Kerry Healey’s “#1 idea” (in her list of 50) was to attack the dropout problem — half of urban kids never earn a diploma — by raising the mandatory school age from 16 to 18.
Governor Patrick likes the idea and promoted it this month.
How would such a law play out in real life?
Last September, Globe reporter Tracy Jan wrote a story about Boston’s new efforts to get dropouts back in school.
Sylvester Cooper , with his baggy sweat pants, gleaming white Nike sneakers, and rhinestone stud earring, blended in with the other freshmen in his Charlestown High algebra class yesterday on the first day of school.
But when his teacher began quizzing students about last school year, Cooper’s answers stood out. This was not his first freshman year.
Last spring, he quit two months before school ended. The 15-year-old is back in the classroom because of a new push by Boston public schools to get dropouts to return. Although counselors tried to persuade 1,660 high school students to come back, only 34 agreed.
Mentors, truant officers, alternative schools….the whole 9 yards.
Today, Jan returns to Cooper’s life, with a brilliantly reported story.
Slumped over in his hooded sweatshirt, Sylvester Cooper said nothing as his grandmother and mentor pelted him with questions, pleas, and admonishments.
It was October, just the second month of school, and the teenager was already facing his second disciplinary hearing for excessive absences: He had skipped 18 of his first 29 days of freshman year at Charlestown High.
Read the whole thing.
I’m not sure how a law which makes it illegal for kids to dropout at 16 or 17 — even when it is attached, like in this program, to outside mentors, counselors, truant officers, and ultimately alternative schools — is going to work in real life.
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BMG MCAS
*What is your reaction to Jan’s story?
(Extra Credit)
*Urban high schools are pinned by two problems which sometimes pull them in opposite directions.
1. Standards too LOW: almost nobody who graduates from high school has the academic skills needed to complete a college degree. Many H.S. grads stay trapped in poverty.
2. Even the low standards seem too high: half the kids in Boston, Lawrence, Lowell, Worcester, Springfield, etc drop out.
In which group would you rather invest more public dollars — the “top half” which finish high school unable to read or write well enough to succeed in college, or the “bottom half” which don’t finish at all?
Public policy is about tough choices, so no finessing with your pet project that “helps everyone.”
annem says
What makes it all the more urgent to tackle effectively is that this education issue is directly linked to the violence issue.
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And, of course, taking the “holistic view”, everything is linked directly to everything, which brings me to the need for real universal healthcare.
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Which brings me to ask GGW why you haven’t shared, as I have politely requested, your notions about why the HC Amendment “would do more harm than good” (in your prior Idiot’s Guide BMG post)
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and I wasn’t gonna turn the computer on today! It’s going off now, but I’ll check back tomorrow for your reply on that other thread and to share thoughts about this ed. issue-thanks.
goldsteingonewild says
you’re right AnnEM i owe you a response on the health care thread….
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as for “everything is connected” theory….
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while it seems intuitive that rising street violence would lead to rising dropout rates, and vice versa — the facts don’t seem to bear that out.
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the change in boston’s dropout rates since, say, 1990 have not seemed to vary in correlation with the low and high violent crime rates.
nopolitician says
This is a significant problem that no one wants to address. Let me give another reason why people aren’t addressing it.
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I was looking at Springfield high school enrollment over the years. Its nicely broken down by grade on the DOE website. If you look at the overall attendance in Springfield for grade 9, and compare to grade 12, there is about a 1,600 kid difference. That amounts to about 1/2 of the student population in high school (hence the 50% drop-out rate).
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Springfield has four major high schools. Assuming that they are at least somewhere near their capacity, this would mean that Springfield would need to build 3-4 more high schools to handle this excess capacity. It would also mean that Springfield would have to hire a lot more teachers to educate them.
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I realize that this isn’t a good excuse to have a poor graduation rate, and I also realize that it is better to educate students than to annually turn 1,600 non-graduates on the streets, but it is also reality — this is going to need to be paid for, big-time.
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The other issue is, if those 1,600 kids are dropping out annually, you can assume that they weren’t getting anything out of school, they just didn’t want to be there. So what is going to be the effect of adding 1,600 students (per class, meaning 4,800 students total) who absolutely don’t want to be there to high schools?
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Also, if we are currently failing 50% of our students in the form of them dropping out, and at least another 50% of the remainder of the students in the form of them not being proficient, then shouldn’t we ask ourselves, is more of the same really appropriate?
ryepower12 says
You can’t address those problems without tackling the issues that are at the root cause. We need to answer two key questions if we want everyone to learn at a high level and stay in school:
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1. Why aren’t our current tactics working?
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2. What will make them want to stay in school and learn?
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Personally, I think longer school days are going to be key – do stuff to make school be less like school and more like creative learning and we need to focus on getting more people to do work in class than out. There are a lot of students who just don’t want to or can’t do work at home (jobs, bad home situation, left to their own devices, etc.) If we really branched out of the traditional mold and make schools 24 hour learning centers, we could begin to tackle these problems. Now, I’m not saying we should have people learning math, english and science 10 hours a day… but we need turn ‘after school programs’ into part of everyone’s curriculum. We need to offer homework help for everyone and try to get everyone to do their work in school, not at home. We need to make sure that all students have their basic needs met while in these buildings (food, mental breaks, competent teaching, and even a little fun).
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We also need to learn that not only is everyone different, but they think differently too… I don’t think we can accomplish such a herculean task without developing individual plans for each and every student – and get teachers and staff to really believe in it.
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It’ll cost more money, maybe even a shitload more, but if people are serious about these kinds of things… I think that these kinds of things are going to be what we have t odo.
goldsteingonewild says
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I agree. There’s no silver bullet. But one of the factors is certaintly that the level of distraction at home, even for most ADULTS, is fairly high. Let alone teens, who consume TV and video games at much higher levels than adults.
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So while “homework” is essential — the English teacher assigns you to do the reading at home, so that during class you can discuss it — it doesn’t necessarily have to be “done at home.”
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Now several Boston schools high do stay open late, so kids can join what is often called “Homework Club.” BPS high schools tend to dismiss at 1.45pm (another story) and some have rooms where kids can go work quietly until maybe 3.30pm and even get help from tutors.
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But few kids show up.
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It creates a doom loop. If you haven’t done the reading homework, or the math homework, or the science homework….then classes go from “sort of boring” to “incredibly boring” — you have no idea what’s going on. So kids cut. And ultimately drop out.
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Nativity Prep, Epiphany, and Mother Caroline Academy are 3 Boston tuition-free Jesuit schools. They have classes til 3 or so, then some fun stuff or sports, then dinner, then mandatory homework time til 7pm or 8pm. And these are MIDDLE schools.
ryepower12 says
I absolutely agree, there’s a real doom loop there. Even if we kept kids in school till 5 or 6 (when most of their parents got home) we’d be doing a lot to improve the system. Like you said, however, it shouldn’t be just homework and more classes – we need to teach people to think at higher levels and I think interesting/creative/fun things are essential, be it additional opportunity to take art classes or perform shows, or even sports/etc. It could be that people do different things on different days. Mix in there enough time to do most of the necessary homework and we could go a long way to addressing the problems.
goldsteingonewild says
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You’re right. For some kids, an improved H.S. experience will be enough to get them to stay in school; for others, even that just won’t be enough.
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Let’s attack the problems on two ends.
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We can’t walk away from high schools improvement efforts: better execution of a million nuts and bolts thing, from teaching to leadership to hallways to how parent support is cultivated…all of which culminate in a classroom where teacher has a much better chance to succeed.
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And it can’t be all carrots. We have to shut down schools which, after 5+ years of saying “we’ll fix it,” don’t. In Chicago, Mayor Daley closes them, leaves them vacant for a year, and let’s a new team of educators reopen them as new schools.
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But we also need innovation and experimentation. What about a “Dropout job training voucher?” A 16 year old could get, say, $5000 voucher to bring to an employer willing to train him or her. Or tax credit worth $5000 if voucher is too inflammatory.
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Maybe Sylvester, if he doesn’t succeed at Day And Evening Academy, could make a transition into the workplace, toil for a few years, build his maturity and confidence, contribute to his grandmother’s household.
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Perhaps a few years later he feels ready to get his G.E.D. and go to community college.
ryepower12 says
Suddenly, people will criticize the government that we’re paying people to drop out… and that would be accurate. I can see pros and cons to your proposal, but I think other options could be better.
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Personally, I think one of the reasons a lot of students don’t do well is because they don’t do well at home – for whatever reason – so a big way to address that is to remove a lot of the “home” from school. Obviously, that’s can’t be 100%, but we can make a lot of improvements to help a whole lot more people excel.
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The problem, still, though is convincing people to pay for it. Sadly, people don’t see past their taxes (for example, doing this would remove the burden for most to pay for childcare, etc. – and it would also be an investment, allowing people to eventually be able to get into college or be better at whatever they want to do… and thus get better paying jobs… and thus pay more taxes). However, most people don’t think about that level.
mcrd says
isn’t this a problem in Israel, Ireland, India, China,
Brazil, Norway, Iceland, or Australia?
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Duxbury, MA spends less money on educating each child per capita than Boston. Is money the problem? Is money the answer. Perhaps there is a deeper issue.
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The Boston educational system collapsed shortly after 1974. Educational spending increased and the problems increased. Spending increased again and dropout rates increased. Educational spending increased further an violence increased. It seems that increased spending is counter productive.
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The fact that these young people are without families and parents may have something to do with it. Lack of guidance,
direction and discipline may be causative. Living in an atmosphere where these young folks are acutely aware that no one really cares, they just throw money. Perhaps that may be an exacerbation.
ryepower12 says
It’s that we’re not always spending it on the right things, even if those things are well-intentioned. Furthermore, at least one person has made this point on this site, that it simply costs more to educate students in Boston and Springfield than Duxbury or most other towns. They already have advantages that make it easier for them to be taught (parents who provide tutors, parents with high degrees of education, etc. etc. etc.). I remember one of my teachers in High School talking about if we took the teachers in Swampscott and switched them with Lawrence, there probably wouldn’t be much of a difference in either places.
nopolitician says
It is my understanding that in China, children are given a test, and if they fail, they get no more education. China is essentially only educating the children that they feel deserve to be educated. The rest work in the fields, or, more recently do manual labor that pays for their basic needs, but no more.
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India has an amazing underclass, and education is not a universal right.
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In the USA, everyone MUST get an education until they are 16, even if they don’t want one. And there are virtually no options available to people who don’t get one. Still, that doesn’t miraculously make people desire and value education. Go figure, huh?
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I’m curious, are you dancing around racial issues here? Your use of “1974” seems to imply so, and you’re also describing the problem in terms that many would use to describe a stereotypical Black family.
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I would say that the issues are tied only in that in 1974, most people who had money left the Boston school system because they didn’t want desegregation. They fled to suburban districts that were economically set up to exclude Blacks, most of which were poorer and couldn’t afford to do the same (or perhaps didn’t want to be the only Black in an all-white suburb in such a racially charged era). That left the system comprised mostly of poorer people with significant needs. Economic segregation has replaced racial segregation, and it turns out that economic segregation is just as bad. Problems are just too many to solve en masse.
dweir says
China has compulsory education, but the fees were prohibitive for many poor families.
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India has made huge strides in providing universal elementary education and in 2004 launced a satellite dedicated to bringing virtual instruction to remote areas of the country.
nopolitician says
Sorry, I re-read my comment and realize that it sounds like I said that certain kids have to take a test before they can even go to school. I meant that they have to take a test before they can proceed with more schooling — at least, that’s what my high school algebra teacher used to tell us, and I’ve seen corroborating evidence since then.
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The article you linked to says:
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It then has this to say:
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That implies that what I said is true; you get 9 years of compulsory education, and that extends from 1st grade to maybe 9th grade. At that point, your “skill level” is determined, and your track is set. It doesn’t say anything about compulsory education after the equivalent of 9th grade.
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In Massachusetts, we say that all students must achieve what is essentially pre-requirements for college to graduate. Doesn’t matter if you’re in a vocational track or a college preparatory path, the standards are the same. And we mourn when someone in 9th grade drops out, because we know that, unlike China, we don’t have jobs for such workers (ironically, because China is taking them).
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This essentially describes what we called “tracking” at the secondary level, but does so for entire schools. I expect we could probably educate the most intelligent a lot more if we grouped them into their own schools, but is it worth the price to discard the rest?
dweir says
But no reason to force them into a “college or bust” type of education either.
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I don’t think that passing the MCAS equates to a college prep set of courses. The new core proposal is interesting, but even that can be watered down. And it makes me wonder if students arent’t taking those classes, then what are they taking?!
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Other countries — UK, Germany come to mind — have an alternative track after 8th grade. Frankly, yes, I think that we should segregate those who want to continue onto college and prepare them properly.
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A high school diploma isn’t worthless. I have a friend whose brother quickly worked his way up the management chain at Stop & Shop. My niece is a manager at a mortgage company. One of my brothers was in sales for a major corporation. Another is a graphic designer for a yet another major corporation. All without college degrees. A third is successful in the software industry, with just an associates.
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I was the first in my family to get a BA. From a private college no less. For three years, I worked as a nanny and a fast food restaurants and as a cashier. Bad economy. No network. Then I went to grad school. Tens of thousands of dollars in debt later, I finally got a real job.
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Were I doing it all again today, I would have delayed that first degree. Or, I would have worked and gone to school part time. There are just so many more options with part-time and online schooling. I guess my point is if your heart isn’t into it, then it’s likely your head isn’t either. Best to take the body out too.
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howardjp says
I had thought about doing so also, but had a couple of other projects this a.m.
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This is a very well written story about one of many such situations. Deals with the complexities — a young person beig raised by their grandmother, etc, smart but unmotivated by school. Wants to do the right thing but can’t muster the will to do it. Much better way to understand what goes on in the city than the pontifications you see in the MSM editorials.
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This kind of writing is how newspapers win awards and otherwise distinguish themselves!
goldsteingonewild says
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The kind of teachers who succeed most in high-poverty schools are the ones who combine relationship-building and no-nonsense “Staying on a kid’s back.”
sabutai says
Would you prefer I refer to you as Socrates, or C.S. Lewis? In other words, to which purveyor of false dichotomies would you like to be compared?
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In all seriousness GGW, we really can’t afford to focus on only one half of the student body of which you speak. But I will agree with you in this — we can’t invest public dollars in the Sylvester Coopers of the world at 18. Use whatever crude language you want about efficiencies or bang for the buck, but at that age we’re few options short of physically forcing them to appear in school. The Coopers of Massachusetts need to be reached at 3 and 4 years old.
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At the high school level, I certainly agree that we need to fcous on the so-called “top half” of kids, and frankly I think that’s the direction we’re headed. Getting another 10 MCAS points out of a “top-halfer” counts equally as much as getting 10 points from a “bottom-halfer,” and is far more possible. I’m surprised not to see this type of thinking more from administrators yet.
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I agree with Ryan (hey it could happen!) that a longer school day is a great way to reach out to the top half. But as somebody who teaches in the afterschool program twice a day (my day goes from 7a to 5p those days), it is a very delicate balance to make the program enticing while also adding some academic value, and this is a subject on which the DoE is spending a great deal of time these days. At the moment, the best possible solution: community involvement.
goldsteingonewild says
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While i generally agree that early ed is part of the story, in this case….
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Age 3 and 4 sounds like he was fine. Then adolescence hit, he needed discipline, didn’t get much of it. As per above, when he happend to have teachers who “got on him,” he did well.
sabutai says
Didn’t realize that Sylvester’s life had changed in adolescence. I’m not really sure what to say in this case, how a different system could have helped.
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As for my Final Four, it hit the wall when Kansas lost…after that it was all downhill. Blah.
chimpschump says
Actually, we do. And we are experiencing some successes, some failures, and some foot-dragging in fighting them. I will explain.
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We use something called the WASL, the Washington Assessment of Student Learning. We measure both Math and non-math capabilities, at several points during the student’s progress through school. And we begin at the end of the primary 1-3) school grades, that is, the students are tested during their 4th-Grade year.
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But the results aren’t just used to hold students back; if a large portion of students in a given school are failing at the 4th grade assessment, we ask a LOT of WHY’s. And not just of the School Board, or the Governor’s Education Czar, but of the individual TEACHERS, their principals, the local school board, and, believe it or not, the PARENTS!
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Some of the answers have resulted in teachers being probated, and ultimately replaced. Some of the answers have resulted in cirricula changes, to those more suited to the child’s needs, and to the desired achievement level. Some of the answers have resulted in parents on the carpet — well they SHOULD be! Some of the answers have replaced principals, District Administrators and have removed school board members who thought of their job as political.
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Some of the answers have improved school nutrition programs, started supplemental nutrition programs for students from desperately poor families, and somehow, we have found dollars to help with health issues — and those dollars aren’t lining the pockets of rip-off artists with friends in the right places. Too many people are WATCHING!
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One thing’s for sure, the program has EVERYBODY’s attention! And if they are not all comfortable with it, that’s just too damned bad.
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The teachers have a really strong union. They HATE the WASL, and squawk CONSTANTLY for its removal — because they are trying to protect far too many unqualified union members. But the politicians know they can’t get away with that — too many people are watching our students performance increase. Given the turnaround, people are not going to stop watching, but they ARE going to scrutinze the living hades out of any proposed changes!
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Both the Academic community, and the business community in this state support the program, for obvious reasons — its WORKING! And just in case you think it works only in the WASP neighborhoods, some of the fastest turnarounds have been in the poorest, blackest neighborhood schools, or those populated by other underachieving ethnicities.
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Its called accountability at ALL levels, including at the taxpayer and parent level. That is why it works!
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Best,
Chuck
mcrd says
Sounds like they are making of that un PC word: Discipline. As in “You will sit, you will remain silent, you will participate. “May” is not an option, “I can’t is not an option.
chimpschump says
Why SHOULD they be an option? As for when the kids use them, the “Five Why’s” come into play. And the folks asking the questions go and get answers from those who SHOULD be answering!
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As for when the teachers and administrators ask them, the same tests apply. If valid, the fix gets applied; usually, we are finding that not to be the case.
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Accountability works.
Best,
Chuck
nopolitician says
Massachusetts is very economically segregated into the “haves” and the “have-nots”. The haves typically do well in school, the have-nots don’t. Proposition is the hammer that keeps this all in place, and actually furthers it (how many towns welcome low-end developments vs. high-end developments?)
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Since the haves don’t go to school with the have-nots, the haves don’t particularly want to change anything. It’s working for them, at least in their narrow vision. Ask anyone how you select a town in this state — you pick the one with the best educational system. So if a system is failing, you just don’t pick it. In many ways, MCAS is more a ratings system for prospective parents pick their town than a way to help kids.
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The haves have the money and political power, so nothing changes.
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It doesn’t help that the haves often don’t physically resemble the have-nots either, nor does the latest set of thoughts and vocabulary offered by the conservative movement (“let’s not reward failure”; “failure is the result of a weak moral character”, etc.).
chimpschump says
What kinds of questions are the parents of the “Have-Nots” asking? And if they are not asking, what kinds of questions are the administrators, politicians and social and law-enforcement agencies in charge of the whole mess asking?
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When I went to school in the Fifties, in Pennsylvania, we had a law regarding trauncy: three unexcused absences, and your parents went to JAIL for three days! This tended to discourage trauncy, as you may imagine . . .
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SCREWS TIGHTEN THINGS, IF TURNED IN THE CORRECT DORECTION.
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SOMETIMES THAT IS NOT A BAD IDEA . . .
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Best,
Chuck
25-cats says
…I’m definitely in camp #1–standard are too low. We need a high school education to mean something, so that someone who graduates high school is employable and don’t have to go tens of thousands of dollars into debt to get a bachelor’s degree in order not to be considered dim.
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As to high school dropouts, let them work for a while, then support them a decade or so in the future when they smarten up and go for their GEDs.
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Quite simply, you can have high standards, OR you can have nearly everyone graduate. Choose one. (or, if you’re unluckly, you don’t even get the one.)
gary says
I always figured there was a decent argument to be made for leaving the drop-out age where it was, or even lowering it, but make dropping out contingent on the (ex) student entering an apprendice program in one of the trades. And, raising the dropout age is just spending money, and at best expecting marginal returns.
goldsteingonewild says
We can definitely reach some kids that way — not nearly all of the 50% who drop out of urban schools, but a chunk.
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Youthbuild does that, for example.
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Alas, many of these programs struggle with the same execution gaps that pervade urban schools. It’s hard to run big things like that.
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That’s why, as per my comment above, I think you have to be able to enlist small business who can teach apprentices one or two at a time, by giving kids a voucher or tax credit they can bring to small business in exchange for legit training.
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Like these guys — I’m sure they could train an extra couple of Boston dropouts if the kids walked in with some sort of subsidy….the money which would otherwise be spent on them to attend traditional schools where they’d cut class, do no homework, and disrupt other kids.
dweir says
One of my music ed teachers gave us the following advice: If we want to build a program, you need to have a clear sense of expectations and hold everyone to them. Some will quit, but for the sake of the whole, it’s better that they do. Once you have a core group dedicated and committed to a high standard, you can move forward. As the group gets better, others will want to be there, too.
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Rafe Esquith talks about this strategy, too. These days, his class has such a reputation that kids consider themselves lucky to be there. But in the beginning, he had to identify those few who wanted to excel. Their success served as the catalyst for others to join.
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If all your high school could offer you was an unsafe environment, leaving you ill prepared for either college or work, why would you stay?
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The graduation rate should not be raised. In fact, I’d rather have 16 be the age at which schools can permanently expel students. If they want to be there, if they will work hard, obey the rules, then they’ve earned their seat. If not, they are out. Letting them disrupt the learning and take down the whole school is not right.
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Of course this must be coupled with support. We did that for kids in the first high school I worked in. Long hours for the teachers, but reaching those few who met us half-way was worth it.
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This problem extends beyond high school dropouts too. I taught elementary school in Lynn, and a first grader made aggressive sexual advances towards two of his classmates. This student should not have been around other children. Too often we put others at risk for the sake of “inclusion”. It’s a mistake. It harms the students who are at risk from others’ behavior, and it’s a disservice to those children whose main need is services other than academics.
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