Posted on 01/15/2012 7:00:11 AM PST by reaganaut1
More than a third of the students in Boston public high schools were chronically absent last year, even as the city undertook additional efforts to lure students to school, according to a Globe analysis.
At East Boston High School, half of the students missed at least 19 days, more than 10 percent of the school year. The rates of chronic absenteeism were even higher at Brighton High, Charlestown High, and Dorchester Academy. Across the city, 7,400 high school students were chronically absent.
The figures illustrate the enormous challenges most local high schools face in keeping students in class, and more significantly, preventing them from quitting altogether. Boston high schools plagued by absenteeism tended to have among the highest dropout rates, the analysis of attendance data showed.
“I think it is absolutely a crisis,’’ said Ranny Bledsoe, headmaster at Charlestown High School, where she has revamped a number of programs to make school more meaningful to students, but also has been hampered by budget cuts. “Are we doing enough to address it? Absolutely not.’’
Students miss school for a variety of reasons: They may be sick, homeless, working, or taking care of a sibling or their own child. Other times, they skip to avoid being bullied, or because they are bored with classes, struggling academically, or frustrated that they are so far behind that they think they will never graduate.
Carynn Donald, a ninth-grader at Jeremiah Burke High School in Dorchester, estimates that she has missed a dozen days this year, often because she woke up tired and went back to sleep. Donald said her interest in school waned in the fourth or fifth grade when the homework became more difficult and she had to repeat two grades in middle school.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
Amish?
What? This can’t be correct. Boston is a glorious and beautiful example of perfect Liberal Order.
Ha Ha you’re stupid! Where’s Nelson when you need him?
Students miss school for a variety of reasons: They may be sick, homeless, working, or taking care of a sibling or their own child. Other times, they skip to avoid being bullied, or because they are bored with classes, struggling academically, or frustrated that they are so far behind that they think they will never graduate.
... and then inadvertently blurts out the truth...
Carynn Donald, a ninth-grader at Jeremiah Burke High School in Dorchester, estimates that she has missed a dozen days this year, often because she woke up tired and went back to sleep.
bingo..
“Boston is a glorious and beautiful example of perfect Liberal Order.”
Heh.
And glorious union people build glorious tunnels.
At twice the price and except when they collapse and kill people.
Massachusetts should be quarantined.
when I read this I thought shoot..if the school is a cesspool of liberal thought..maybe the kids have a bit more sense than we are willing to give them credit for...BS after all is still BS...but then again, your point is valid as well... :)
At East Boston High School, half of the students missed at least 19 days, more than 10 percent of the school year.
Ha! I missed more days than that at East Boston High!
Obviously its Bush’s fault and we need to spend more money on education and get rid of those pesky “no child left behind” tests.
The most disturbing thing is how few people that have been given the “freebie” high school diploma (through the soft bigotry of lowered expectations) have any idea that they speak English at a second-grade level, lack basic math skills, and are completely unqualified for the most basic work.
Democrats want two things, create Dim voters and ensure dependency. Our government schools do both perfectly.. as they were designed to. Nothing new or surprising here. And it doesn’t have to do with kids being stupid because in a different environment, we would get different results.
Paul Revere will have to ride again, “The idiots are coming, the idiots are coming!” ;-)
I might have missed 20 days, total, of my entire time in school, grades 1-12. Staying out of school, unless you were actually sick, was not an option. I never skipped school nor class, either; I lived in a small town and knew someone would be on the phone with my mother before I got three steps off campus so just never bothered.
This article does not point out, but it should be obvious, that these kids are not learning a basic work ethic let alone basic skills; they are going to be unemployable if they ever do get around to graduating.
Another failure of liberalism.
How would have thunk?
http://www.bostonpublicschools.org/files/BPS%20at%20a%20Glance%2010-0225.pdf
“For 24,140 BPS students (38%), English is not their first
language.
10,040 (19%) are English-language proficient
3,260 are Former Limited English Proficient (FLEP)
11,840 are Limited English Proficient (LEP) or English
Language Learners (ELL)
All ELL students receive English language support from
highly qualified teachers of English. Approximate ELL
enrollment by program, grades K–12, is:
5,810 Sheltered English Instruction (SEI) programs
460 Transitional Bilingual Education (TBE)
programs
460 Two-way programs: Students whose first
language is Spanish and whose first language
is English learn together in both languages
5,110 Non-SEI: student’s family has opted out of all
BPS ELL programs
The five most common home languages of ELL
students are:
Spanish .......................6,590
Chinese............................920
Cape Verdean creole........900
Haitian creole..................860
Vietnamese.....................770
BPS English language learners come from more than 40
different countries.”
http://www.greatschools.org/cgi-bin/ma/other/348#toc
Black: 42%
Hispanic: 33%
White, not Hispanic: 17%
Free Lunch: 56%
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