Hi Gang:

During the recent Presidential debates, the subject of Education was rarely discussed in depth.

The one question that was never brought up or discussed is this:

How do we keep Black,Hispanic and Poor White kids from dropping out of school ???

Your suggestions or opinions,please.

hippolips

Don't rich black and hispanic kids stay in school?

Rich kids maybe stay in school more because they tend to get better schooling - more resources, higher paid and qualified teachers and so on. Possibly they see the education they get as being more relevant to their lives, too. For richer kids, it's often all about getting to college, isn't it?

America's Educational Apartheid

There are many different ideas about how to improve education, but this is a problem that does need some money thrown at it. Unlikely in the next year or so, now that Bush has 'found his inner tightwad'.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by newnickname:


There are many different ideas about how to improve education, but this is a problem that does need some money thrown at it______________________________________________

HiNNN:

We have thrown billions at this problem and it hasn't changed one thing.

Blacks ,Hispanics and Poor White kids still drop out by the thousands each year.

For some strange reason these kids never get the message... that Education is the only way out of the Hood,the Barrio and the Poor White neighborhoods.

In fact ,the dumbest of them all see dropping out as a badge of honor,they hang around their schools ,encouraging those still in school to drop out.

If this keeps up we will be raising a nation of idiots.

And throwing more money at it isn't the answer.

hippolips

quote:

Education is the only way out of the Hood,the Barrio and the Poor White neighborhoods.

If you're going for full-spectrum rudeness, shouldn't that be "the Hood, the Barrio and the Trailer Park"?

Well, of course, literally throwing money won't work (they tried it in Iraq), but more money might make a difference; 'The present per-pupil spending level in the New York City schools is $11,700, which may be compared with a per-pupil spending level in excess of $22,000 in the well-to-do suburban district of Manhasset, Long Island'. Of course there a million factors other than money involved (parental expectations and support, for example) but which of those areas do you think has the lowest dropout rate?

By the way, between 1972 and 1994 dropout rates were declining, it seems. What were they doing right then? How have dropout rates changed since '94?

The big surprise from that report - 'Dropout rates decrease as income levels increase.'

I've often felt that in the bigger cities, the schools are too big. When you are talking enrollments of a couple thousand students in a school, seems to me its easy to get lost in the crowd. Extra curricular activities such as sports, only a few out of the whole school actually end up getting to participate. Let's break some of these schools with smaller enrollments that are easier to manage.

quote:

Originally posted by hippolips:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by newnickname:
[QUOTE]Education is the only way out of the Hood,the Barrio and the Poor White neighborhoods.

If you're going for full-spectrum rudeness, shouldn't that be "the Hood, the Barrio and the Trailer Park"?

________________________________________________

Hi NNN:

The terms Barrio,Hood and Trailer Park Trash were coined by ,and are used by ,those who actually live in those areas...so I wasn't being rude.
To address the problem:

No good teacher in their right mind is going to teach in those areas... without armed guards to protect them from violence both in and out of the classroom.

Teachers and administrators are constantly threatened with bodily harm,damage to their automobiles,etc.

No one can teach in that environment , where Gangstas and Gang Wanna-be's rule the schools,where kids lockers cannot be searched without a search warrant[thanks to the ACLU],where drugs ,knives and guns are brought to school daily,where parents are the first to scream when Little Johnny gets suspended for showing up stoned,or disrupts any attempt by the teacher to actually teach.

Teachers aren't supposed to be Cops...that's not why they were hired.

The only way that money would help that situation is if it was all spent on Armed Security Guards,one in every classroom,plus metal screening detectors at each and every entrance and exit on every school campus in these areas.

You may not have this problem in Canada ,but it's reality in the U.S.A.

hippolips

LR's suggestion is a good one, and it goes along with what teachers have been wanting for a few decades, smaller classes. However, there is a downside to more, but smaller, schools. Somebody has to pay for building and staffing them, and it won't be cheap. Those that can look at the bigger picture can see that money spent in education now saves money spent in the justice and welfare system later, and LR's idea would help to lessen present and future problems.

It's ironic that the country is willing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to try to make-over other countries to be like us as we drift away from what we were and get farther away from what we could be. All it takes is some understanding and some of those billions.

'Why do students drop out?

While there is no single reason that students drop out, research indicates that difficult transitions to high school, deficient basic skills, and a lack of engagement serve as prominent barriers to graduation. www.all4ed.org

Schools can predict who's going to drop out, it seems. The problems start in the lower grades if students fail to learn (or the schools fail to teach) the basics of math and English, and the students have poor attendance.

Suppose your company sent you on some training you didn't particularly want to do, which seemed irrelevant to you, and which you had little chance of understanding because you lacked the fundamental knowledge or skills. Suppose, moreover, that the training was going to be conducted in a huge and second-rate facility where no one much noticed or cared if you showed up, and you suspected that the training itself was nowhere near as good as your peers from other companies were getting. Further, imagine you didn't particularly get on with anyone there, and felt no connection to the place.

Wouldn't you think it a pretty rational decision to drop out? Dropping out needn't have anything to do with coolness or the ACLU.

quote:

Originally posted by newnickname:
[i]'Why do students drop out?



Wouldn't you think it a pretty rational decision to drop out? Dropping out needn't have anything to do with coolness or the ACLU.

_______________________________________________

Hi NNN:

And ,after they have dropped out ,where is their future ???

They can't all end up in the NFL,the NBA,or become a rock star or Rapper...what's left???

Drug Dealer,Pimp,Ho or Drug User???

Where else can they turn...Mugger,Car Thief,Burglar ???

Many aren't even qualify to work at McDonalds or Burger King...where else can they turn????

You can't change the behavior of others without their cooperation.

hippolips

Why do you expect youngsters to be in school at ages above, say, 16 or 18 [I refer to the link about drop out rates from high school]?

We kick ours (in Britain) out at 16 !If they want to do further education then they can, be it academic or in a skill, but otherwise they leave at 16.The government has announced a plan to make the leaving age 18 but the details are vague and its not clear to what extent such future attendance would be compulsory.It's not obvious why we should try to educate or train children, keeping them at school beyond 16 when they don't want to be there.We do hope and expect that they have enough mathematics, reading and English by that age.

quote:

You can't change the behavior of others without their cooperation.

The answer would seem to be to catch them young. Young kids naturally want to learn, don't they? If a kid's been turned off school early on, I doubt we can say it's all the child's fault.

It's certainly more difficult to change someone's behaviour if, by the ninth grade, they've already missed the essentials and established a pattern of not being 'engaged' academically or socially.

But, apparently, dropout rates haven't gotten a lot worse over time. The actual problem is that the consequences of not being properly literate are much worse. Some kids just don't like school, and that's always been so.

My son left school, in Scotland, at 16, for various reasons. A couple of years ago, he went back to college (I guess, in North American terms, he's a dropout, but he was able to say with a clear conscience that he'd 'completed high school', because of what Fred describes above). Young men, especially, can go through a difficult period. Sometimes there isn't much that can be done - in the end, it's just going to take them a few years to smarten up and accept that they might benefit from some education. Or maybe they find a job they can do - for example, there isn't much of a future in being an unskilled labourer on a building site, but it's a start, and there's currently a huge demand in Vancouver. Dropouts don't all necessarily become criminals.

I don't see that starting a War on Schools ('The only way that money would help that situation is if it was all spent on Armed Security Guards...') to match the War On Terror and the War on Drugs would help.

quote:

It's ironic that the country is willing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to try to make-over other countries to be like us as we drift away from what we were and get farther away from what we could be. All it takes is some understanding and some of those billions.

Well said.

quote:

If this keeps up we will be raising a nation of idiots.

We've already raised a few. Who do you think is running this country?

[QUOTE]Originally posted by newnickname:
[QUOTE]You can't change the behavior of others without their cooperation.

I don't see that starting a War on Schools ([i]'The only way that money would help that situation is if it was all spent on Armed Security Guards...'

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Hi NNN:

I'm not advocating a War ON Schools....I'm advocating peace in the current War IN Schools !
You have to restore peace before you can create a climate in which teachers can teach ,without the constant threats from out of control students, whose only goal is to disturb and disrupt.

hippolips

It was a little (very little) joke - of course 'war on schools' makes no sense, and neither do 'war on drugs' or 'war on terror'.

If 'out of control students' are making 'constant threats' and their 'only goal is to disturb and disrupt', then shouldn't you want them to drop out?