April 1, 2008

Report Shows Stunning Failures in High-School Graduation Rates

Washington — In 17 of the nation’s 50 largest cities, less than half of the students who entered high school in 2003 ended up graduating. In Detroit, which has the lowest graduation rate of the top 50 cities, not even one in four students finished high school.

Those sobering statistics were compiled in a report released today by the America’s Promise Alliance, which intends to draw attention to poor graduation rates, especially in urban areas.

The alliance hopes to convene summits over the next two years in all 50 states, as well as the country’s 50 largest cities, in an effort to focus on what it is calling a graduation-rate crisis. At a press conference here today announcing the effort, a star-studded lineup of officials linked lagging high-school graduation rates and poor college preparation to America’s economic health, and pressed the need for renewed discussion of ways to graduate more students. The officials included Education Secretary Margaret Spellings and Sen. Richard Burr, a Republican of North Carolina.

“From the home all the way through high school and college, it’s a connected system,” said Colin L. Powell, the former secretary of state and a founder of the alliance. —JJ Hermes

Comments

1. Each semester of teaching college, I find even the high school graduates less and less prepared for college. And the work ethic—it is terrible.

   — Brian D.    Apr 1, 03:39 PM    #

2. I agree that HS prep does not prepare students for college; I also agree that the work ethic is quite disturbing. But also complicating the problem are the huge number of things that compete for students’ attention these days. I teach nursing and many of my students work from 32-40 hr/wk while raising families and carrying class loads that require 24-30 contact hours/week. What is amazing is that many accomplish (not necessarily well, but they accomplish) and perform successfully on the national licensing examination. Well-prepared they aren’t; resiliant they are!

   — TDD    Apr 1, 03:59 PM    #

3. As a nation we should be horrified by these results. This has more to do with our national security than any bomb, plane or missile.

   — Bill Cade    Apr 1, 04:03 PM    #

4. Dare I say, this pretty dramatically points out how wrong-headed the past 8 years of no child left behind have been.

   — CW    Apr 1, 04:07 PM    #

5. The problem with No Child Left Behind is that we leave no child behind by holding them all back equally.

   — Tom    Apr 1, 04:17 PM    #

6. We have our hands full in America. Our colleges and universities are continuing to graduate teachers who continue to prepare high school dropouts and underprepared college freshmen.

   — OAO    Apr 1, 04:21 PM    #

7. I would suspect that the literacy rate of the adult population in each of these cities, the parents and extended family of these students, is not much different from that of their children. At some point we have to acknowledge that the whole family has to be tended to.

   — ml    Apr 1, 04:22 PM    #

8. I believe the central culprit at the bottom of this is American popular culture and values. We as a society do not truly value educational attainment except as a ticket to money and status. We do not respect teachers, as is the case in many other developed and developing countries, and we have a range of derogatory names for children who excell in academics, e.g. geek, dweeb, dork and so forth. I am not surprised by these findings and if things don’t change in terms of fundamental values regarding education and intellectual achievement, this country will sink to a second-world level. I believe we are already sinking.

   — Christina Newhill    Apr 1, 04:22 PM    #

9. This is not so much a failure of schools as it is a failure of the social system which includes schools. Kids need to WANT to learn, their families and communities need to promote that goal and support them in pursuing it, and the schools need to create an atmosphere and have programs that make it possible.

   I think NCLB is a failed program, but the failure extends beyond NCLB – it is a failure of the system in which these kids live, and it’s a reflection of the society and communities in which they live. I wish I had answers, but I know that answers will involve the whole system, not just the schools.

   — Al    Apr 1, 04:22 PM    #

10. The analysis is based on the premise of a four year progression through high school. I believe this is simplistic. Many urban children reach high school having been retained for one or more years in earlier grades. The likelihood that these previously retained children will complete high school within in four years is slim. A better analysis would be the determination of the percentage of rising ninth graders who graduate from high school by age 20.

    I believe that most public schools do not permit school attendance beyond age 20 for regular education students. For many previously retained students this becomes a trap that prevents their graduation. If they enter high school after two years of earlier retention they will become 20 years of age in their fourth year of high school and have to leave school without graduation if they have not progressed through high school on a 4 year progression rate, which is unlikely.

    The key to improving high school performance is in improving preschool and early elementary education and the value of education in the home.

    — RFW    Apr 1, 04:37 PM    #

11. I spent approximately 23 years of my life as a student, and another 38 years as an educator. I think NCLB was a failure, but the real turning point in education came much earlier. Since the 1960s grade inflation has gotten worse each year, students have an ever-expanding sense of entitlement to high grades, parents have become more litigious, and politicians spend more of their time thinking up ways for educators to measure meaningless “learning outcomes.” Thank God I have three months to go before retirement! The high drop-out rate is more an indication of students’ frustration and boredom than their ability to perform.

    — Carl    Apr 1, 04:44 PM    #

12. This information seems to echo what was reported back in the 1980’s when the report A Nation At Risk came out. And it certainly is ironic that this data about the urban/suburabn divide comes out just as we observe the 40th anniversary of the Kerner Commission report that warned us that we were becoming two nations, separate and unequal.

    I think the real question is: are we ready, as a nation, to really revamp our educational system and provide the resources necessary to insure success? We seem to be able to allocate the resources necessary for so many other things (war, professional athletics, etc.) that it is hard to imagine that we cannot allocate the resources needed to improve schools and keep our nation competitive in a global economy.

    Perhaps we need to move away from “blaming” and move towards identifying what works. Given the work in cognitive science durng the past 30 years, we have accumulated an amazing amount of information regarding how learning is best facilitated. We have examples of successful schools in urban areas that serve poor children. What we seem to lack as a society is the will to consistently apply the knowledge we have acquired and replicate succifiently the successful models we have created.

    As I approach my sixth decade of life, I regret that the phrase, “the more things change, the more they stay the same” has taken on far too real a character.

    — Rick    Apr 1, 04:46 PM    #

13. I once took an informal survey among my 85 low-SES high school students and found that 74% had no father in the home. The failure rate for the 74% was very high, as they showed clear patterns of poor self-regulation, discipline, attendance, respect for authority, etc. Until Americans stop the insanity of bringing children up in single-parent homes, we will continue to suffer as a country, and in many more ways than low graduation rates.

    — Eric    Apr 1, 04:49 PM    #

14. The measure is faulty and there have been many studies debunking this approach to measuring graduation. Don’t take this at face value.

    Also don’t take my statement as an assumption that I believe all is well.

    — GL    Apr 1, 04:52 PM    #

15. I blame Pink Floyd for this appalling condition. And also the Ramones, peace be upon them. Oh, and rap music in general. I think that should just about do it.

    — marci    Apr 1, 04:53 PM    #

16. OK. I admit that I concur with others that our public education system is, uh, challenged (that’s the right euphemism, right?) in terms of its successful education of students in its charge.

    But.

    Does this report’s “CPI” (“Cumulative Promotion Index”) really capture the statistical reality? Check out the link above, and view the formula on page 8. Now, it suggests that a ratio of students in the succeeding grade to the one before (e.g. # students in 10th grade divided by # students in 9th grade) over the 4 years of high school until “diploma recipients” appears in the numerator, is an accurate reflection of the situation. The example the show is of a 5% drop out rate each year (95/100 × 95/100 × 95/100 × 95/100) to yield a graduate rate of 81.5%. By this calculation, large cities that do a splendid job educating children of families that do not remain in the system all four years of their high school education do worse than awful school systems that educate a more stable student population.

    This may show a measure of the stability or lack of stability of high school student populations. How well does it really measure the success of children who complete 2 years in NYC, another in Boston, and finish up all tied for valedictorian in Los Angeles?

    I’m willing to hyperventilate about our lousy public schools with the best of ‘em, but I have become somewhat skeptical of the “reduce everything to a final numerical grade” approach to success or failure. I believe there is a more nuanced picture to be had, here.

    — Victor Lieberman    Apr 1, 04:59 PM    #

17. And the surprise was what?

    — Dr. Bill    Apr 1, 05:11 PM    #

18. It is interesting how eager observers are to condemn “No Chid Left Behind.” I have no idea whether it is a success or failure, but it is largely irrelevant to the study here. The graduation rates are for 2003-2004 when NCLB had hardly begun and where the students received almost their entire education under the prior system.

    — fvn    Apr 1, 05:13 PM    #

19. At what point do we say to the students AND the parents,“YOU are responsible for your own actions and decisions?” I have students in my college classes who will come to an 8:00 a.m. class but NEVER turn in one shred of work or take one test. Of course they fail my class. Do we really want these students leading our country? It does not matter how hard I work or how much I know if the student is not receptive to learning. Not ALL students are this way—let’s reward those willing to work and those eager to learn. We need to value education and go back to the idea that higher education must be earned and cannot simply be bought or demanded by unprepared and unmotivated students.

    — DL    Apr 1, 05:25 PM    #

20. “No Child Left Behind” has nothing to do with the content of this report or the data analysis thereof. The deeper social problems discussed herein are only part of the problem—but important ones to consider. The issue here is the institution of public education as we know it. Sadly, that institution has failed to keep pace with the needs of the society it serves and, I suspect, will be soon supplanted by another.

    I predict public education as we know it will cease to exist in less than 25 years and will likely be replaced with for-profit education boutique operations for most students and state run alternative education programs for the remainder of the K-12 population. Higher education has sufficient social momentum to carry itself through the impending crisis.

    What this means, I believe, is those that want high quality education services will continue to receive it even at some subsidized level. Those that do not desire education services will become even more marginalized but at a lower initial cost. The real problem is the long-term social costs this will bring our grandchildren with an ever larger uneducated social underclass incapable of citizenship at almost any level. That, my friends, is a world I hope not to live long enough to see.

    — Dr. M.    Apr 1, 06:10 PM    #

21. #19: “At what point do we say to the students AND the parents,“YOU are responsible for your own actions and decisions?””

    We say that only when we are assured that the teachers and administrators, all of them, aren’t mailing it in, or passing students who don’t deserve it because they don’t care or are worried about their own jobs if they do.

    People who are wondering why students these days “don’t want to learn” apparently lived at some point in some alternate universe where there in fact was a time when the average student wanted to learn. It’s part of the job of educators (of which I am one) to get students interested in what they are supposed to be learning. I’m not saying it’s easy, it might not always even be probable. But that’s the deal.

    — Tom    Apr 1, 06:14 PM    #

22. Lieberman is right about migration. Census studies show about 10% of teenagers will migrate across state lines during their high school years, with the within-state migration rate higher. Only a national unit-record system could pick this up. U.S. Dept. of Ed longitudinal studies (the closest we get to a unit-record system) show about a 75-78 percent on-time graduation rate, particularly when summer graduations are counted (about 3% of the total, though these students are hardly rocket scientists). So there are method problems here, but we love bad numbers, don’t we? They produce occasions for national self-flagellation, and we seem to like that, too.

    Yeah, we have some problems, one of which is truancy, something we do little about—but could. And there is no question that the home environments of many drop-outs are miserable, something that is beyond government intervention. I would rather worry about improving the quality of education delivered to those who will graduate than worry about those who don’t like school, never will, and drain our efforts away.

    — archer    Apr 1, 06:27 PM    #

23. MOST of our problems (healthcare, education, wars) can be blamed on Daddy and Corporate America at large. Nuns, kids, little old ladies – basically females and kids don’t cause most of our problems.

    Why Daddy? Daddy is the leader of the home. It is a widely known fact that approximately 50% of the marriages in this country don’t last, usually because daddy gets bored and commits adultery, leaving mom and little Johnny to fend for themselves. Johnny ends up being out of control, DROPS OUT of high school, has a kid out of wedlock, commits a crime to support Johnny Jr., goes to jail, then it starts all over again with Jr. 1 of every 100 people in America are in prison, and the number is rising.

    Why corporate America? Corporate America is greedy. Instead of building capacity and opportunity for the American worker, executives at most of the fortune 1000 firms sell out to foreign entities, are given praise and bonuses for firing the American worker and saving the firm $$$. And why not, if you make that kind of money you don’t have to worry about petty things like affordable healthcare or citizenship. You can buy your citizenship, leave to a country of choice and continue to on. Don’t blame politicians, most are owned by corporate America. Corporate America is America. They get voted in based on the amount of $ they have in hand (owning a business or having served C-Class with, you guessed it, a fortune 5000 firm) or donations from the same. It’s a vicious cycle that is unrelenting and strong. And by the way, Corporate America consists of, you guessed it, many selfish, pimping Daddies. What about those crazy kids that kill people, sell drugs, etc.? Most kids don’t make and market violent media, Corporate America does… Daddy does.

    I am a happy 35 year old educator, husband to a good wife, and father of a beautiful 2 year old boy. I hope that I am a good Daddy.

    — Tony Guy    Apr 1, 06:29 PM    #

24. It really depresses me to think what would have happened if we had invested three trillion into our school systems (instead of a meaningless overseas war).
    This IS a question of values: our values as a nation.
    Stop blaming “culture” or teachers or single failed government program or single parents or whatever.
    Twenty years of laissez faire government—absenteeist government—got us here… or at least, if we’d had a real government that genuinely invested in the health of the nation, could have gotten us out of this predicament.

    — d    Apr 1, 06:32 PM    #

25. #24: “Twenty years of laissez faire government—absenteeist government—got us here”

    So we should stop blaming culture, teachers, programs, and parents, and start putting the blame where it belongs—on the government?

    Please. Let’s start thinking that maybe the citizens of this country can start doing things without our government holding our hands. How much help do we give to the schools and neighborhoods that need it? How much interest do we put into the community with our free time? How many school board meetings do we not attend because “Everybody Loves Raymond” is on that night?

    Stop blaming the government, however dispicable their actions, for the state of things that we could be doing something about, and are, for the most part, not.

    — Tom    Apr 1, 06:48 PM    #

26. THE DROP OUT RATE IN AUCKLAND,N.Z IS 2/3RDS/BEAT THAT!

    — THE REAL PRESIDENT    Apr 1, 07:27 PM    #

27. #26: “BEAT THAT!”

    We’re trying, apparently ;)

    — Tom    Apr 1, 07:46 PM    #

28. Beginning in the 1970s, the excellent (female) and poorly paid teachers in elementary shools we had until that time, retired, and were not replaced as subsequent females (and males) made rational decisions to puruse other careers in order to maximize incomes, as wages for teachers stagnated and their status in US society declined. Add to this, the loss of the gold standard in 1970, the completion of the rebuilding of the world economy by the early 1970s and the devaluation of the US dollar as imports (especially, oil, increased) and the subsuequent turmoil that led many Americans to allow themseleves to be propagandized and vote for the dismantling of the New Deal in the 1980 elections, it is all I can to to hold my tongue and not say “What did you fools expect?” Education is only one of the many institutions that the Republicans (and their heavily-lobbied counterparts in the Democratic party) have effectively dismanteled as we have let ourselves into the latest version of the few that have and the many that have not.

    — David    Apr 1, 10:28 PM    #

29. The tried way for achieving “excellence” is lowering the requirements and adding fun to the instruction.

    In Canada, the faces on the street changed. The similar change was reported by many after Russian revolution of 1917. This, by the way, had nothing to do with race. What happened was that people no longer were doing their own business and living their own life. People became preoccupied with global problems, hence – idiotic expressions on the face and idiotic expressions in the language. Now the revolution came here; and this is being said openly. Now, graduation? Not a priority.

    — Michael Pyshnov    Apr 2, 12:26 AM    #

30. The tried way for achieving “excellence” is to establish an indicator and then figure out how to manipulate it. (Remember the graduation rate “miracle” engineered by Rod Paige in Houston before he was elevated to Secretary of Education back in the early years of the Bush administration?)

    So, what do you make of the fact that ‘good’ schools and ‘failing’ schools are strongly related to the proportion of the student body that comes from impoverished homes (i.e. the more poor students, the more likely the school is to be failing)? And that school budgets are also strongly correlated with the same factor (i.e. the more poor students, the lower the per-student spending)?

    — Bob    Apr 2, 05:50 AM    #

31. The stumbling block lies in the extraordinary naivette of our politicians at both local, state, and national levels. I dare say that a majority of them is semi-literate, and of course, embrace the all-too self-defeating assumption that somehow a turn to technology, busy work, assessment, teacher accountability, etc., will disappear the problem. Thus, apart from blaming the unfortunate teachers, the turn to technology has replaced sound learning theory and practice: the technology is now the learning, and so the dumping down continues. Even more tragic, is the consumer-driven nature of current education efforts and the muzzling of liberal and critical learning processes. Finally, dare I say an entitlement culture is also wreaking havoc on the unsuspecting students and parents alike. Somehow learning has been reduced to a few simplified processes, requiring at the most, sporadic attendance, and spoonfeeding from the harried and now intellectually proletarianized teachers, instructors, and professors. The days of the post-industrial peasant are here to stay, and I pity the fools—-.

    — jason pawuma    Apr 2, 06:30 AM    #

32. Our society is lazy and entitled and education reflects who we are. The fix is to work harder and sacrifice more across the board. We don’t need more money or more teachers (excepting demographic issues in some grades). We need people to hold up to hard-work and a few old-fashioned standards.

    Parents: Skip the ATV parks and soccer practice and give the kids a book to read. Care about what your children are doing. Pay attention.
    Teachers: Go the extra mile even when it means your job is in danger.
    Voters: Attend school board meetings and get involved.
    Administrators: Let teachers teach and protect them from the latest trends.

    The few communities that do this are wildly successful in this day and age. It’s no big secret.

    — John    Apr 2, 06:49 AM    #

33. The solutions are simple, albeit draconian. The Pilgrims set the precedent, “If you don’t work, you don’t eat.” If students and parents do not want to conform to societies’ demands, cut out something to which they think they are entitled.

    — Jim    Apr 2, 07:43 AM    #

34. I believe the creation of a permanent, multi-generational underclass of uneducated and only marginally employable people actually is one of the goals of the current regime in Washington. At current rates, the prison system population will go up from one to two percent of the total population in fifteen years, creating a boon for the incarceration industry and prosperity for many rural townships. The housing industry is driven by movement more than by population growth as demand for new towns increases, far away from declining and deteriorating cities, even in states where population is not growing. An uneducated and uncritical electorate can be manipulated by television demagogues and pulpit-pounders. The military will survive, although at a lower standard, if there is a steady supply of rural, minimally educated poor whose only career option is to join up. Plus, if you could get rid of the immigrants there will be an endless supply of groundskeepers, houseboys and chamber maids to take care of the wealthy classes. And, since discrimination has been delared over by Rush Limbaugh and his ilk, the reason for the failure is only known to God himself, who, as we all know, works in mysterious ways. If you’re George Bush, what’s not to like about this picture?

    — Philip J Tramdack    Apr 2, 07:53 AM    #

35. #35 you depress me, although I have to agree on most of your points. The hidden agenda all along has been a concerted effort to destroy the public schools out of resentment over busing, teacher unions, and denial of voucher programs to benefit those who want their kids to be in segregation academies. The tactic has been to establish mandates that cannot be met without infusion of resources, and then withhold the resources.

    — CW    Apr 2, 08:51 AM    #

36. Come on…no one, not even the Great And Evil Bush, is trying to create an unemployable lower class. To what end would that be?

    John up in #33 hit it on the head—*we are lazy*, as a society. This shouldn’t be shocking, it has happened throughout history, to every major, successful nation. Athens, Rome, the Pax Britannica, Japan. When a nation is struggling, change is desired, because the people who have it good are far unnumbered and outvoiced by those who don’t. Liberal thought flourishes, and the concept of helping everyone is common. As a nation begins to succeed, the increasing number of people who are well off, and the people who are increasingly more well off, stop seeing any reason to change. They have it good, so why change anything? Thus the nation moves to conservative thought—change is now bad, because “we’re right were we want to be…THIS is the pinnacle of our culture. Now let’s just HOLD everything right here.”

    The problem of course is that pinnacles are followed by declines. That’s what makes it a pinnacle. The knee-jerk desire that everything stay just as it is, no matter what, is what drags civilizations down.

    (I am not saying there is no room for conservative thought…just no room for knee-jerk conservative thought.)

    — Tom    Apr 2, 09:19 AM    #

37. Wow! The graduation rate is 50%. Thats what it was in 1950. In fact the graduation rate, I believe was never much different from this. Dropouts could work in factories and make a decent wage. With mandatory service in the military, many dropouts had some place to go to grow up. It was also common for judges to give teenage criminals a choice of jail or the Army. The service gave these individuals the needed discipline to recapture their lives and become productive citizens. So lets bring back military service!
    Education for all has been an experiment since the time of John Dewey. Maybe its time to give the european system a chance.

    — jim    Apr 2, 09:22 AM    #

38. #19, Amen, your right on target. I have been an adjunct for the past two years in a small community college in the south. My experience mirrors what DL has apparently witnessed as well. That is parents have a responsibility to raise children to seek an education. Society does not have an obligation to motivate those who do not take it upon themselves to improve their own lot in life.

    LLH
    LLH

    — LLH    Apr 2, 09:25 AM    #

39. The high schools get what the middle schools produce and the middle schools get… Well, you know. Most students who dropout or don’t graduate enter high school well behind their peers in education achievement. They can’t keep up because they can’t catch up. I hear middle school teachers lament the students coming from elementary schools. I bet elementary teachers feel that way about some kids coming to them. So change must start in the home and continue on through each level.

    — jim D    Apr 2, 09:33 AM    #

40. Has anyone noticed problems with the data? Louisville is listed as having 21 districts, but there are only 2 (according to local officials). The officials also say the number of students is wrong.

    — Bill S    Apr 2, 09:39 AM    #

41. This problem existed long before NCLB was put in place. It was, in fact, one of the primary reasons for the legislation. I think NCLB has significant flaws, but you can’t fault the intent.

    The high school graduation crisis has far more to do with the erosion of morals in our society than anything else. The attempt to be “fair” across ethinic and racial lines also has something to do with it, as does the focus of the high schools (in general) on preparation for college (which is not done well in many cases) instead of focusing on providing the majority of students, who should not be going to college immediately after high school, with technical and life skills. We have made high school irrelevant for most students.

    — FB    Apr 2, 09:50 AM    #

42. How much of this failure is related to NCLB? Congress should call for a full investigation of NCLB’s impact on high school graduation rates. It’s my take that poorer students drop out rather than facing a test they know they’re going to fail.

    — JJ    Apr 2, 10:22 AM    #

43. NCLB, again, has zero to do w/grad rates! #19 comes the closest to summing up the heart of this problem.

    — Eric    Apr 2, 10:32 AM    #

44. As ml says in post # 7, it’s not just the children who need educational support—it’s also adults. The real problem with NCLB may be its narrow—and politically palatable— focus on youngsters.

    We must stop being judgmental in policymaking and provide what people need no matter how they “got where they are” or how we think they got there.

    — Fran    Apr 2, 10:32 AM    #

45. Are students who move out of the school district counted as drop outs?

    — John    Apr 2, 10:33 AM    #

46. Everything I’ve read so far has been said many times before and associated with previous crises in graduation rates. Unfortunately, there is no single answer to this problem and all of the reasons and solutions offered apply to some aspect of the issue. To implement any solution requires attending to the individual needs of each school district.

    We cannot solve this “problem,” if, in deed it is a problem, on the national level except to make funding available to enable needed changes.

    — Bob Harris    Apr 2, 10:38 AM    #

47. The elephant in the room is discussed at length in “The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life” by Hernstein and Murray. IQ is real, and academic failure and low IQ are highly correlated. Many researchers believe that about half of IQ is determined by genetics.

    As to #23’s blame of greedy corporations, I recommend he lobby in favor of abolishing the minimum wage, repealing the Family Leave Act, abolishing legislative mandates which create more overhead but no production in the company (such as diversity offices), and other activities that make it attractive to move production to low-labor-cost areas outside the U.S. Meanwhile, he can support American workers by buying only American products from small stores (who likely cannot afford to pay health care for their employees because of the cost of legislative mandates that must be purchased if employees are covered in a health insurance plan). Be sure to buy and drive an American car, and only go to American-owned gas stations (for example, Exxon, not Citgo, Lukoil, or Shell).

    — FS    Apr 2, 10:47 AM    #

48. Perhaps it is time to accept the fact that not every person is suited academically to do high school work. Why is it that we assume that everyone has to have a high school degree? Why not let the degree actually mean something and allow those who need other means of certification be offered different choices? Then the degree would actually inidcate an acceptable level of academic achievement and the other certifications would be equally valid in the workplace.

    — Blanche Brick    Apr 2, 11:27 AM    #

49. Wow! I don’t have any answers, but I will tell you what my wife & I do.

    We read to our kids every day; not every other day, every several days, every week, once a month, or never.

    We don’t have a television in our home.

    My wife spends two mornings a week at the school volunteering in our kids classroom.

    We work on homework together.

    We never miss church.

    Lest you think I am among the ambigously defined “rich;” working two jobs, I make less than $35 K per year and my wife daycares one child a couple of days a week. We have a heavy debt load because both our children are adopted, privately.

    We don’t take lots of vacations, and we don’t buy the latest and greatest “must have” item.

    My vehicles are a 21 yr old van and a 6 yr old minivan that’s half beat to death.

    Those of you who have commented in this column and who are parents with kids at home, or who may some day be parents with kids at home: Go thou and do likewise.

    Don’t blame the government, teachers, administrators, corporations, or some “rich folks who don’t care about the poor.”

    Don’t allow your day to day life to get filled up with all of the extraneous.

    Don’t insist your kids be involved to so many activities for “socialization” that they can’t mentally function every day.

    Give everything to the ones that should be most important to you: your spouse and kids.

    You don’t have to have “me” time and you don’t need “space.”

    — R2    Apr 2, 11:40 AM    #

50. The blame for the mess that our educational systems find themselves in belongs to many…and the root causes run deep. But it’s not too late to remedy our problems if we first acknowledge that teachers, parents and students are jointly responsible for the success of their students.

    Let’s insist that teachers teach. No more days filled with video clips, movies, and “self study” time – return to actually teaching. Assign homework and after-school group projects. Bring discipline back into the classroom. When students disrupt, remove them so others can learn. Set realistic grading standards and refuse to allow “sliding scale” scores. Do away with excuses based on the perception that poor and minority students can’t learn at the same rate as others. My father made minimum wage most of his life. He had six children and a wife (who was a high school dropout) to support. I know poverty…but libraries and schools are still free and open to all. I know that they aren’t all equal; but, I learned early on that where there is a will, there is a way. There are many pathways to success. Some of us just have to look longer and harder for ours. It’s time we hold schools, teachers, parents and students responsible for their responsibilities. No more excuses.

    In my opinion, the saddest joke of recent years has been state instituted graduation exams. My experience in Indiana taught me that while learning disabled students must take and pass the same exam as mainstream students…mainstream students can ask for exceptions and still be awarded high school diplomas even though they fail the exam over and over. And the “prescribed” criteria under which these exceptions are to be granted are not adhered to. The loudest parents successfully badger the system into giving their sons and daughters diplomas. I know one such student that couldn’t even pass the basic exam for enlistment into the US Army but his mama got him his worthless diploma!

    I have worked in the community college setting for many years. I think that saddest day for me was when I was told by a parent several years ago that “all students have a right to a college degree”. This spoke volumes to me about the real problems we are facing. She was demanding that her mentally challenged daughter be given a college degree (even though she hadn’t even been able to pass the high school qualifying exam previously). I politely explained to her that no one is “entitled” to a college degree rather they are entitled to pursue a college degree but they must earn it to get it!

    As the host mother of more than 15 foreign exchange students from around the world, all I have to do is look at my kitchen table in the evening to know why the third world countries are beating us. There are papers and projects piled high. There is a computer open with evidence of focused searches (versus Facebook and IMing) on the screen. There is talk of what projects are due and when. In other words, my exchange sons and daughters have come to America to continue their learning…and thus they succeed. And sadly, year after year they express confusion about the lack of determination and hard work being put forth by their new American friends. They don’t understand sliding scale scores and have been blamed for setting the bar too high for their classmates. And this isn’t in just science and math—-this includes US History classes where clearly the American students have distinct advantages. They go home wondering why so many of these students are wasting their free education…and so do I.

    — Rebecca Vermillion Shawver, MPA    Apr 2, 12:01 PM    #

51. There is a wise saying “To err is human, but to find some else to blame it on is genius” The case “High dropout rate from (public) high schools”. The prognosis: “A Nation at Risk” or the Dying (death) of a Nation? Are we leaking air or do we have a flat tire?
    Oh my goodness, the amount of money paid to these organizations, commissioned to carry these studies. Oh how attentive the nation has become to doom and fear – “The reds are coming”, “The Muslims are coming” and now “The Failure Rate in Public Education is coming”? Don’t worry, the reds were defeated, the Muslims will be defeated and sure, The Failure Rate in Public Education will also be conquered.
    This Nation is equal to any task that it set by its people. The West was conquered. The cold war was won. A man landed on the moon. Probes are on mass. Maybe there are some aliens in captivity. Bet on the U.S.A. It can and will do it. No blaming and no fear mongering.
    Konfor Masanje

    — Konfor Masanje    Apr 2, 12:24 PM    #

52. Although NCLB is certainly not the only factor contributing to such dismal high school graduation rates, the fact that so many recognize the negative impact NCLB on K-12, public education is eye opening. What is even more eye opening is the fact that there continues to be no “public” outcry from the school boards and administrators of systems that are so adversely affected by it. Yes, test scores can be increased, but at what price? Increases in test scores are lauded in the press every year, especially in those economically disadvantaged communities where the instructional focus has been reworked to achieve such an increase. It is called, among other things, teaching to the test… and it’s all the rage! When increases in test scores are announced to the parents and students of disadvantaged urban and rural communities this year, why not also include a disclaimer that acknowledges, while those scores may have reached the appropriate level, they have done so at an awful cost—the instructional time and focus it takes to nurture intellectual curiosity?

    Those students, fortunate enough to go on to college from one of these test-oriented communities, will face the harsh reality of having to compete with students who have been given a full measure of academic opportunity, and not just a narrowly-defined, test-driven curriculum. Where are our educational leaders when our children so desperately need them? Perhaps, they are too close to retirement to risk rocking the boat, or too overworked to care, or just too intellectual challenged to engage in the type of critical thinking educating children in the 21st century requires. Either way, children lose.

    — s. curl    Apr 2, 02:24 PM    #

53. The Boston Globe this morning describes the importance of parents talking to, listening to, and responding to their children from day one. (I would add even in utero.) We did that. Many others don’t, probably at both extremes of the SES scale. It goes way back, and affects outcomes. No one should want everyone to be the same, but everyone should have basic competencies that let them make choices in their lives.

    — Bill S.    Apr 2, 02:38 PM    #

54. THE FIRST STEP THAT NEEDS TO BE TAKEN IS TO MANDATE IMMEDIATELY NON-PUNITIVE STUDENT DRUG TESTING. IT IS WORKING. WITHIN A VERY SHORT TIME, SCHOOL ATMOSPHERE CHANGES, KIDS ARE AWAKE, VIOLENCE IS DOWN, ETC. WE HAVE TO HAVE THE BACKBONE TO DO IT. 2ND WE MUST EDUCATE PARENTS IN EFFECTIVE PARENTING. ASK SENIOR CITIZENS TO VOLUNTEER IN CLASSROOMS. GIVE COLLEGE STUDENTS CREDIT FOR GOING INTO TUTOR IN CLASSROOMS, SAME FOR HS SENIORS. THEY ARE REQUIRED TO HAVE VOLUNTEER HOURS. LET THEM TUTOR FOR IT.

    DC SPENDS $13,000 PER STUDENT IN INEFFECTIVE SCHOOLS—HELLO, IS ANYONE AWAKE OUT THERE?

    — JOYCE NALEPKA    Apr 3, 11:54 AM    #

55. I’m told that Mark Twain once quipped, “It’s not what you don’t know that gets you into trouble; it’s what you know that ain’t so.”

    Whether he actually said it or not, it’s a lovely pithy gem. How much of what we “know” about public education “ain’t so?” I’m often struck by the extraordinarily non-scholarly approach that otherwise careful academics take to issues that concern public schools. Why is that?

    — Bob    Apr 4, 06:43 AM    #

56. Please note: Detroit has one of the highest pay rates for its teachers in all the country. Detroit as a city has a +47% illiteracy rate….. and you might think about this bumper sticker:
    R U hungry and can’t find work? How is your foreign car doing.

    — carolrp    Apr 5, 01:04 AM    #

57. Yes, Detroit is in the top ten for hourly pay rates for school teachers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics 2006 database, although it was hard to tell from a quick look how much of the surrounding suburban area is included in that average. The Detroit area is one of the most segregated (by both race and income) areas in the country, so statistical averages mask a very large amount of variation. And teacher pay says very little about the conditions in the schools themselves. What’s the teacher-student ratio? How much is spent on books and technology, as well as school facilities? What about support services? And so forth. And, of course, a fair comparison would adjust pay rates for cost of living, which is usually much higher in urban areas like Detroit.

    It wouldn’t surprise me if carolrp’s statistic about illiteracy in Detroit is about right. So, I’m not sure what her point is: that we should pay teachers less when they face really difficult challenges? That pay in public schools is too high? That we should buy American cars? (I bought a Chevy a while back—turned out to have been assembled in Canada, and had a Japanese engine it it. But I had a Toyota pickup that was manufactured in Tennessee. Which was the American car? And what that has to do with teacher pay, I’m not quite sure.)

    — Bob    Apr 6, 04:32 AM    #

58. When my local news reported on this story they made a point of showing how the statistics used were really misleading. It wasn’t measuring drop-out or failures it was simply what percentage didn’t graduate. Students who moved out of the district were counted as not graduating regardless of whether or not they did.

    I wish I could say I found the comments about underprepared Freshman surprising, but I don’t. I took several AP classes in high school, all of which require far more homework and far more class hours than any course I took to get my BA. I would say any student that successfully passes an AP class and end of the year exam would be more than prepared for college.

    — andrew    Apr 9, 10:12 AM    #

59. Another problem that we have to recognize is that there are few options for students who want to get jobs that pay well—they have to have some sort of post-secondary education, and their options are few. Gone are the days where a student can leave high school and “get a job” that can support them, any potential family, and has real opportunity for advancement.

    While I feel strongly that everyone has the RIGHT to attend university, not everyone belongs there. And not every job really needs a Bachelor’s Degree—I’ve known many a person with a Business degree that fails miserably in the business world, and many more who had on the job training and succeeded. As such, we see more and more students at uni without any real idea why they’re there, what they want to do, or, gasp, how to do it.

    — Julia    Apr 12, 10:49 PM    #

60. I went to high school in Detroit in 1950-54 and always remember these numbers (rounded): 900 in my freshman class, 600 graduates, 300 were college prep. Most of those 300 drop-outs were lured by high-paying union jobs in the auto plants. What can the 50% drop-outs be lured by today?

    — Robert    Apr 22, 10:43 PM    #

61. I would like to know in these cities where children are not graduating from HS at alarmingly high rates, how many of these kids comes from single parent households and see what the ethnic breakdowns are in these areas.

    — Scott    Apr 28, 03:30 PM    #

62. Friends & neighbors … provocative topic and many thoughtful answers. Just a few points that haven’t been fully articulated yet. 1. Last time I checked, amount of $ devoted to education doesn’t have any particular statistical correlation with quality of outcomes, especially with public K-12 (beyond some basic minimums). 2. Real ‘problem’ is unrealistic expectations — a la Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon, where everyone wants their children to be ‘above average.’ Back in the 50s & 60s, one still expected to earn grades & credits by working for them, and there was much less ‘social promotion.’ It was relatively OK to be an ‘average’ student — in fact, most, by definition (using normal bell curve distributions), were. 3. Depending on how you slice or dice the stats, ‘true’ graduation rates are about the same as they were in the 50s & 60s, and poorer folk have a harder time getting a decent education than richer folk, for a whole host of socio-economic reasons. 4. Despite all the lip service given to improving the lot of those poorer disadvantaged kids, for the most part our K-12 educational systems are geared for the ‘average’ student of yesteryear, preparing them for regimented workplaces (factory, assembly line, office work) of 100 years ago, with time off for summer harvest time — instead of up-to-date institutions using the latest data regarding the best techniques – e.g., year-round scheduling, multi-year clustering, basic instruction in math & language, etc. Oh well …

    — Mark AA    Apr 28, 03:42 PM    #

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