1 In 10 US Schools Are "Dropout Factories"

AP:

It's a nickname no principal could be proud of: "Dropout Factory," a high school where no more than 60 percent of the students who start as freshmen make it to their senior year. That description fits more than one in 10 high schools across America.

"If you're born in a neighborhood or town where the only high school is one where graduation is not the norm, how is this living in the land of equal opportunity?" asks Bob Balfanz, the Johns Hopkins researcher who coined the term "dropout factory."

Read the whole story: AP

Comments

[askmeificare]

We need to raise taxes to save the children. Plain and simple.

[MagisterLudi]

Percentage of population aged 25-64 that have attained college education:

1Canada 44.02
United States 38.4
17Netherlands 24.4

[MagisterLudi]

certainly, in Mexican border state' illegal and legal Mexican immigrants placed practically insurmountable burden on schools. Add to it the inner city schools and the statistical picture is not pretty. The statistics of such schools is not an y different from statistics in European schools with large Muslim or African demographics.
First of all the school system is so rigid in Europe that most of immigrant kids are excluded from high quality high school education like Gymnasiums, lycée général or public schools in UK.
This seriously alters comparisons between US and European schools. If one compares a good quality US high school with many AP course and and European course the difference is not that big. I am talking also from personal experience.

[MagisterLudi]

I always found it rather strange that USA had some of the worst elem./middle/high schools in the world AND world's best and most respected university and college system in the world.
It's a strange dichotomy.

[1will]

My local paper carried the story of dropout factories. They went one step further and listed the 23 or so schools in my state that made the list. As I live just outside an urban area and my wife teaches we are familiar with about a third of these schools. The ones we know all share on common trait. They are all basically inner city schools. I suspect much of the list is the same for other states.
Draw you own conclusions.
Schools, teachers and administrators cannot make up for 24/7 piss poor parenting and lousy home lives in the few hours a day they have a student. It might work in some PG 13 movie but rarely does it work in real life. Parents, family and friends have the largest influence on kids. If this group doesn't value education then a child has nothing but an uphill struggle, if he/she even cares.

[Lelu]

I wonder if boarding schools only work for rich kids?

[Truthwarrior]

why don't black and hispanic families move away from the inner city decay of LA and head on out to Colorado or Utah? Even better, WASHINGTON STATE, where all the poor white folks are moving now they can't afford california real estate. Seems real easy to me. ATTENTION ALL MINORITIES - JUST MOVE TO OLYMPIA, WASHINGTON OR FORT COLLINS, COLORADO - THE SCHOOLS ARE GREAT, THE HOUSES ARE DIRT CHEAP AND IT'S EASY TO GET A JOB. Will someone please advertise this in the poor urban neighborhoods so these folks can get a break?

[Lelu]

No, I think we've had enough influx from California thanks.

[Lelu]

(Although that goes more for the rich a-holes than the poor people).

[timregler]

Dropout Factories? NOBODY can drop out of school unless their parent or guardian allows them to. So where exactly does the problem lie?

[GhostTurdOf America]

How many of these kids choose to fail? Video games and social BS are more important. These kids do exactly what advertisers tell them to do. It is not the schools' fault. My friend quit teacher because of NCLB and the attitude of the kids. They have no respect for anything. They want what they want and don't want to work for it. They are "Americans" tried and true.

[Fuji]

So the general American public has an IQ average of 50 and the military one of 60.

Not saying much. Most the troops I have met are dumber than a rock. Especially the buybull thumping ones. Disgusting.

-- I find it amusing, Gladys, that you are using an American invention, derived from the US military, to decry the intelligence of Americans and its military. Oh the Irony!

[1will]

I'd like to see a link to those IQ statistics. I seriously doubt them.
Most of the troops I have met and served with (years ago) definately had IQs higher than 60. As a young Marine I do seem to remember those civilians living outside of the bases being somewhat anti military. I guess it sucks for those living in these towns knowing your mom gave it up for the troops. Regularly. I suspect something similiar is the basis behind your post.

[psk]

Read this story yesterday, absolutely shocking to say the least. Many of these “Failure Factories” simply do not care. A certain amount of failure is expected; the rest, hopefully, just quit and quietly go away.

The public educational system failed my children miserably, so I took them out of the system and taught them myself. Can you imagine junior high school students that could not read or write beyond the second grade level? Or do math more complicated than what any forth grader should know with ease? Other topics were just as dismal. My younger child was being pushed down that same path of “you can’t achieve” that the older ones had been.

These same kids were taking college level courses before I decided they were finished. They now all read several newspapers each day. They have beautiful language skills, i.e.: grammar, proper word usage, etc. They also know what homonyms are and choose the correct one. (Examples being: there, their, they’re) I taught every course I could think of from second grade through twelfth. Including, English, mathematics, sciences (earth, astronomy, biology, etc.), geography, politics, (both local and world), sociology, health and sex-ed, home economics, simple automotive and home repairs, U.S. history, world history, ancient history, philosophy, world religions, art, music, literature, etc.

My first born is in his second year of university and maintaining a 4.07 average. My second is still undecided, but then at 19 how many of us really know what we want to be for the rest of our lives? My third went to work straight away for his father’s company. He has moved up from a nobody in IT to running the IT department and has recently moved over to development. The forth child has decided when she finishes here; she wants to go into veterinary medicine, specializing in equines.

Am I ringing my own bell here? Yes, yes I am. I am very proud of my children and what they have achieved after the so called public educational system labeled them under achievers and impossible to teach.

[Fuji]

AWESOME.

[RFuqua]

Congradulations on the success of your children. There are to many parents that would just sit back and watch their children fail, then want to blame everyone else but themselves.
Thank you for showing the love you have to your children and being a true parent.

[ADVOCATE4ZPG]

It's difficult to extrapolate this experience into a model for a "public school." What this woman(?) essentially accomplished was to open her OWN, PRIVATE SCHOOL with an exclusive enrollment. Alternately, it could be considered as the hiring of a PRIVATE TUTOR....just as the aristorcracy/rich has done for centuries. She is fortunate to be able to devote herself to this exclusive endeavor.

HOW MUCH of those failing in the schools is accounted for by the all-too-numerous offspring of
ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS? In addition how much of the problem is accounted for by the offspring of IMMIGRANTS not qualified to residency or other people NOT qualified to parents?

[helonias]

Can we clone you?

[pagangrandma]

My story with my daughter is much the same. A Los Angeles middle school said she had severe bi-polar disorder, and needed to be in special ed. I home schooled her, the same way. To make a long story short, she got a job as the autopsy assistant at Children's Hospital and was offered to be sponsored by several of her M.D. bosses for a scholarship to med school at USC. I too, am proud of what can be accomplished by an "unteachable" child.

[1will]

The story didn't say but I have to wonder what kind of neighborhoods feed into these schools and what the parents are like.
A teacher that has a kid 1 hour per day cannot offset the damage a piss poor parent or lousy home enviroment does 24/7.
Politicians cannot say that though. It's politicaly safer to blame the schools then to offend 10 times the number of voters by telling parents to step up and do their jobs.

[RFuqua]

I agree and well said.

[Waubay]

The government has never even come close to fully funding NCLB. The schools should refuse to do any testing until the government fulfills their end of the bargain. I bet this NCLB thing would completely go away if Congress had to come up with the money that they agreed they would pay.

[BetterDeadthanRedState]

Here's a novel idea: maybe the problem isn't with the schools, but with the students. Given the lack of support at home or from peers, it really is impossible to say just how badly the school are letting our kids down, unless we have some way of knowing just how much more rotten they'd be without schooling.

[Mormondude]

It's well established that when schools offer gifted/talented programs along with remedial programs, EVERYONE benefits.

The smart kids don't get ignored. And the dumb kids can learn at their own pace and don't disrupt the rest of the classes.

We should do the same thing on a school-wide basis. Set up remedial schools and G/T schools, and let people achieve their potential.

A common complaint from teachers is that parents aren't engaged enough. Someone down below posted this link to 'prove' that vouchers don't work.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/10/AR2007101002529.html

Of course, it 'proves' nothing of the sort, but it was interesting to see that in D.C., where the average parent is a single parent with 4 kids making $17k per year there was "high parent demand" for a voucher program.

That suggests to me that many parents don't bother getting involved because under the status quo they have NO POWER to change anything. If you give them power, they respond.

[Lelu]

I don't know if voucher programs work or not but I agree that gifted kids shouldn't be punished for being gifted.

[Ammobob]

Damn, that's a pretty good statistic for Public Schools. Viva NCLB!! Let's throw another 100 billion at the problem and see if we can fix it. Maybe, get the rate to about 3 in 10, eh?

[FirstShirt]

NCLB provides a system for identifying failing schools and teachers. Something none of the left wing presidents and congresses ever had the guts to do. You are blaming the doctor for diagnosing the disease. Ever wonder why teachers have a union?

[HippieChick]

"NCLB" has drained the spirit of both students and their teachers...and made the testing companies wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. Identifying failing schools and teachers is easy these days...they have all fallen victim to "NCLB" - and the students are paying the price. 40% just don't think it's worth the struggle, and are choosing to flip burgers instead. Maybe it's time we identify failing philosophies, instead of "failing schools and teachers."

[Lelu]

Wait...is NCLB right or left? I thought Ted Kennedy was evil for creating it? Lots of those in education say that it would be fine if it weren't the ONLY measure of student success.

[HippieChick]

Education in this nation has not kept pace with technology. Curriculum is delivered in much the same way as when I attended public school so long ago. Creative options are not embraced by adults responsible for educating the minds of our future "leaders." The "private sector" is looking to this lapse in our adult consciousness as their next cash cow. There are corporations engaged in sucking the life out of the Middle East, or Elderly/Sick Americans, or fearful Second Amendment partisans who believe themselves to be in constant "war" with Terrorist/Immigrant Threats. There are also corporations that view the failing education system as an opportunity to cash in. If the private sector can create curriculum that is stimulating to our children, then why do those who have access to our tax dollars not create the same? Instead, valuable teachers are leaving in droves because they are weary of "teaching to the tests" created by - once again - private corporations making a killing. Many of these qualified teachers then gain employment in the same corporations that feed off the ignornace of our children.
The education system is just one more of our collapsed systems. The strategy works great for capitalism gone insane. It won't be long before our nation's jobs come home...to be filled by OUR nation's children, who will accept that 50cent per hour job because we failed, as a nation, to educate them.
Of course, this scenario is what "third world" nations have been creating for ages. The system that creates "third world" nations works fabulous for the few elite that have all the resources - created from the sweat of the poor, uneducated masses.
We, in our ignorgance, continue to elect the very individuals who see opportunity in our nation's uneducated population. "No child left behind" is code for no child given value beyond the cost of the materials for its "education" and "tests." The statistics are in. 40% of our nation's future is "left behind" - as potential cannon fodder.