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There are four major causes of students dropping out of school:
a. The child him/herself
b. The family situation
c. The community they live in
d. The school environment

In order to prevent students from dropping out of school, we must attack the causes listed above. Some of them are out of our control. For example, we cannot address the community they live in or in most cases, their family situation. But we can address the choices they make and the school environment. One of the ways of doing so is for educators to ask a serious of tough questions.

How inviting a classroom environment is there for the student? Are the walls painted in “happy colors” or are they drab institutional gray or green? Are your bulletin boards filled with student work, left blank or with commercial advertisements?

Are all students encouraged to learn? Has the school created different classes for students ““ those designed to pass and those designed to fail? Those who will go on to college and those who will drop out. What role can you, as a classroom instructor, play in overcoming this paradigm?

How many students start in your school or system, graduate? Does the school track their progress through the system? Are “safety nets” built in for those who are identified as at-risk? What “pillars” support these safety nets? Are you one of these safety nets? Do you know how to get additional assistance in helping students graduate? (Is there additional counseling, mentoring, after school learning activities, service-learning projects designed to connect school to the world of work? As you track, is the largest reason for kids leaving school, “miscellaneous”?

How many students who dropouts are actually pushed out? (Students who are told, by word or action, “I do not want you in my class” or “I don’t need you in my school.”) How close to graduation are students who dropout? Do they need one credit or ten? What has the school done to help them make up the credit? What role can you, as a classroom instructor, play in overcoming this paradigm? What is done to support the “psychological” dropout ““ the child who is physically in the school but mentally is miles away. What role can you, as a classroom instructor, play in overcoming this paradigm?

Are we preparing our students with the skills they will need in the 21st century?

Before the economy began to disintegrate, industry people were looking for people who were analytical and were data-crushers. Now they are looking for people who can use analytics as well as “out-of the box” thinkers.

Number crunching jobs are more easily and cheaply done by outsourcing and by computer software. Where America has long prospered has been in its ability to create and innovate.

“Today computers are turning traditional left-brain work, jobs where a series of steps leads to one answer, into a commodity that can be outsourced,” says Daniel Pink, who has written a book, A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. Pink says the shift to right-brain thinking already can be found in companies that welcome well-rounded employees, medical schools that push art studies and classrooms that encourage collaborative problem-solving.

“We’re realizing that our economy is not about standardization,” Daniel Pink says. An impediment has been a No Child Left Behind educational system that is too geared to test-taking. “What’s troubling is that our system is obsessed with standardization at the very time when the future of our economy depends on the opposite.”

HR people are looking for people who have the ability to solve problems in unique ways, lead co-workers and thrive in a loose organizational structure.
In Cambridge, Mass.,

Three Questions we need to ask ourselves:
1. Do you consider yourself more “right brain” or “left brain”?
2. What about your own children?
3. Do you think the education system cultivates both or should it change?

Source: USA Today, July 14, 2009

Traditional societal problems used to be addressed by the community, churches and families. Today’s challenges are being placed in schools. Problems such as teaching young people to say “no” to sex and drugs, teaching driver’s education and swimming, teaching students to prevent suicide, etc. are being placed in school curricula where schools are already being overburdened by the demands of high stakes testing and No Child Left Behind.

First, schools do not have the time to include these subjects. Nor in the case of drug, alcohol, suicide prevention, have most of us had the training to deal with these societal problems.

In a report from the Partnership/MetLife Foundation, 34% of fathers and 22% of mothers agree that it is the parents’ main responsibility to teach teenagers about drug use.

Whose responsibility do you think these problems are?

If we look at the high performing countries as defined by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), we see that they have NATIONAL STANDARDS. America has state, regional and local standards. That may be changing.

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan is offering federal cash incentives to achieve one of his priorities: developing national standards for reading and math to replace a current hodgepodge of benchmarks in the states.

Duncan has stated that the efforts of 46 states to develop common, internationally measured standards for student achievement would be bolstered by up to $350 million in federal funds to help them develop tests to assess those standards.

Education decisions generally are controlled by the states, and the federal government cannot mandate national standards. That makes for wide variation from state to state. Students and schools deemed failing in one state might get passing grades in another.

It will be up to states to adopt the new standards. But Duncan has been using his bully pulpit to push the effort “” and now he’s using Washington’s checkbook, too. He said spending up to $350 million to support state efforts to craft assessments would be Washington’s largest-ever investment in encouraging a set of common standards.

The money will come from the federal Education Department’s $5 billion fund to reward states that adopt innovations the Obama administration supports.

Duncan said that people are “coming to realize that 50 states doing their own thing doesn’t make sense.”

Every state except Alaska, South Carolina, Missouri and Texas has signed on to an effort to develop standards by the National Governors Association and Council of Chief State School Officers. But getting the states to adopt whatever emerges will be politically difficult.

Education Week has supplied a way to see how your state is applying the Federal Stimulus monies it receives. It appears that many states have not applied for it and that fewer have developed plans for disbursement.

The following provides national and state-by-state breakdowns of funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that has been budgeted for distribution by the U.S. Department of Education, based on estimates by the department. These amounts, which are rounded to the nearest whole number, do not include funds that are to be awarded through competitive grants, such as the Race to the Top fund and the Investing in What Works and Innovation grants. | LAST UPDATED: 7/13/2009

https://www.edweek.org/ew/section/infographics/follow_stimulus.html
RELATED STORIES:
“¢ Initial Aid Is Puzzle to Track
“¢ Stimulus Patching Budgets
“¢ Rush to Pump Out Stimulus Cash Highlights Disparities in Funding

The Obama administration warned states it might withhold millions of dollars if they use stimulus money to plug budget holes instead of boosting aid for schools.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan made the threat in a letter to Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell. Duncan wrote he is displeased at a plan by Pennsylvania’s Republican-led Senate to reduce the share of the state budget for education while leaving its rainy-day surplus untouched. To do so “is a disservice to our children,” Duncan wrote.

“Each state has an obligation to … protecting our children’s education,” he wrote.

Duncan said the plan might hurt Pennsylvania’s chance to compete for a $5 billion competitive grant fund created by the stimulus law to reward states and school districts that adopt innovations Obama supports.

The education secretary applied similar pressure to Tennessee lawmakers last month after Democrats there blocked a bill to let more kids into charter schools. Duncan warned the state could lose out on extra stimulus dollars, and it appears to have worked: This week, lawmakers revived the bill and put it on a fast track toward passage.

In Pennsylvania, the issue is over school spending, which takes up a huge share of state budgets. State Senate Republicans argue the economy is forcing states across the country to make up for budget cuts with federal stimulus dollars. The Republicans in Pennsylvania State Legislature would like to use the earmarked federal stimulus money instead of the tapping the state’s rainy day fund.

States use rainy-day funds to set aside extra revenue when times are good to use in economic downturns. The surplus funds make it easier for states to borrow money and, when times are tough, help lawmakers avoid tax increases or spending cuts that might worsen a downturn.

In Texas, Arizona and many other states, state lawmakers are still arguing over school spending cuts and the use of stimulus dollars.

Obama did not intend for state lawmakers to simply cut state education spending and replace it with stimulus dollars.

Congress made that tough to enforce; the stimulus law generally does not prohibit states from using some of the money to replace precious state aid for schools. The result is that school districts could wind up with no additional state aid even as local tax revenues plummet.

But Duncan does have leverage; he alone has control over the $5 billion incentive fund. And in some cases, he may be able to withhold some stimulus dollars that have been allocated for a particular state.

My thoughts: When running for election candidates frequently state how important education is and how the future of the country is dependent on our young people. Once elected, they seem to forget their rhetoric. Hopefully the voters won’t forget.

I recently appeared with Paul Broome, Education Coordinator, Office of the Albuquerque Mayor on a PBS show entitled New Mexico in Focus: discussing the dropout problem. You can view the show (although the voice and sound aren’t in sync) at.
“https://newmexicoinfocus.org”>newmexicoinfocus.org

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and MDC, Inc., announced on June 22, that it would provide $16.5 million in grant money for 15 community colleges and five states to expand remedial education programs. The announcement referred to a recent report from Jobs for the Future that notes that remedial classes cost taxpayers more than $2 billion a year. Nearly 60% of all students who enroll in a community college start with remedial courses yet two-thirds of them never graduate.

My opinion: It is silly to remediate when students do not have the ability to take college level courses. Students, parents and college people should not accept the concept that everyone who files for college is qualified. Unfortunately college is a business. Colleges continue to build additional buildings and add additional seats and need to fill them. High school diplomas need to be validated by colleges by not accepting students who do not meet the minimum standards set by colleges. Students will come to understand that they must succeed in high school before they become accepted to college.

That is my opinion. I would like to hear yours. I will post the best on this site.