In his state of the union, President Obama urged all of the states to raise the dropout age to 18. To prove I'm not simply a sheep I will say that is absolutely the wrong thing to do. In fact, I think that's moving it in the opposite direction that it needs to go. The big problem is that public school curriculum stop serving the needs of the majority the minute they all step into high school. Lisa Falkenberg of the Chronicle addressed this in her piece.
I was compelled to email her because some of the conclusions were anti-education. It was asserted that teachers, counselors, and administrators actually counsel kids to drop out and do things administratively that encourage students to drop out. I will cop to the fact that there are some students that we don't try to dissuade as fervently as we should, but I have never known any educator to encourage it.
Her article mentioned test prep courses that seemed designed to push them out. They aren't designed to push them out. They are designed to get them to pass the test. It may be true that students may choose to leave, but that is a result of a flawed plan and not the intention of the plan itself. In these things we often mistake the effects for the causes. Individual teachers and administrators do not cause dropping out. It is a flawed system that simply looks to delay the inevitable.
Political correctness has its place, but sometimes it is an impediment to the truth. It is politically correct to say all kids can learn. That is true to some extent, but people have misunderstood its limitations. All people can learn, but they can't all learn the same things and they can't learn at the same rate. Yet, this mantra has led our country down a dark road where nearly half of our children aren't getting their needs met.
You often have sixteen and seventeen year olds without any high school credits. So, is delaying their withdraw a year somehow magically make them graduate? It's happened before, but it is rare. The truth is that their demise happened years before that and the system never came up with a solution. Some educators will work hard for that student and if that student has any fight left in them they might succeed despite the odds. Simply put, the mechanisms aren't there.
I've spent more time at home than I'd like recently and I see dozens of ITT, Everest, and Fortis commercials designed to get those without skills to acquire some. Why are we allowing private companies to step up and charge people a fee (sometimes a phenomenal one) to do something we should be doing in high school? Is it more important for them to pass a test that has virtually no correlation to success in the work place or university setting? I suppose it is more important that we feel good about ourselves than to actually make a difference in more kids' lives.
Your sons are a testament to perseverance. There is a TON of truth to what you say. The analogy I use is from a commercial where two mechanics are trying to fit in a battery that obviously doesn't fit. The customer says something and they tell her they've been doing this a long time. You immediately flash back to when they were kids and one of them is trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole. The other one tells him to just keep hitting it. That's our educational system in a nutshell. We keep beating the crap out of that square peg and our only solution is to keep hitting it harder. Most of these at risk students will fail if we continue doing what we've always done. The answer is to find a different peg, not to have them keep hitting it until they are 18.
my two sons were both in special ed programs when they graduated. the older who was battling recurrent stomach cancer graduated at my kitchen table at AGE 22 on HISD's homebound program and the younger graduated at age 20 from river oaks academy, a contract placement at district expense to a small private school specializing in ADHD. they both started college at the same time, choosing UHD over community college because they were MORE than ready to "get going"!
my point being, instead of gearing 18yr olds who seem hopelessly behind to drop out why not create high school classes for 18 -22yr olds geared to ACCELERATE their credits and prepare them for college or tech school? there is NO advantage to having high school drop outs in the community, and there is no advantage in moving immature late teens/young adults into college when they're ill prepared and likely to fail. but there is no problem with 20-24yr old college freshmen who were "square peg" students for whatever reason and needed more time in high school settings.
mostly we're dealing with fall out from school settings where teachers are only groomed to "teach the test" and kids have different learning styles which prevent them from excelling in an institutionalized setting. my sons are making A's & B's, and more importantly they're finally interested in subjects like govt, history and math because they've worked out issues which preoccupied their teen years. in college as young men they've experienced their first ART & MUSIC CLASSES which is really saying something about public school. as in IT SUCKS.
Very true, but then again they are paying for the privaledge. It's a lot easier to show interest in someone that is paying you. On the flip side, it is a lot easier to care about what you are getting when you are paying someone else.
We keep coming back to compulsory education. I've long maintained that everyone has the right to an education. That doesn't mean they have to avail themselves of it. If I believe the NRA, I have the right to own a firearm. It doesn't mean I have to.
Often, the success of these programs come when people realize that they really can't get very far unless they have at least a GED and some training in a particular skill. Of course, we tell them the same thing when they want to drop out, but they don't believe us then.
In those commercials, the students are depicted as desired by the school, which respects them and has confidence in their success. Who wouldn't be attracted to that?