Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Fixing and Preventing the Dropout Rate

When a student ends their educational pursuits before the attainment of a high school diploma, it can signal the final nail in the coffin of an educational potential never attained. In the United States, that issue has slowly crept back into the focus of educational reform, since countless doors remained closed to an individual hoping to participate and thrive in the 21st century. The impact of students dropping out of high school can have immediate and far-reaching consequences to both the student and society as a whole.
The data for students who drop out before reaching their high school diploma is staggering. First, the data recording the percentage of students who reach high school completion has been calculated by numerous researchers, but the figures all align to roughly seven out of ten students (Stillwell & Hoffman, 2008, Swanson, 2008, Mortenson, 2000).
While that number might be alarming, the estimates based upon urban setting and race display further concern. Elaine Allensworth (2005) completed a study within Chicago schools, noting the following trends for graduation rate by age nineteen:

• Black male students-39%
• Latino male students-51%
• White male students-58%
• Black female students-57%
• Latino female students-65%
• White female students-71%

Concerning age, a trend known as the “9th grade bulge” also shares alarming information. An increasing number of 9th graders are failing to be promoted to the 10th grade. Walt Haney and colleagues (2004) found that in 1998-99, there were 3.86 million ninth grade students, but in the following year, there were 3.42 million tenth grade students enrolled. That difference of 440,000 less students (11.4%) shows a marked “leak in the pipeline”. In essence, there is an association between failing a grade and dropping out, as many of these students did. This study demonstrates simply the impact at one significant age; this doesn’t take into account students dropping out before or after the high school transition year of ninth grade.
So how do these grim statistics impact our country and communities? To begin, high school dropouts earn $250,000 less on average over a lifetime compared to peers who graduate. This sets non-graduates in an early predicament with little chance of catching up. In addition, there are serious implications for how earning power has changed for non-graduates in the past thirty years. For 25 to 34-year-old dropouts who manage to work full-time, the average annual salary of males dropped from $35,087 in 1971 to $22,903 in 2002, a decline of 35% (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2006). Truly, this is a sign of our changing economy. Finally, those who drop out face the challenge of higher unemployment and incarceration rates (Sum, Khatiwada, McLaughlin and Palma, 2009).

The statistics mentioned help to get a grasp of high school attrition rates, but they can also be misleading. Information such as race, socioeconomic status, and grade level start to paint the picture of high school dropouts, but they do very little to support interventions aimed at keeping students in schools. This leads to finding data that transcends simple demographics, and into strategies aimed at supporting these learners whose future hangs in the balance, ready to go either way.
In the recent study by Eric Sparks, Janet L. Johnson, and Patrick Akos, titled “Dropouts: Finding the Needles in the Haystack”, these researchers were able to identify three major educational risk factors that had a strong correlation towards students that might drop out of school. The first risk factor was identifying students that were retained in any grade, from kindergarten to ninth grade. In this research, 60.9% of ninth graders who had been retained at some point in their schooling became dropouts, compared to only 8.2% of students who hadn’t been retained at any level. This makes finding the “needles” much more manageable because the haystacks have greater focus.
A second risk factor became identifying ninth grade students who scored below grade level on the end-of-grade math test in 8th grade or failing Algebra I. Finally, a third risk factor of students that received a long-term suspension became another evidence point in which to make determinations for students likely to dropout. With these three factors identified schools can focus on interventions aimed at retaining these particular students, to the benefit of individual students, and the school as a whole.
I believe the first step towards supporting these learners comes from narrowing the focus on the attributes above, so that targeted interventions can be applied to this particular part of a school’s population. For example, transition/enrichment programs, aimed at helping ninth graders acclimate to high school can help students during this critical phase of a student’s life. The authors of “Needles” look toward the enrichment programs that support research indicating that having 10 positive contacts with resistant students often changes their attitudes and wins their trust. This is certainly an approachable angle to pursue when welcoming ninth graders into a time and place that can seem daunting for all, let alone students who have a track record of underachievement in their earlier education.
While enrichment programs start the process in a smaller manner, I also believe that big problems sometimes require big solutions. To that degree, I was impressed with the perspective of transforming high school education via alternative schools aimed at curriculum and structures that support drop out students to “drop back in”. Models like Desert Rose High School in Las Vegas, Nevada offer students such opportunities.
Measures such as continuous enrollment and continuous completion design need to be at the center of alternative drop-back-in schools. When a school is open for twelve months on a twelve hours-a-day schedule, there can and should be attendance policies to make sure students are learning, but there should also be flexibility to support students who face two issues that affect some dropout students: child care and part/full time employment necessary to contribute financially to their family.
Other facets to drop-back-in schools include strong support for ESL instruction, as well as citizenship preparation courses. These classes make sense in acclimating high school age learners, particularly immigrants, to American education in a manner that is supportive and not overwhelming. In addition, drop-back-in schools could learn greatly from the technical schools nearby, even forming partnerships in order to pursue careers that can be engaged right after high school, as well as arranging internships and job shadowing.
Ultimately, when addressing high school dropout rates, we are faced with a dilemma of whether, as a society, we should choose to care about these students, and thus take action. Many alternative drop-back-in schools state the same sentiment from students, that no one cares whether they are in school. As a result, counseling and support services need to be the engine that drives these schools, getting to know learners, reinforce their progress, and organize community aid to help these learners, both inside and outside the classroom. These guidance counselors can also construct course schedules and course curriculum that engage and commit learners toward a high school diploma.
As mentioned, we have a choice on whether to help these students, society’s forgotten children, now turning into adults. As the post-education statistics reinforce, we will pay for these individuals later, whether it be low economic contributions, continued near-poverty in future generations, or even worse, incarceration. Our alternative is to pay for these students now, since some of the prescriptions mentioned don’t come cheap. At the heart of this matter is the same challenge that all of public education asks of us: support, fund, and promote the students of today to create a better society tomorrow.

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