Developing World Class Schools and Graduates
Franklin recorded a nationally broadcast radio show on Biz Talk Radio which can be streamed for one week and then is archived. The topic for discussion was educational reform.
Simply go to www.biztalkradio.com, click on “Biz Podcasts” and the show is the first one on the list. Click on the show name and you’ll see all the shows to date posted there. Here is the link to that part of the website:
https://www.biztalkradio.com/biztalkradio-podcasts
An article that I wrote, entitled “Preventing School Dropouts” is the featured article in the Akribos e-newsletter publication for August 11, 2015. Go to www.akribosgroup.com to view the article or www.schargel.com
Franklin’s article entitled “Preventing School Dropouts” will be the feature article in the Akribos e-newsletter publication for August 11, 2015. Go to www.akribosgroup.com to view the article and invite them to click on the appropriate link to subscribe to the newsletter publication, which is published bi-monthly.
A report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center has found that college and university enrollments has increased in some states and declined in others. The states with the largest declines:
The states with the largest increases:
There are a variety of possible reasons explaining the increases and decreases. As the economy improves more people see the need for more education and that would explain some of the increases. At the same time, the increased costs of paying for college may explain the decreases. Other factors may be the increased aging of our society with fewer young people, the dropout rate and the narrowing of the high school to college pipe line.
The greatest declines occurred at four-year, for-profit colleges (4.9%) and at two-year public colleges (3.9%) which tend to attract larger numbers of older students.
From Child Trends: 5 Things to Know About Youth Not Employed or in School.
Connecting” disconnected youth could result in significant societal savings and individual benefits.
Nationally, unserved disconnected youth represent a devastating forfeiture of human potential and enormous financial costs (i.e., potential savings). Youth who do not finish high school earn less and subsequently pay significantly less in taxes than graduates.
Further, they consume more public benefits and are more likely to consume more public benefits and are more likely to engage in delinquent and criminal acts. The estimated cohort of 6.7 million young people cited earlier resulted in a staggering cost of $93 billion to U.S. taxpayers in 2011. These are only economic costs-those that result directly in increased public expenditure or forfeiture, such as a decreased tax base or increased expenditure on prisons-and do not include social costs including reduced individual earnings and pain and suffering associated with crime victimization, among other things. Recent research estimates that each disconnected youth costs taxpayers about $ 236,000 over their lifetime and that the social costs are at least $704,000. When social factors are considered, the lifetime estimated cost of the current 6.7 million disconnected youth is $3.6 trillion.
U.S. graduation rates reached a historic high of over 80 percent in 2012″”an increase of about 8 percent over the past decade, says America’s Promise Alliance.
“We’ve made these improvements, but we’re still left with about 20 percent of young people who are on a course to failure,” says Jonathan Zaff, executive director of the Center for Promise at Tufts University, the research center for America’s Promise Alliance.
Rates of unemployment and incarceration are higher for people who have not finished high school, and those who do have jobs earn less than their peers with diplomas, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The Center for Promise conducted 3,000 surveys and 200 interviews with young people to determine why students leave school. The center’s 2014 report, “Don’t Call Them Dropouts: Understanding the Experiences of Young People Who Leave High School Before Graduation,” found there is no single reason.
Rather, it is a number of adversities, such as incarcerated or incapacitated parents, a community with few options for legal work or recreation, and having to take care of family members.
The report details three major factors:
Toxic environments. Many students who leave school are navigating a negative environment at home or in the community. For example, they have personal and family health issues or are the victims of violence at home.
Relationships with others. If a student does not have a connection with a teacher, guidance counselor, coach or parent, they may find a sense of belonging in gang membership or with other peers who are making bad decisions.
Lack of support. Young people who leave school are resilient, but need help re-engaging with their education. “The salience of school isn’t there because of what’s happening outside the school building, and they aren’t finding the supports they need within school,” Zaff says. Adults who take an interest in the student’s success are key to getting the student to return to school, he adds.
To help solve the problem, the report says, administrators and schools should:
Create a system to identify and track at-risk students through the years.
Work with community organizations to build a referral system for students who need outside services.
Place at-risk students in leadership roles where they can design solutions that will help them and their peers.
Millions of females around the world are still being denied an education. According to the Education for All Global Monitoring Report:
PRIMARY SCHOOL: There are still 31 million girls of primary school age out of school. Of these 17 million are expected never to enter school. There are 4 million fewer boys than girls out of school. Three countries have over a million girls not in school. In Nigeria there are almost five and a half million, Pakistan, over three million, and in Ethiopia, over one million girls out of school.
SKILLS: Slow educational progress for children today will have lifelong effects: Almost a quarter of young women aged 15-24 today in developing countries have never completed primary school and so lack skills for work. Young women make up 58% of those not completing primary school.
LITERACY: Two-thirds of the 774 million illiterate people in the world are female.
Educators are among the first to see children in need ““ in need of protection, in need of basic services like dental and medical services and food.
The classroom has become a dining room as more children attending public schools live in poverty. More than half of students in public schools “” 51% “” were in low-income families in 2013, according to a study by the Southern Education Foundation. The number of low-income children in public schools has been persistent and steadily rising over the past several decades. In 1989, 32% of children in public schools lived in poverty.
Such a stark trend has meant more schools are feeding children when they can’t get enough to eat at home. More schools provide not just breakfast and lunch but dinner, too. Others are opening food pantries in converted classrooms or closets. It’s common for teachers and counselors to keep crackers, granola bars and other goodies in their desks for hungry students.
Nationwide, one in five households with children are considered food insecure, which means people in the household are at risk of going hungry or missing meals or don’t know where their next meal is coming from.
The data show that the schoolhouse is becoming the new cookhouse:
During the 2008 presidential campaign, candidate Barack Obama said he would set a goal of ending childhood hunger by this year. He pushed for the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, which Congress passed in 2010 with support from both parties. The act expanded the number of children eligible for free and reduced-price lunch, increased the federal reimbursement rate for school lunches and expanded the after-school meal program. It became one of the administration’s primary means to fight childhood hunger. In March, the Agriculture Department announced $27 million in grants to five states that are trying to reduce childhood hunger.
The school lunch program has grown steadily since 1969, when the USDA began keeping track. Last year, a record 11.52 million children received free or reduced-price breakfast and a record 21.7 million received free or reduced-price lunch. Now, some schools are adding dinner as well. A school can serve dinner if at least half the children in its attendance area are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. They also keep students coming to school.
As the number of children in public schools who live in poverty increases, schools need to feed hungry students.
Students who are hungry have difficulty focusing on learning. Society needs to focus on the answer to where do these children find food over the summer, during Easter and Christmas breaks and over the weekends.