Franklin Schargel’s Blog

I am honored to have been acknowledged in a very significant research report issued by the issued by the Darden College of Education of Old Dominion University Meta-Analysis of Dropout Prevention Outcomes and Strategies. The study is the result of two years of work by a team of professors led by Dr. Shanan Chappell of Old Dominion University in Virginia as well as professors from Kent State University and Clemson University.

The meta-analysis brings the 15 effective strategies, which I helped formulate, to a more scientific level to promote the effectiveness of the strategies in combating the national dropout crisis. As the report states, “there have been no rigorous syntheses of dropout prevention strategies to help identify the most successful features of these efforts and assist educators and policymakers categorize programs based on scientific evidence.” The initiative was designed  to provide sound, empirical support of the most effective strategies for preventing dropouts and improving graduation rates for all students.

The study provides new and actionable information about the 15 Effective Strategies for Dropout Prevention that has formed the foundation for the improvement of graduation rates in most states.  The strategies are currently being used successfully in all school levels from K-12 and in rural, suburban and urban settings.

The report is available on the National Dropout Prevention web site. www.dropoutprevention.org/major-research-reports/meta-analysis.

Early High School Dropouts: What Are Their Characteristics?

By Jeffrey A. Rosen, Xianglei Chen, and Steven Ingels
Approximately 2.7 percent of 2009 ninth-graders had dropped out of school by spring 2012 when most would have been in eleventh grade.
This publication provides a snapshot of “early high school dropouts,” those who dropped out of school between ninth and eleventh grade without earning a high school diploma or any alternative credential such as a GED. Key findings include:
“¢ Asian students dropped out at the lowest rate (0.3 percent), compared with White (2.1 percent), Black (4.3 percent), and Hispanic (3.5 percent) students.
“¢ Nearly 5 percent (4.7 percent) of students whose family socioeconomic status was in the lowest 20 percent had dropped out, compared with 0.6 percent of their peers in the highest 20 percent.
This Data Point uses data from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09) to examine the extent to which high school students drop out of school between the ninth and eleventh grades and how they vary by sex, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status.

 

From Child Trends:  5 Things to Know About Youth Not Employed or in School.

Disconnected youth are more likely than their peers to be involved in several systems that present obstacles to future success. Thankfully, these systems can also be leveraged to get youth back on track. For example, 63 percent of crimes committed by 16- to 24-year-olds are perpetrated by disconnected youth, leading to disproportionate representation in the juvenile and criminal justice systems. Reforms like investing in alternatives to juvenile detention and approaches like Positive Youth Justice are gaining momentum and helping provide transformative opportunities for court-involved youth. Disconnected youth often face multiple barriers to sustained employment (e.g., lack of affordable transportation, child care costs, limited education). Even those who have been employed are likely to have held seasonal and low-wage jobs. Disconnected youth’s lack of education and employment leads a disproportionate number of them to draw on public assistance

compared with their peers. While this assistance represents a short-term cost to society, it can also provide the lift needed for some disconnected youth to re-engage with school or work. At least, involvement with systems providing public assistance represents a point of connection between disconnected youth and more comprehensive efforts to support them.

 

From Child Trends:  5 Things to Know About Youth Not Employed or in School.

As adolescents and young adults pursue greater autonomy, young people are also disposed biologically to begin taking greater risks, which for some youth can be particularly detrimental, such as unprotected sexual activity, truancy, or experimentation with drugs and alcohol. Not surprisingly, then, adolescence is a time during which rates of teenage pregnancy, running away, school dropout and juvenile justice involvement increase. These, in turn, can result in disconnection from important institutions that help prepare youth for a successful transition to full independence.

As recently as 2012, there were approximately 6.7 million youth in the United State who were not enrolled in school and who had been disconnected from the workforce for at least six months. That represents about 17 percent of the 16-to-24 age group nationally. Sometimes referred to as “opportunity youth” or “disconnected youth,” this population is among the hardest to reach with traditional social interventions. Yet, there is an emerging body of practice and literature that suggests these young people can be successfully reconnected to meaningful opportunities.

While college costs a lot and student debt now exceeds credit card debt, the latest Pew Research Center examination of median annual earning, published in 2014, found that 25-32 year-old age group who had only a high school diploma were earning only 62% of what typical college graduates were earning. Pew said that graduates with a bachelor’s degree had median annual full time earning in 2013 of $45,500 compared to $28,000 for high school graduates.  This was a gap of $17,500 in just one year of earnings.

Supporting a household on $45,500 a year is difficult. Supporting a household on $28,000 is nearly impossible.

In Kansas last year the dominant employment sector for 25-34 year-olds was retail and wholesale – one of the two lowest wage-earning labor market sectors.

Today is Earth Day, 2015. I thought you might be interested in the following facts:

• The oldest living tree on earth is currently 5,062 years old. That’s 487 years older than Egypt’s Great Pyramid.
• Recycling a single aluminum can saves enough energy to power a TV for 3 hours.
• You can conserve up to 200 gallons of water per month just by shutting off the tap while brushing your teeth.
• Ever ton of paper that is recycled save: 17 trees 225 kwh of energy,; 60,000 gallons of water.

Just thought you would like to know.

 

How to Reach the Poorest Kids

By Jean-Claude Brizard

Like most educators, I got into the field because I wanted to make a difference for children. And I’ve been fortunate to have that opportunity. But it’s heartbreaking to think how much more we could do if we just wrote the rules in a way that favored the children most at risk.

As both houses of Congress, governors, state chiefs, teachers’ unions, the Obama administration, and various policy organizations debate the future of the federal K-12 education law known currently as No Child Left Behind, few people are talking about an issue that could do more to drive equity than any other.

One of the goals of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, of which NCLB is the latest reauthorization, was to foster “comparability” in funding by forcing states and districts to equalize the amount of money going to schools serving higher-income and those serving lower-income students, and then to provide the latter with extra federal funds. The theory of action, embraced by most other developed countries, is that it costs more to educate poor kids than wealthy ones.

America, on the other hand, spends less to educate low-income children than wealthy children. This is partly a function of school funding systems that are overly reliant on property taxes. In 2010, the state of Illinois, for example, provided as little as 28 percent of the cost of public education, well below the national average of 43 percent.

“Today, state and local funds are so far tilted to the wealthier districts and schools that the federal funding barely makes a dent in closing the gap between poor and wealthy students.”

Nationally, 30 states today remain at pre-recession funding levels, and with less money coming from states, the disparities between wealthier school districts and poorer school districts grow even larger. A few years back, the wealthy northern suburbs surrounding Chicago served by the New Trier Township High School District spent $21,465 per student, while the Farmington Central Community Unit School District in central Illinois spent only $7,259 per student.

Today, state and local funds are so far tilted to the wealthier districts and schools that the federal funding barely makes a dent in closing the gap between poor and wealthy students.. Worse yet, most states and districts are dodging the comparability provision of the law, thanks to a loophole written into the statute. The result is that even within school districts, quite often the kids who are most at risk still get the least. Here’s how it works:

Typically, in a large school district like Chicago, pricier, more experienced teachers work in wealthier schools. The poorer schools tend to have more turnover and mostly replace lost staff with younger, less expensive teachers. This means that the schools in higher-income communities are getting more of the district’s limited resources to pay for these higher salaries.

The problem is that no one can really “see” this because current federal law allows districts to report “average” district-level teacher salaries instead of actual school-by-school salaries. This is sort of like agreeing to pay two different car owners enough gas money to travel a certain distance, and ignoring the fact that one of them drives a gas guzzler while the other drives a hybrid. The dollar amount will be very different, and as costs rise each year, the differences will grow even greater.

Political pressures also serve as a disincentive to take action at a local level. Every superintendent or school board member knows how hard it is to cut or shift resources away from schools serving high-income students, with their often-more-demanding parents and communities. There is little upside to fighting this battle or even being transparent if the law doesn’t require it.

Congress could fix it by eliminating the loophole and honoring the intent of NCLB, which is to help equalize funding for the poorest children. This would require true financial comparability between poor and rich schools, measured with real-dollar accounting of all school-level spending, and full transparency to the public and to stakeholders.

It may not happen in the current political environment. But maybe there’s a deal to be made.

America has an opportunity to better protect kids at risk and give districts more flexibility with scarce federal dollars. We should not let the opportunity pass without a more robust, honest debate on the issue of equity, comparability, and how best to serve America’s low-income children.

Jean-Claude Brizard is the president of the Washington-based UpSpring Education Group, an organization that supports school leaders. He is a former superintendent of schools in Chicago and in Rochester, N.Y., and began his career as a teacher and administrator in New York City. He wrote this essay in partnership with the national advocacy organization Education Post, which is based in Chicago.

 

At least one-third of students at more than 1,200 high schools ““ which collectively serve more than 1.1 million students ““ don’t graduate, according to a report released last week from the Alliance for Excellent Education, a national education reform policy and advocacy group. Many students at these schools are minorities or from low-income families.

https://all4ed.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/BelowTheSurface.pdf

Franklin