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     Jerry Moore (Admin) Board Administrator Username: Admin Post Number: 30800 Registered: 01-2000  Rating: N/A |
Dropout Nation Frontline Sept. 25, 2012 Why do students dropout? And what can be done? Join FRONTLINE’s national outreach campaign and learn about ending the dropout crisis in your community. * * * * 
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| Jerry Moore (Admin) Board Administrator Username: Admin Post Number: 29699 Registered: 01-2000 Rating: N/A |
School Pushouts: A Plague of Hopelessness Perpetrated by Zombie Schools Posted by Delia Stafford, President Haberman Educational Foundation / Education Views March 22, 2012 This book, published, 2012, is a comprehensive coverage of the problems and solutions for Americas children and youth. A very well written attempt to .”tell all, fix all” One thing I so appreciated was the cover to cover acknowledgement of the researched resources, page after page. I readily noticed the research from Dr.Martin Haberman , Distinguished Professor, Emeritus, UWM,(1932-2012). Dr Haberman would have been so pleased to know that you recognized his research in your publication. Dr. Fusco replied,” “It took me five years to finish the book. Unlike my first book on school corruption where I had to dig, dig, dig, for information, the available research for this book was overwhelming. What took so much time was to wade through all of the available research, find what was appropriate, edit, and them assemble the information.”  Lots more, including an interview, here. * * * *
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| Jerry Moore (Admin) Board Administrator Username: Admin Post Number: 29649 Registered: 01-2000 Rating: N/A |
State makes gains in graduation rate New York posts double-digit increase in percentage of high school students graduating Associated Press via the Albany (NY) Times Union March 19, 2012 BUFFALO — New York has made among the nation's biggest gains in graduating high school students, according to a study released Sunday by an education advocacy coalition. The state is one of only two that have posted double-digit increases in graduation rates in recent years, going from 60.5 percent in 2002, about 12 percent below the national average at the time, to a 73.5 percent graduation rate in 2009, according to the report by Civic Enterprises, the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University, America's Promise Alliance and the Alliance for Excellent Education. * * * *
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| Jerry Moore (Admin) Board Administrator Username: Admin Post Number: 29199 Registered: 01-2000 Rating: N/A |
The True Cost of High School Dropouts By HENRY M. LEVIN and CECILIA E. ROUSE / NEW YORK TIMES Jan 26, 2012 * * * If we could reduce the current number of dropouts by just half, we would yield almost 700,000 new graduates a year, and it would more than pay for itself. Studies show that the typical high school graduate will obtain higher employment and earnings — an astonishing 50 percent to 100 percent increase in lifetime income — and will be less likely to draw on public money for health care and welfare and less likely to be involved in the criminal justice system. Further, because of the increased income, the typical graduate will contribute more in tax revenues over his lifetime than if he’d dropped out. This is so much nonsense. It assumes, among other things, a full employment economy. Do you believe that if everyone had a PhD that everyone would be earning PhD salaries? Or would we have PhDs picking up garbage and driving cabs at working class wages? The problem with these studies is that they are static, not dynamic. They don't model what happens in the job market when the labor pool expands. One thing that typically happens in a slack economy is that wages drop. * * * Henry M. Levin is a professor of economics and education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Cecilia E. Rouse, a professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University, was a member of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers from 2009 to 2011.
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| Jerry Moore (Admin) Board Administrator Username: Admin Post Number: 29198 Registered: 01-2000 Rating: N/A |
In Ohio, dropout law hard to enforce By Charlie Boss / Columbus (OH) Dispatch January 26, 2012 During Tuesday’s State of the Union address, President Barack Obama urged states to require students to stay in school until they graduate or turn 18 — a law already in effect in Ohio and 19 other states. Still, at least 23,000 Ohio teens dropped out in the 2010-11 school year. And only a small number of those kids took advantage of an Ohio provision that lets them “ officially” leave school if they’re at least 16, have a full-time job and have permission from a parent and the district. Most of those 23,000 were out of school illegally and could face penalties — if they could be tracked down. * * * Dispatch reporters Collin Binkley and Encarnacion Pyle contributed to this story.
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| Jerry Moore (Admin) Board Administrator Username: Admin Post Number: 29183 Registered: 01-2000 Rating: N/A |
President Obama calls for raising dropout age, other reforms adopted or proposed in Michigan By Dave Murray / Grand Rapids (MI) Press January 24, 2012 High school students should be forced to stay in high school until they graduate or turn 18, President Barack Obama said in his State of the Union address. Bullying. That's always the way of government and educators. Rather than make school so enticing that no student would want to leave, they take the easy way out by providing boring, antiquated instruction and compelling students to attend. If we had schools designed for The 21st Century Student we wouldn't have to worry about dropouts. * * * *
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| Jerry Moore (Admin) Board Administrator Username: Admin Post Number: 28840 Registered: 01-2000 Rating: N/A |
High School Drop-outs in Illinois: The Cost is Staggering Family Taxpayers Foundation December 07, 2011 The costs of dropping out of high school have increased for both the drop-outs themselves and for society at large in the form of reduced taxes and increased expenditures on drop-outs. This policy brief [pdf] from Northerastern University's Center for Labor Market Studies provides a summary of key research findings on the costs of dropping out in Chicago and in Illinois. What you don't know is whether these dropouts would simply become low-paid or unemployed graduates. Our economy has lots of unemployed high school and college graduates, so providing even more of these for the economy would, at the moment, simply give you a more highly educated unemployed worker.
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| Jerry Moore (Admin) Board Administrator Username: Admin Post Number: 27546 Registered: 01-2000 Rating: N/A |
Dropping out not tied to driving privileges Comments A St. Cloud (MN) Times Editorial April 29, 2011 Some Minnesota legislators are floating the idea of keeping kids in school by denying them a driver’s license if they drop out before they turn age 18. Before you decide whether it’s a brilliant educational idea, legislative bullying or simply a political ploy for votes, know this: It’s an ineffective strategy for improving graduation rates. Since 1986, the National Dropout Prevention Center at Clemson University has served as a national clearinghouse on dropout prevention and — Minnesota authors of this legislation, please note — sharing solutions that do help kids graduate high school. Nowhere in its research projects, publications and examination of risk factors is there any credible evidence that says a driver’s license matters. Not to mention those findings come before gas at $4 a gallon. “This goes back to the dark ages,” said Marty Duckenfield, public information director for the center. “Twenty years ago, I think West Virginia started it, basically trying to find an easy solution. ... A lot of states have tried it since then, but it’s obviously not particularly effective. If it was, we would have heard more about it.” In fact, if the same legislators who support this obvious political ploy truly want to improve Minnesota’s graduation rates, they should examine the center’s 2007 report “Dropout Risk Factors and Exemplary Programs.” The report is built on reviews of 44 studies about risk factors. Among its key points: * Dropping out of school is related to a variety of factors that can be classified in four areas or domains: individual, family, school and community factors. * There is no single risk factor that can be used to accurately predict who is at risk of dropping out. * Dropouts are not a homogeneous group. Many subgroups of students can be identified based on when risk factors emerge, the combinations of risk factors experienced and how the factors influence them. * Dropping out of school is often the result of a long process of disengagement that may begin before a child enters school. * Dropping out is not an event, with factors building and compounding over time. Further review of that report reveals major risk factors include students’ mental health, risky behaviors, inability to learn, lack of commitment to and involvement in school along with their family’s socioeconomic status, size, education level and contact with school. Again, nowhere is “driver’s license” listed. So you be the judge. Brilliant educational idea? Legislative bullying? Or political ploy?
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| Jerry Moore (Admin) Board Administrator Username: Admin Post Number: 26561 Registered: 01-2000 Rating: N/A |
Building a Grad Nation Progress and Challenge in Ending the High School Dropout Epidemic America's Promise Alliance press release undated, but ~ Nov. 30, 2010 With one in four U.S. public school students dropping out of high school before graduation, America continues to face a dropout epidemic. Building a Grad Nation: Progress and Challenge in Ending the High School Dropout Epidemic [pdf], released November 30 by America’s Promise Alliance, Civic Enterprises, and the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University, shows that we can end the dropout epidemic, even in schools from lower-income, urban and rural districts that many previously thought were hopeless. The report is supported by lead sponsor Target, and includes additional sponsorship from AT&T and Pearson Foundation. The U.S. graduation rate increased from 72 percent in 2002 to 75 percent in 2008. The report reveals that the number of “dropout factory” high schools fell by 13 percent – from 2,007 in 2002 to 1,746 in 2008. While these schools represent a small fraction of all public high schools in America, they account for about half of all high school dropouts each year. Experts say targeting these high schools for improvement is a critical part of turning around the nation’s dropout rate. Educators have ways of gaming this data. * * * *
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| Jerry Moore (Admin) Board Administrator Username: Admin Post Number: 26288 Registered: 01-2000 Rating: N/A |
Handouts to keep teenagers in school face the axe after scheme 'fails to cut drop-out rates' By James Chapman / London (UK) Daily Mail with over 60 comments 19th October 2010 A scheme to pay students to remain in education beyond the age of 16 is facing drastic cuts in tomorrow’s public spending bloodbath. Coalition sources say Labour’s education maintenance allowance, which costs £550million a year, has largely failed to cut dropout rates. Cash has gone to teenagers who would have stayed on at school with or without taxpayers’ money. * * * The allowance of up to £30 a week was introduced in 2004 to encourage 16 to 19-year-olds whose parents earn up to £30,810 to stay in full-time education. Bonus payments of £100 a year were available on top. * * * *
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| Jerry Moore (Admin) Board Administrator Username: Admin Post Number: 26132 Registered: 01-2000 Rating: N/A |
'Credit recovery' is a cheat By Joanne Jacobs / Joanne Jacobs blog September 17, 2010 See, also, Lacking Credits, Some Students Learn a Shortcut and Credit Recovery Research Brief [pdf]. ‘Credit recovery’ — after-school classes for failing students — is raising graduation rates by lowering standards, writes Erich Martel, a social studies teacher in Washington, D.C., on Education Gadfly. In D.C. schools, a student who flunks a class with 120 to 135 seat-time hours can make it up with an 82- to 92-hour hour credit-recovery “class.” Students who need more teacher attention get less. Rules ban homework. All assignments are completed during class time. During the past two school years, students enrolled in different subjects were assigned to one teacher and grouped in a single classroom. In some cases, non-instructional staff members, such as counselors, were assigned to “teach” CR classes. The clear expectation of school officials responsible for these assignments was that students would spend most of their time completing work sheets with little active teacher instruction. Credit recovery undercuts the work ethic, while giving students an inflated sense of achievement, Martel writes. The program is expanding rapidly across the nation. Students get diplomas; administrators get higher graduation rates. Community colleges get more remedial students.
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| Jerry Moore (Admin) Board Administrator Username: Admin Post Number: 25934 Registered: 01-2000 Rating: N/A |
One-third of teens with ADHD delay high school degree or drop out By Robert Preidt, HealthDay via USA Today with over 45 comments July 31, 2010 Teens with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are more likely to drop out of high school or delay completing high school than other kids, a new study has found. Researchers analyzed U.S. data and found that nearly one-third of students with the most common type of ADHD either drop out or delay high school graduation. That rate is twice that of students with no psychiatric disorder. There's nothing wrong with the brains of these kids. ADHD is a useful, natural, evolutionary condition that has survival advantages in certain conditions. The problem here isn't the the kids' brains. It's the public school system that treats their brains as obstacles rather than as opportunities. These kids, like smokers and others, aren't accepted for who they are. In other words, they aren't respected by the professionals. They will never get the education they need and deserve until we create schools for The 21st Century Student. * * * The researchers also found high drop-out rates among students with other mental health disorders. The rates were 26.6% for those with mood disorder, 24.9% for those with panic disorder, and up to about 20% for those with post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, generalized anxiety disorder and social phobia. Smoking was also associated with a high risk of dropping out. The study found that 29% of students who smoked failed to complete high school on time, compared with 20% of those who used alcohol and 24.6% of those who used drugs. What do all of these children have in common? They are bullied, stereotyped and shunned by the system. ADHD, smokers, alkies, druggies--all personae non-gratae. Not so much by their peers as by the professionals. The study was published in the July online edition of the Journal of Psychiatric Research.
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| Jerry Moore (Admin) Board Administrator Username: Admin Post Number: 25396 Registered: 01-2000 Rating: N/A |
Home-school is so popular, some are getting suspicious By JENNIFER RADCLIFFE / HOUSTON CHRONICLE with over 60 comments May 10, 2010 More than 22,620 Texas secondary students who stopped showing up for class in 2008 were excluded from the state's dropout statistics because administrators said they were being home-schooled, according to Texas Education Agency figures. But that's where the scrutiny of this growing population seems to end, leaving some experts convinced that schools are disguising thousands of middle and high school dropouts in this hands-off category. If educators were half as clever in doing their jobs as they are in distorting the truth for the sake of their own self-interests, we'd be ecstatic. * * * *
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| Jerry Moore (Admin) Board Administrator Username: Admin Post Number: 23228 Registered: 01-2000 Rating: N/A |
Diplomas Count 2009 — Broader Horizons: The Challenge of College Readiness for All Students Source: Education Week From press release (PDF; 2 MB) via Docuticker a daily update of new reports from government agencies, ngo’s, think tanks, and other groups June 9th, 2009 A new national report from Education Week and the Editorial Projects in Education (EPE) Research Center paints a cautiously optimistic picture of high school graduation trends, finding that the national graduation rate has improved over the past decade, though a recent one-year downturn—the first significant annual decline in that 10-year period—raises cause for concern. Despite overall progress, three out of every 10 students in U.S. public schools still fail to finish high school with a diploma, the report finds. That amounts to 1.3 million students lost from the graduation pipeline every year, or almost 7,200 students lost every day, it adds. The report also points out that there is no firm consensus among states, schools, and policymakers on what it means to be ready for postsecondary education or how to measure college readiness. The report, Diplomas Count 2009: Broader Horizons: The Challenge of College Readiness for All Students, investigates one of the most critical issues facing the nation’s educational and economic future—the challenge to prepare all students for college. + Executive Summary + Graduation Rate Trends 1996-2006 + District Graduation Rate Map Tool
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