Last in a series: Caring adults are critical to keeping kids in school Our views High school dropouts
The Oklahoman Editorial
Published: December 2, 2008
The courtyard at John Marshall High School in Oklahoma City Thursday, November 9, 2006. The school is one of the recipients of "MAPS for Kids" funding. Photo by Paul Hellstern
THEY’RE leaving in droves, and we’re talking a lot about it lately. But what are policymakers and schools doing about the high school students who drop out of school before getting a diploma?
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In recent years, the political arena has put some badly needed focus on high school reform. The graduation standards facing today’s high school freshmen are tougher than ever. Those improvements are critical in the effort to help students graduate prepared for their futures, whether that be higher education or a job.
The idea of graduation coaches to help keep students on the right academic track and keep a closer eye on at-risk students has been well received. The plan hasn’t received funding, although state Superintendent Sandy Garrett said she’ll seek funding again in the coming legislative session.
Putnam City’s middle schools and high schools are working together to identify students at risk of dropping out and are putting forth a special effort to help those students make the transition to high school. Edmond’s also put a special focus on freshmen. At Oklahoma City’s John Marshall High School, each school staff member has been asked to mentor an at-risk student.
Experts also recommend service learning programs, safe learning environments, alternative schools and supportive interventions like after-school programs and early childhood education. There are plenty of ideas not to just talk about but to enact.
What all the successful strategies have at the core are people. Students need adults — teachers, counselors, coaches and just caring outsiders — who can encourage them to make good choices, even when they’re surrounded by family and friends who have made bad ones. They need adults who will stick by them even when they screw up. Many students will find that support at home. Thousands won’t.
Garrett is planning a dropout summit in the spring. Meantime, the Internet is the perfect place to get schools and districts across the state sharing their action plans to get students better connected with the school community and caring adults and to share their success stories. Mississippi requires schools to draft dropout prevention plans, and that’s a policy idea worth examining. After all, higher standards don’t help students who aren’t in school.
If there were an easy solution to curbing dropouts, schools would already be doing it. Then we wouldn’t be forced to worry about what’s becoming of the 6,000 or so students dropping out of school every year. The answer isn’t good, which leaves us with the most important question every parent, educator, business leader and policymaker ought to consider: What are we going to do about it?
Share your thoughts via e-mail to cwatson@opubco.com.
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what if the kid just doesn't care? I graduated from HS, but, i was so tired of the teachers, i was getting A's on all my tests but, the things they do to determine your final grades are childish. I had a teacher that based 50% of your final grade on your daily agenda!!!!! Not on what you actually learned, just if you wrote down what she sad we were going to learn. The teens just get tired of it, make it more challenging, and I would bet that half of these kids would stay in because they aren't getting bored. The other half are probably hell bent on dropping out anyway.
Phil i could not agree with you more. You said everything that can be said and you spoke the truth. But personal responswibility is not gone only in raising the kids. It is all but gone in about every phase of peoples lives
Armbrooke, I heartily disagree. Personal responsibility is all but extinct. It may be a given that parents are expected to be involved in the lives of their children but the fact is, many, perhaps most aren't. Many, many parents blame the school when a child fails or quits when the fact is, the blame lies primarily on the parent who allows it. I don't think schools are doing such a good job at education but keeping kids in school is the primarily the parent's responsibility. A growing percentage of children are being raised in a single-parent home which combined with the number of families where both parents work full-time jobs results in many children raising themselves and making adult choices long before they are emotionally mature enough to do so. Many parent just do not want to be bothered with the issues children bring. When parents are held to a standard that makes children failing in school or dropping out personally unpleasant or financially costly for the parents, change will happen. Also, in the "old days", a paddle straightened out many problems. Today, schools are left with few options for correcting bad behavior; behavior that is tolerated by too many parents because they lack personal responsibility for the children they chose to have.
Whatever happened to personal responsibility? Nothing. Nobody questions the need for parents to be actively involved or for teenagers themselves to step up to the plate. Thats a given, and everybody realizes it. The point is that sometimes that isn't enough, even when parents are doing all they know how to do. And some of our policies tend to make things worse, not better. For starters, if we want to keep teenagers in school, we probably should stop suspending and expelling them left and right. Back in the old days, you had to do something really awful to get suspended from school. In fact, bad behavior or attitude usually got you MORE time in school, not less. These days, not so much, and kids are simply kicked out and sent home for anything and everything--a fight, a bad attitude, not doing work, having been in trouble outside of school, etc. If the parents are employed, then there these kids sit sometimes for months--alone and doing whatever. Not a pretty picture if, like me, you believe that teenagers need to be supervised, mentored, and kept busy. The school may send a tutor by for an hour or two a week--thats it. Not exactly a formula for moving kids with problems toward academic success and graduation. Its not wonder they drop out or go the GED route. Lets give the teachers, and the kids, better alternatives than this.
J.T. you are correct but the idea of personal responsibility has been dying since the 70's. Today, personal problems are blamed on someone else. It starts with the parents who are too busy to take time to actually parent their children and instead buy them "stuff" in some twisted attempt at salving their own failure to actually be a parent. It doesn't hurt that it also keeps the kid entertained and out of their hair. It is not the school's problem to curb drop-outs. That, like most behavior problems, belongs to the parents.
Parents? Whatever happened to personal responsibility? We can blame the schools, teachers, admin, school districts, and everything else in between, but it won't do any good until parents and the students themselves take responsibility first hand.
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