Posted on 06/24/2004 7:13:10 PM PDT by seastay
Graduation is hardly a given for freshmen in 2,000 of America's public high schools, according to a new study by researchers at the Center for Social Organization of Schools at The Johns Hopkins University.
Using data compiled by the National Center for Education Statistics, researchers Robert Balfanz and Nettie Legters measured the "promoting power" of 10,000 regular and vocational high schools that enroll more than 300 students. They compared the number of freshmen in each school to the number of seniors there four years later.
The results gathered in their report, "Locating the Dropout Crisis," are troubling. They indicate that the dropout crisis is fueled by the 20 percent of high schools in which graduation is not the norm. These schools have “weak promoting power,” or 40 percent or fewer seniors than the number of freshmen they enrolled four years earlier. Nearly half of the country's African American students and two out of five Latino students attend one of these “dropout factories,” compared with just 11 percent of America's white students, the researchers said.
The study found that the high schools producing the largest number of dropouts are concentrated in 50 large and medium-sized cites and 10 southern and southwestern states. The study presents tables showing the number and concentration of high schools with weak promoting power by state (broken down by locale and minority concentration) and for the nation's 100 largest cities.
The study looked at the classes of 1993, 1996, 1999 and 2002, and found that the number of high schools with weak promoting power grew substantially during the 1990s.
Balfanz and Legters applied the "promoting power" concept to enrollment figures for every high school in the country with more than 300 students. This significantly extends their initial work that examined the 35 largest cities and is the first study to quantify and locate the high schools nationwide that produce the largest number of dropouts.
"The underlying assumption ... is that high schools in which the number of seniors closely approximates the number of freshmen four years earlier will have high graduation rates and low dropout rates because most students will have remained in school, been promoted in a timely fashion and are on course to graduate," the researchers wrote. On the other hand, when a high school has 40 percent or fewer seniors than freshmen four years earlier, it is a strong indicator of high dropout and low graduation rates, they said.
The study does not directly compare the number of freshmen with the number of graduates four years later because the available data tracks graduation rates only by district and state, not by school. Recent controversies have also arisen over how schools calculate their graduation and dropout rates, and there is no national standard.
Other findings:
* High schools with high minority enrollments are five times more likely to have weak promoting power than schools with a majority of white students.
* More than half of African American students in Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, New York and Pennsylvania attend schools where the majority of students do not graduate on time.
* There are 50 cities in which the majority of high schools have weak promoting power.
* Nearly half of the nation's dropout factories are in the South and Southwest.
Balfanz and Legters, who have worked to reform failing high schools for a decade, see several solutions to these under-performing high schools: more effective middle schools so students come to high school prepared; comprehensive high school reform, which includes changes in the way schools are organized, courses geared to the needs and interests of students, and extensive training and support for teachers; and a substantial increase in the resources available to transform or replace the high schools that produce the greatest number of dropouts.
The authors note that no one strategy or reform model will work for all schools or locations, but point out that a national effort to dramatically improve the education provided to students who attend the 2,000 high schools where graduation is not the norm would bring enormous economic and social returns to the nation.
Balfanz and Legters developed and continue to implement and study the Talent Development High Schools model, a comprehensive reform program developed at Johns Hopkins. Talent Development is observing its 10th anniversary with programs in more than 50 high schools across the country. The Baltimore Talent Development High School -- the first school founded on the talent development curriculum rather than having it adopted by an existing school -- will open in Baltimore this September.
The complete report "Locating the Dropout Crisis" is available at
http://www.csos.jhu.edu/tdhs/rsch/Locating_Dropouts.pdf
In our school district for example, the school is funded based on the number of children, with minority children (code word for students with illegal immigrant parents) receiving more money than the students who are US citizens . I am no longer sending my child to these failing schools specifically when they are not interested in catering to us, and when the other children, get more money per pupil yet refuse to learn! As a tax payer I am very angry that my money supports these schools, while I am having pay our tuition separately out of my own pocket!!!
Milton Friedman, who may be the smartest man on this planet suggested we issue school vouchers and give each American kid a choice of schools. This was about 50 years ago, Friedman still thinks that way and I still think he is the smartest man on earth. We should have vouchers now.
One word...VOUCHERS
These schools have “weak promoting power,”
Come again? Are they suggesting that these schools just don't promote students because they deserve it? Sounds like it to me.
I heard on a news report that for the first time in ages the Philadelphia school system was going to have a balanced budget. However, they also said that 50 per cent of the graduates couldn't read. I guess you would have to say that they don't have a "weak promoting power".
You are right, of course. The same idea was expressed pretty well in 1530:
"Learning inflicted upon weak minds does not improve them, and is frequently ruinous" (Guicciardini).
Agreed. Let them get out of prison and work, start earning money, and start getting a taste of reality.
I agree. And Kerry, if elected... (shudder)... will just make the next illogical step and allow everyone to go to college for "free".
In 20 years we'll see a report about college "drop out factories" and the crisis of an uneducated adult population over the age of 23.
Education only matters if you want it to. If it doesn't matter to you, then you need to stop wasting your time and get into the workforce.
lol! and college grads who can't read!
Has anyone noticed that the silk purse industry has gone the way of the buggy whip manufacturers?
In Sweden, you can go to school till you are sick of school thanks to the massive welfare state built around higher institutions of learning.
I disagree that drop outs are a good idea. How do we know if kids are dropping out because they can't learn or because of other issues?
I went to a Roman Catholic school where graduation was 100% there weren't different tracks of study either. EVERYONE had to get the same regents level diploma.
Wait a minute. I just heard a radio ad by the Teachers association that said there has been great advancements in education. Somebody must be lying!
What do vouches have to do with any of this? You're talking about a subset of the population that no private school is going to touch - because if they do, there go the rest of the paying customers.
In St. Louis, most of the Catholic K-8 parish schools will not accept students who have learning disabilities, especially in those parishes with "better" schools that have waiting lists. In my neighborhood, Catholic kids with LDs went to the public schools until their LDs were resolved & they re-entered the Catholic system.
The tracking at the Catholic high school level takes place during the high school admission process, where better students apply to the top-tier high schools. There are low-tier high schools for poorly performing students, and there are a few large "all-purpose" high schools that have tracking within the schools.
As a teacher you are so right. Here in North Carolina, vocational schools do not exist because they believe that every child can learn and go to college. The problem is that in order to graduate students have to pass Algebra and many students take it 4 - 6 times before they can pass. Curriculum is watered down in order to promote the weak students. I know of special program students who can't read (a teacher reads their tests to them)who go on to college and receive special programs there. We need more vocational schools for those students who are good with their hands and not their minds. The mind comes later to many of them as they mature.
In the past very few people went to high school. Read Diane Ravitch's book on the history of educational methods & philosophy (Ravitch is a conservative & was in the Education Dept. under Bush sr.) At the turn of the century, high school attendance was about 5% of the population. Around WW I about 30% of the population went to high school, and it wasn't until the Great Depression that near "universal" high school education came into play. Even so, only about 70% of the population went at that time.
In the past, superintendents had the right to excuse kids from school attendance. That's what they did with the troublemakers, LD kids, etc. They simply didn't re-enroll them for school. Problem solved.
IOW, if pretty much only the kids that want to, need to, and are *capable* of going to high school, and if schools can expel troublemakers, then the dropout rate is going to be very low.
If students and their parents have vouchers and a good attitude toward education, the rest will likely fall into place. If established schools didn't want to touch them, as you suggest, I expect new schools would start appearing to fill the gap. However, absent a desire to learn and work, vouchers may not help these kids very much.
That's the point I was making. There *are* private schools for kids who are in deep trouble, and who don't want to be in school, but they're very "special" schools. Here's an example of one in my city. Tuition is $16,000 a year.
Here is another program in my own city. The website doesn't say so, but most of the kids' fees are paid by the state anyway, because these kids are wards of the court. Most residential schools like this are *very* expensive.
I don't think that's what voucher proponents have in mind for dysfunctional high school students.
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