relationships with men with similar educational backgrounds.

The high school drop out epidemic among African-Americans is not a ticking time bomb, it’s a tsunami that’s swamping the future of black America. State Farm Insurance is working with America’s Promise, the educational organization founded by former Secretary of State General Colin Powell, to fight high school drop outs through a new program called 26 seconds. But unless there are major changes to the current educational trends, look for the nation’s prisons to continue to be repositories for the black students left behind, as they grow more desperate to survive without educational skills.
Saturday, September 29th 2012 at 3:21PM
DAVID JOHNSON