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

[mabinog]

Sorry, but let's put the blame where it belongs. The schools don't produce drop outs, the family's do. The problem is Americans don't want to hear that unless they are talking about white trash or the ni@@ers, or the whatever epithet they wish to throw around about other people and their children.

[dryfactoidobotanoid]

according to the book Tipping Point, research shows that parents don't matter, but peers do.

[mabinog]

ummm? who pray tell should be guiding the children to the peers that will support the kids and make sure they stay in school? let's see....oh uh PARENTS! ding ding ding.

[johnmorgan]

Oh please. Of course parents have a tremendous effect on their children's success. But there are other factors too.

For one, our lower-class culture is very anti-intellectual, especially on the part of boys.

[Lelu]

Parents are too busy working 70 hour weeks to pay for the expensive clothing that the kids have to have or else be complete social outcasts. I think uniforms and a later start (6:30 am to start classes for teenagers is stupid) would help some kids graduate. There's a lot more that needs to be fixed and yes part of that is up to the parents.

[ohiomark]

God forbid anything in school should be hard. We all know real life is SO easy.

I'll bet you don't let your kids keep score in sports either. Just call it a hunch.

[godlessclif]

The schools produce dropouts, families don't.
If you really believed that "Bell Curve" crap
why not just genocide the dropouts?
At least Hitler was consistent.

[fact finder]

mabinog;It is hard as hell to teach a child at home when both parents have to work 40+ hours a week just to buy beans.

[amanda85]

Do you think educated people would willingly become slaves of the corporate owners of America or their military?

Keep them stupid and they will blindly obey you.

Mission accomplished.

[GhostintheMachine]

We find that, on average, recruits tend to be much more highly educated than the general pub­lic and that this education disparity increased after the war on terrorism began.

If one single statistic could settle this issue, it is this: 98 percent of all enlisted recruits who enter the military have an education level of high school graduate or higher, compared to the national aver­age of 75 percent.[5] In an education context, rather than attracting underprivileged young Americans, the military seems to be attracting above-average Americans. What remains to explore is whether this pattern of military enlistment is (1) consistent across ZIP codes, (2) consistent across all branches of service, and/or (3) consistent proportionally across all levels of education.

The claim could still be made that highly edu­cated recruits are being pulled from underprivi­leged areas, marked by below-average high school graduation rates. Further analysis shows that any such claim would also be incorrect. We used the binary measure to make a ZIP code?level compari­son. By comparing the records of 183,288 individ­ual recruits from the 1999 cohort, using ZIP code of origin, against other Census populations by ZIP code, our analysis shows that roughly half (48.5 percent) of enlistees came from three-digit ZCTAs with above-average national graduation rates. The other half of enlistees came from areas with below-average high school graduation rates.

Regardless of ZIP code area, we also find that enlistees are almost universally better educated than the general population. In all but one of the 885 three-digit ZCTAs, the graduation rate for 1999 recruits was higher than the graduation rate for non-recruits ages 18?24. In 2003, recruits had a higher graduation rate in every ZCTA. Figure 2, by using a gray scale to show the intensity of the educational gap, clearly shows that recruits are often better educated than the general population.

[amanda85]

Sure, and Saddam had WMD's...

[godlessclif]

If one single statistic could settle this issue, it is this: 98 percent of all enlisted recruits who enter the military have an education level of high school graduate or higher, compared to the national aver�age of 75 percent.[5] In an education context, rather than attracting underprivileged young Americans, the military seems to be attracting above-average Americans. What remains to explore is whether this pattern of military enlistment is (1) consistent across ZIP codes, (2) consistent across all branches of service, and/or (3) consistent proportionally across all levels of education.

Bwa ha ha ha ha.

You say the military is smarter because they
screen out the Autistic and Down Syndrome?

Thta is like saying they are all military are taller because the pentagon screens out midgets.

[ohiomark]

You just hit the nail on the head. Most schools from before high school through college are run by liberals. The only way to indoctrinate them into Liberalism 101 is to keep them stupid and feed them propaganda.

Parents MUST become more involved to keep their kids aware of both sides of the story and let THEM decide which one is right.

The public schools are failing us.

[amanda85]

Countries with better public schools tend to have a far more Liberal population (and governments) than the US. Not that I expected you to know that, of course...
The kind of wingnut home schooling so popular in the US is simply illegal anywhere else. And for a good reason.

[johnmorgan]

The Pledge of Allegiance, which is taught in every American school, is just conservative political indoctrination. No, schools are not "run by liberals," but I wish they were.

One problems is parents like you who want their children to be taught to be as ignorant as they are.

[godlessclif]

Your average principle is a Seymour Skinner.
Hardly a liberal. Education is conservative and bureaucratic. If it was liberal they would be handing out condoms.

[marko77]

"You just hit the nail on the head. Most schools from before high school through college are run by liberals." by ohiomark
------------------------------

ohiomark, your points are pure bullshit.

[Ilvfredum]

Texas leads country in high school drop outs, crime, and poverty = illegal aliens?

[MaciasJ]

Poor administration.

[Ilvfredum]

Poor administration of the border

[godlessclif]

Ross Perot solved that one. He investigated the problem for Texas and found schools were optimized for football. High school had to be large, 2000-2500 students and up to field a winning football team.

Smaller schools were the principle knew all the students, about 400 to 500 was optimum for education and individual attention.

Did Texas eliminate the football successful mega schools as Ross's study suggested?
Hell no. Football is important, education isn't. The Football team never drops out, that is all that is important.

[marleysghost]

No child left behind becomes no child left. Last one out the door turn off the lights. So when are we going to do the right thing in education? Repeated testing is evidently having an un-intended (but easily predictable) side effect.

[GhostintheMachine]

Why don't you read the article before you comment.

[dryfactoidobotanoid]

this is something I never allowed myself to consciously consider before, because the social implications of it are so devastating, but what if some people are just smarter than other people, and no amount of education can change that?

for example, I am a genius. if I grew up in the poorest county in the country, would I leave high school uneducated and dumb when it comes to the think-think? maybe not. in fact, I slept through most of high school (literally) and largely taught myself.

is elitism based on intelligence any less worse than elitism based on power, wealth, or status? what if differences in intelligence make it impossible to acquire certain kinds of knowledge, no matter how much effort is applied? then what happens to the assumptions about egalitarian goals in education being achievable, given enough funding?

in many ways, this is the most important question for society in the coming decades and centuries, because it goes to the heart of social control -- wealth distribution, organized violence, population trends, wars and famines and prisons and mental institutions.

[dryfactoidobotanoid]

any less worse? any less bad?

[starrianna]

HOW MANY IN TEXAS?

[Ilvfredum]

It ain't cool to be in school.

[notyourproblemYET]

it's been a long time coming and we havent hit rock bottom yet.

[snideelf]

Super-capitalist America needs a constant, steady, reliable source of cheap labor.
Who else is going to do the minimum wage jobs?

Yale graduates?

[amanda85]

Capitalism is based on exploitation.
Karl Marx said it, it's still awfully true...

[marko77]

"Super-capitalist America needs a constant, steady, reliable source of cheap labor.
Who else is going to do the minimum wage jobs?" by snideelf
---------------------------

snideelf- are you kidding? What does "America" have to do with it? We're talking about an international corporate "Global Economy" that screws ALL workers over - your country of origin doesn't matter. It's a non-factor.

[baghdadjoe]

In the Bush Economy an education doesn't really help anyway.

"Mission Accomplished."

[GhostintheMachine]

Read the article before you comment.

[mikegoodyearaz85338]

The last time I checked, the decision to "drop out" was a choice made by the individual. If your looking for someone to blame, try the drop out and their parents.

[notyourproblemYET]

who blamed anyone? All I hear is people saying education isnt a national priority in this country.....can't YOU read?

[mikegoodyearaz85338]

I didn't "hear" people say anything, maybe that is my problem. I think we can agree that the education should be an indivdual priority even if it is not a "national" priority.

[baghdadjoe]

In the Bush Economy having an education doesn't really help anyway.

"Mission Accomplished."

[fact finder]

Must be in poor areas.

[getoffmedz]

America doesn't need educated people. They need soldiers and fools!

You read it here, first.

[GhostintheMachine]

We find that, on average, recruits tend to be much more highly educated than the general pub­lic and that this education disparity increased after the war on terrorism began.

If one single statistic could settle this issue, it is this: 98 percent of all enlisted recruits who enter the military have an education level of high school graduate or higher, compared to the national aver­age of 75 percent.[5] In an education context, rather than attracting underprivileged young Americans, the military seems to be attracting above-average Americans. What remains to explore is whether this pattern of military enlistment is (1) consistent across ZIP codes, (2) consistent across all branches of service, and/or (3) consistent proportionally across all levels of education.

The claim could still be made that highly edu­cated recruits are being pulled from underprivi­leged areas, marked by below-average high school graduation rates. Further analysis shows that any such claim would also be incorrect. We used the binary measure to make a ZIP code?level compari­son. By comparing the records of 183,288 individ­ual recruits from the 1999 cohort, using ZIP code of origin, against other Census populations by ZIP code, our analysis shows that roughly half (48.5 percent) of enlistees came from three-digit ZCTAs with above-average national graduation rates. The other half of enlistees came from areas with below-average high school graduation rates.

Regardless of ZIP code area, we also find that enlistees are almost universally better educated than the general population. In all but one of the 885 three-digit ZCTAs, the graduation rate for 1999 recruits was higher than the graduation rate for non-recruits ages 18?24. In 2003, recruits had a higher graduation rate in every ZCTA. Figure 2, by using a gray scale to show the intensity of the educational gap, clearly shows that recruits are often better educated than the general population.

[Paul]

High school graduates go into the military? Good for them. The military teaches discipline and leadership - virtues increasingly absent in civilian life.

But why is this relevent to the state of US education?

Totally off-topic.

[ohiomark]

I know you are not a soldier, you must be the fool.