Angry board spurns dropout study (truth must hurt)

Just one more example of inferior public schools-the answer is NOT more
money for the Teacher's union!

Angry board spurns dropout study (truth must hurt)

California Poppy...

This is a most interesting article and study. I am sure that the
dropout rates are reflected in most inner city schools. I would like
to see studies about better vocational education programs in high
schools and what that does to the dropout rate. Right now, most high
schools try to be college prep and as a result don't address the needs
of the 80% of students who do not go to college. No wonder they drop
out. Why should someone who doesn't plan to go to college need algebra?

Alan Lichtenstein...

As we all know, all this report reveals is something that intelligent
people knew intuitively all along: Student failure is NOT equivalent to
school failure( whatever that is ). More money will enhance programs
for those students who are attentive to task and therefore, take
advantage of those programs. Students who fail to be attentive to their
responsibilities will receive no benefit. So when Mr. Higgins says that
the answer is not more money, he's wrong. M ore money will definately
improve student learning, for those students who fulfill their part of
the learning experience. Public schools have the obligation to take in
ALL students. If private schools were faced with the same requirement,
their rates of achievement would be no better, and people like Mr.
Higgins know that.

As to your comment, I can address that question with some basis. In
NYC, vocational programs at vocational high schools had drop-out rates
of under 5%, far below that of the 'academic' high schools. The reason
for that is also obvious. Students attending those schools had to be
motivated to learn that trade, and that motivation led to greater sense
of responsibility to task, hence greater tendency to complete the
vocational program. Since NYC vocational high schools have become more
selective, in that they insist that their students are at least on grade
level, they eliminate those students socially promoted, who form the
bulk of the drop-out population.

Vocational training is NOT, as a consequence, an alternative to those
who can't make it in traditional settings. Quite the contrary, those
entering vocational programs must be up to snuff academically, and who
just want to pursue a different career path. In point of fact, in NYC,
one vocational high school, Aviation High School, is consistently among
the leaders in student achievement in the borough of Queens, as far as
results on the mandated State Regents Examinations, making it one of the
best 'academic' high schools in the borough.

Your comment somehow implies that vocational training is an alternate to
those who cannot make it in traditional academic settings, and thus
implies an unwarranted lower status for those programs. The fact is the
opposite. Vocational training cannot help those who form thebulk of the
drop-out pool, because they simply cannot qualify for that training, and
are excluded from it on that basis. So the only place for them is in
the general academic programs, for which, they are grossly unprepared,
as a consequence of their having been socially promoted. So they drop-out.

Jerry Okamura...

Does it really matter "why" they drop out? It would seem to me, it only
matters, if you do something to actually reduce the drop out rate.

Alan Lichtenstein...

Indeed it does matter why they drop out. Because if the reason is due
to some failing on the part of the individual and his/her parents, and
consequently, beyond the ability of the school or society to correct,
then such should be said, and understood by everyone. But if you adopt
the foolish position that many do-gooders and reactionaries do, and
ignore those factors, then you come up with erroneous conclusions, which
consequently waste your money.

Jerry Okamura...

It "may be" beyond the ability of the school to correct, but it is not
beyond the ability of society to correct, it seems to me.

Alan Lichtenstein...

Really? Please tell us how. I would be fascinated by your approach and
suggestions, as to how society can 'force' its citizens to be better
parents and have greater personal responsibility.

Jerry Okamura...

Now you are getting a little over dramatic. In the first place I never used
the word "force", you just introduced the word. And I have said repeatedly
what I think would go a long way to improve the current success rate. That
is, to somehow convince the parents/caregivers of children to put the
education of their children near the top, or at the top of their list of
priorities. Are you going to argue that in itself, would not be a positve
step?

Alan Lichtenstein...

Hardly dramatic. A better word would be pragmatic. And the word is
'force.' Because it is evident that they're not being good parents,
because whatever they're doing somehow is for their convenience. So
behavior modification in their case would indeed require you to force
that behavior.

Jerry Okamura...

If we have to "force" parent/caregivers to change, I personnaly do not like
that idea one bit, and I am not even convinced that would be successful.
I'd prefer that we "educate" the parents/caregivers about the important role
they play in determing if the children under their care are successful in
school or are not successful in school. I would prefer that we "help" the
parents/caregivers who want to play a bigger role in their childrens
education.

Now, just how do you plan to do this? You haven't got a clue, if your
remaining post is any indication.

California Poppy...

I am very much in agreement with you that schools can't make up for bad
parenting, no matter how much money is poured into schools. However, I
do know in one case where parenting classes for parents of preschoolers
made them better parents which of course, helped the school. So I
would put much more money into requiring parenting classes before
children are admitted to school. There is still hope if the child is
age 3, 4, or 5. But there is little hope of any positive change at age
16, 17, 18. I would also hope that society would stop blaming schools
for things that are not in their ability to change. Dropouts is a good
example.

Rita...

I think parenting classes on how to help your child do well in school
is a great idea. They should include emphasis on having books in the
home and using the library to obtain them for the child. I am always
heartened at my local library when I see a parent checking out a stack
of children's books with a beaming child in tow. This resource is
widely available.

Alan Lichtenstein...

I don't think that much will come of it, however, I do agree that it is
up to the society to try. it won't work, because the problem is overtly
parenting, but the underlying problem is values. Those who have
children who drop out frequently have failed to inculcate appropriate
values for schooling and personal responsibility to their offspring. I
don't see that parenting classes will solve that in any way, however, I
do agree that the effort should be made, as you suggest. Those classes
will certainly not be very costly. Problem is how will you require them
and what will you do if the parents don't take them? You can't exclude
their children from school, despite my wishing it could be so. And the
very children whose parents need them will be the ones who don't show up.

California Poppy...

Often the problem with parents is that they haven't a clue as to how to
parent. Attending a class helps give them some norms. In the case I
observed the children were not allowed to attend the preschool until
the parents had attended a class. After the first one, the parents
were eager. They need a support group since parenting is not easy.

Rita...

No, it is not, even for those well motivated. There are classes for
everything else under the sun -- why not parenting? I would have
given a lot to have a class that taught me how to handle a newborn --
it doesn't come naturally no matter what some think. And Dr. Spock
taught me about the terrible two's and other developmental stages.
And all in all, Dr. Spock was more right on than the received wisdom
floating around. I had no problem valuing education because my
family valued it for me, but there was much of the rest of it that
I could have used help with.

Increased funding ALWAYS benefits those who take advantage of that
funding, and NEVER benefits those who, due to their own accord, fail to
meet their responsibilities. Mr. Higgins, and his ilk would like to
ignore that very real scenario so that they may be able to continue to
believe that it is the public schools( and not the students who attend
them ) which are the problem. Such is further from the truth.

Jerry Okamura...

Doesn't that also depend on whether the public school system is part of the
solution to the percevied problem and not part of the problem to solving the
perceived problem?

Alan Lichtenstein...

Since it is evident that the schools exert little influence on the
reasons that students drop out, those decisions being made by the
students, they( the schools ) cannot realistically be perceived to be
part of the solution. I know there are tons of funds for drop-out
prevention, but these funds are wasted, as they attempt to solve a
problem that it is beyond their ken to solve.

Jerry Okamura...

Well, I am not so sure about that. Probably not possible, but if you made

Alan Lichtenstein...

Well I am. And my certainty is backed up by 37 years of experience.
Just what is YOUR frame of reference?

Jerry Okamura...

Well, just because you have 37 years of experience doesn't mean you know the
answer. My frame of reference is my childrens education, the success rate
of private schools, the success rate of the southeast asians. And some
common sense.

Probably not possible, but if you made

it more interesting to be in school, perhaps more of them would not drop
out?

Alan Lichtenstein...

Please. It is NOT the job of the school to entertain the child, which
is what you're proposing. The school's job is to provide an education,
and the child's job is to learn it. It is NOT the school's job to do
the child's job. Understand that.

Jerry Okamura...

Now, that is downright foolish. You must know of teachers who are able to
make the learning experience a joy and teachers who do not.

Now, if you want to argue that the public schools caused the problem
through the doctrine of social promotion, there you will be on firm
grounds. But the obvious solution is to end that doctrine, and that
requires NO money at all. It will increase, for the short term, the
drop-out rate, but is should be understood that such is a function
particular to the students themselves, and not the schools. That
understood, then any drop out rate is acceptable, since the schools have
no influence over those personal choices.

Jerry Okamura...

My attitude about social promotions is, it is not helping the students, it
is hurting the students....

Alan Lichtenstein...

Good. Now you understand why they drop out. when they progress to
where they ought not to have progressed and realize they're in way over
their heads, they simply drop out as a convenient way to cop out.

Jerry Okamura...

No, I do not think that just because you socially promote someone, that is
the major reason children drop out of school.

Increased funding for program enhancement can only be used to benefit
those who have the prerequisites to benefit from those offerings. Those
are the students who are on grade level, attend school regularly, are
attentive to task and have parents who inculcate the appropriate value
for schooling.

js...

You work in the mail room. You have 25 boxes to deliver to three
floors. Your cart only holds 10 packages at a time. 6 packages go to
the 10th floor, 14 go to the 15th floor and the rest go to the 29th
floor. All the packages need to be delivered before lunch. It takes
15 minutes to deliver to the top floor but only 10 minutes to deliver
to middle floors. You have 35 minutes to deliver all the packages or
get fired.

You do the math.

Joe Avalon...

Liberal mail room clerk to upper management - How do I do this if you
don't give me a plan?

City school board members angrily denounced a study that estimates 35
percent of high school students -- including nearly half of all black male
students -- drop out of Pittsburgh Public Schools.

The Rand Corp. study, commissioned by city school Superintendent Mark
Roosevelt and released yesterday, said the drop-out rate was average for a
large, urban district.

But most members of the school board questioned the accuracy of the
research, and at least two members promised to mount a vigorous campaign to
discredit the report and minimize any damage it might cause the district.

"It's very incendiary to put something like this out there when there's so
much gray area and speculation," board member Randall Taylor said at a
meeting last night. "For us to tell the city we are not graduating this many
students, this is devastating to the city."

Board member Mark Brentley Sr. was appalled to find out that Rand had posted
the study on its Web site yesterday. He encouraged his colleagues to demand
it be pulled off the site or at least include a disclaimer stating that the
study is not accepted by the school board nor is it the official stance of
the board.

"This is misleading and can be hurtful to people who have worked so hard,"
Mr. Brentley said. "This is one company's opinion or guesstimate and can be
damaging if it's released. Let's dig more, then put out something more
accurate, and if it's close to those numbers, let's go with it and stand by
it."

Rand representatives, however, stood by their study.

Researcher Brian Gill said the study shows that there's a "lot of
improvement possible here," and Mr. Roosevelt, who did not attend last
night's Education Committee meeting, said in an earlier interview that he
couldn't agree more.

"We don't intend to let this sit on the shelf," he said of Rand's work. "We
intend to use it to try to make things better."

To arrive at their estimates, Dr. Gill and colleague John Engberg tracked
two classes of students from their entry into high school until the time
they graduated or dropped out. Rand said researchers traditionally have used
less reliable means to calculate graduation and dropout rates.

Rand estimated that 64 percent of Pittsburgh students graduate within five
years of entering public high school. They looked at a five-year period
because many students repeat ninth grade. As many as 2 per-cent of students
remained in school after five years and were not counted toward graduation
or dropout rates, Dr. Gill said.

Rand tracked 6,100 students who entered ninth grade during the 1999-2000 and
2000-01 years.

The biggest bone of contention at last night's meeting had to do with the 20
percent of students who left the district during the study and were
unaccounted for.

"What did you do with the 20 percent? You have no idea what happened to
these kids," said board member Theresa Colaizzi. "There's some uncertainty
about the graduation rate because we don't know what happened to 20 percent
of the kids."

Dr. Gill said they performed the study on the prediction that 40 percent of
the missing 20 percent did graduate.

Rand representatives said use of student data to determine the dropout rate
is cutting-edge research and more accurate than other methods of calculating
the rate, such as dividing the number of students who received diplomas in
the spring by the number who entered 12th grade the previous fall.

The state, which uses a calculation Rand considers less accurate than its
own, puts Pittsburgh's graduation rate at 74 percent. That's compared with
Rand's estimate of 64 percent.

School board member Patrick Dowd said he has been skeptical of the state's
numbers. The Rand report, he said, seems a more accurate picture of the
dropout rate.

"Rather than reject or stiff-arm the data we're looking at, we should try to
understand it," Mr. Dowd said. "We're not far afield looking at a 64 percent
graduation rate. That's something as a board we should take ownership of. We
need to look at how we can move to 100 percent."

Because states compute the rate differently and disagree about who to count,
Rand said comparing Pittsburgh to urban districts nationwide wasn't a
straightforward process. Researchers concluded, however, that Pittsburgh
fell "roughly in the middle."

Mr. Roosevelt said the study would be useful for his upcoming initiative on
high school reform, which he described as his most significant undertaking
for the coming school year. His "Excellence for All" achievement plan calls
for increasing the graduation rate 10 percentage points by 2009.

The study found wide disparity in graduation and dropout rates at the city's
11 high schools.

Pittsburgh High School for the Creative and Performing Arts, Downtown, had
the highest graduation rate (85 percent) and the lowest dropout rate (15
percent). Peabody High School in East Liberty had the lowest graduation rate
(52 percent) and shared the highest dropout rate (46 percent) with Oliver
High School in Marshall-Shadeland.

CAPA is a highly regarded magnet school. Oliver and Peabody, serving poor,
minority populations, are known for achievement problems.

District-wide, female students have a higher graduation rate (69 percent)
than male students (59 percent), and white students have a higher graduation
rate (70 percent) than black students (59 percent). Rand said lower
graduation rates for male students and black students reflect national
trends.

The district was aware of its racial achievement gap, but Rand's study
offered more evidence of the urgent need to reach out to black male
students. While 64 percent of black female students graduate, Rand said,
only 51 percent of black male students do so.

The racial disparity was greatest at Carrick High School, which graduates an
estimated 71 percent of white students and 43 percent of black students.

"Understanding the graduation racial gap in the district requires looking
within the individual schools themselves," the Rand report said.

Mr. Roosevelt said he believes many city students have dropped out because
they entered high school unprepared for work at that level.

"They get into Algebra I, and they're just terrified," he said.

He said he began addressing that problem by including low-performing middle
schools in a group of 22 schools he closed June 14. He hopes a new
standardized curriculum for grades six through 12, to be developed by New
York-based Kaplan K12 Learning Services, also will boost achievement.

In addition, Mr. Roosevelt cited new professional development efforts and a
proposal to bring in Community Education Partners of Nashville, Tenn., to
operate an alternative program for students with behavior problems.

"There are a lot of national studies showing kids are bored in high school,"
he said.

In its report, Rand said it supported statewide databases that would
uniformly track student activity. Dr. Gill said he'd like to do more work
with Pittsburgh's data, such as using it to identify potential dropouts so
the district could get them special help.