The Baltimore Sun reported that hundreds of educators in Maryland met in late June to focus on three questions - what drives students out of school - what will it take to get them to stay – and how can we get them back if they leave?
This news story caught my eye because we have students in this class from Maryland and because from the story’s description of the meeting it sounded very similar to the ND Dropout Prevention Summit held June 8-9, 2009 in Bismarck.
It turns out both gatherings, in Maryland and ND, were two of dozens supported by America's Promise Alliance. The alliance, which is chaired by Alma Powell, the wife of former Secretary of State Colin Powell, aims to have 50 state and 50 city summits by 2010.
ND’s summit was an awesome example of what can occur when all entities of education and community recognize a common problem and work together to find solutions. The ND Education Association, the ND Council of Education Leaders, the ND School Boards Association, the ND Department of Public Instruction, the ND Chamber of Commerce and the ND Governors Office all partnered in this summit.
According to America’s Promise, on a national level, more than 1.2 million students a year leave high school without a diploma - or about one-third of students overall. In ND 778 students dropped out of school during the 2006-2007 school year.
The dropouts from the nation’s class of 2008 represent more than $319 billion in lost wages, taxes and productivity for their life spans. The Alliance for Excellent Education estimates that over the course of a lifetime each dropout will earn about $260,000 less than they would have earned with a high school diploma. For ND’s group of 778 that equals a whopping $200 million! The ND Insurance Department estimates they will also cost the state about $2 million per year in public health care assistance.
This is a problem we have to address now! All educators know our dropout crisis is not something that begins in high school. Educators at all levels have a responsibility to recognize struggles and predictors in students’ lives even in their earliest elementary years.
Both Maryland’s and ND’s summit arrived at similar conclusions: The transition from ninth grade to 10th grade exhibits the greatest risk for students. If they have failed classes their 9th grade year they are not likely to recover those credits and choose instead to drop out; Major early indicators are poor attendance and behavior, and failing math and English. Maryland’s State Schools Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick says it well. "Teachers as early as elementary school could predict that a student will struggle later. We have a responsibility to intervene early and provide services at the very beginning of a student's academic career."
I whole-heartedly agree and I am so proud of both Maryland and ND educators for taking a look at this important problem.
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This sounds like an awesome effort on Powell's part to address this problem. I think we are trying to address this in Middle Schools with the team concept. Students are being more closely followed by their core teachers and interventions put in place. I especially see this at Wachter Middle School in Bismarck. They have a number of special programs that deal with homeless children, children with reading problems, or children of certain ethnicities that may struggle to get through school. I know this all costs extra money now, but when you look at the figures provided by the ND Insurance Dept. it must be less money to intervene now than to wait until later.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! What are we going to do in Mandan to work with this issue?
All educators need to be concerned about high school dropout rates because in today’s world any student that leave high school without getting their Diploma face a lot of problem and at times a life time of financial opportunity. The question we all need to ask is “Does raising standards lead to increased dropout rates”? The No. 1 one reason they left? They did not feel engaged. We as educators should find ways of engaging our students.
ReplyDeleteGood topic - several things come to mind. I don't think we can look at drop out rates and do them justice without looking at socio-economic issue. While the numbers are not right here in front of me, I feel pretty confident in saying risk factors in kids personal lives have a great impact on drop out rates. If a child lives in poverty or with violence and crime, if they come from a broken home they have a much higher risk of dropping out. I also agree with another poster and I have actually written about this earlier - NCLB and it's high stakes testing are seen by more and more people as a huge factor in driving kids - mostly the kids NCLB is supposed to work for - out of school. The common componant in these things is a loss of hope. We can test our kids brains out and try every new program under the sun but if hope continues to fade from these kids lives we will not keep them in school. Drop out rates are as much or more a social issue as an educational one.
ReplyDeleteI think a number of factors contribute to drop out rates. Some, like the students home situation are virtually out of our control. That just makes it even more important that we as educators intervene in areas where we do have a bit of control. To start with, we need to engage our students. With kids from Generation Y & Z entering the school halls, engagement is the key.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting that dropout rates can be traced to 9th grade statistics. It is no suprise to me that students drop out because they are not successful. I think it is only going to get worse because of NCLB. It seems like an ufortunate byproduct of the program that kids are being pushed through elementary and middle school only to get to high school without the proper foundation. This does not seem to be a problem that will be fixed overnight but it seems like proper steps are being taken. They have identified the problem and now we just need to fix it. Easier said than done.
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