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RSS FeedAre parents or schools to blame for low high school graduation rates?
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| Parents | 62% | 149 votes | Total: 242 votes | |
| Schools | 38% | 93 votes |
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Add to FavoritesToday, parents take a non-interest in their children's education, right or wrong as that may be. Why is this? I would like to know that answer, although I think we'll never find the root cause. The main problem is that it seems the only time when education class/program should be required is to have a child, but unfortunately, that will never be the case. If I personally had to identify one reason and one reason only for why our education system sucks, it's that the parents themselves are not involved nor educated. There's a correlation between parents' education level, and that of their children. There's something to be said about that. When the parents aren't educated and can't help their kids with homework because they themselves do not understand it, what can we expect for results?
45.3%, 45.3%, 51.5%, 54.6%, 49.6%...24.9%; this is a list of high school graduation rates of our largest cities by population (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia)as well as the nation's lowest rate, Detroit. It's not as if you're rolling the die in Detroit, and only 1 in 4 students will graduate. I'm sure there are very nice schools in Detroit. But there are obviously more terrible schools than great schools, just as there are more disadvantaged people than rich people. Economics play a part in this, as the great schools are clustered next to great schools and the poor schools are clustered with other poor schools. This is an assumption on my part, but I'm confident that a minute percentage of parents in the great school districts would allow those kids to drop out.
Let's get serious, what can a child gain by dropping out of high school? The minimum wage isn't enough to support oneself. I'm going to generalize here, as it's my opinion. These kids aren't doing anything once they drop out except drain society. These are urban areas, they're dropping out to be involved in gangs and crime. This isn't the heartland and they're to the family farm. The parents are either blind, uninterested, cannot control their children or basically unfit as parents.
What's the solution to this? Schools should be graded and rewarded/punished by their graduation rates and standardized tests. Bad graduation rate, bad scores: year round, all day school. If students are not scoring well enough, MAKE them attend study halls, tutoring sessions, extra curricular academic groups. Great schools, status quo. Reward them by providing additional freedoms, attention or even pay them. The money we supply to the high dropout schools is obviously for naught, so use it to reward the best schools. If there's one motivational aspect to kids, it's that they want what their peers have.
If the government can step in and protect ourselves from talking on phones while driving, smoking in public, etc, they should mandate schools. It's sadly more likely you'll be killed by one of these dropouts than die from second hand smoke. With the election approaching, you hear about stimulus this and rebate that. Education is not on the top of any candidates list because the differences made today will not be seen for a decade or more. You'll never be able to quantify the difference that education will make on many of the issues which are being brought up; economy, crime, health care,etc.
If parents aren't doing the job they need to do, then let's do it for them. Pre-school is for babysitting, not high school.
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Schools
I am not sure that you can absolutely place the blame on either the parents or the school systems for the low high school graduation rate. It is a little of both. As the parent of a 17 year old dropout, I know that children can only be academically successful if both the parents and school staff on on the same page.
We have to look first at the laws that govern truancy. Once a child reaches the age of 16, they can quit school without a parents permission and truancy is no longer applicable. We need to initiate and support legislation that changes the truancy age. The state in which I reside has a graduate drivers licensing program in which parents can revoke the drivers licenses of their teens but let's be serious...they need that license if they are eventually going to get out of the house. Plus, we all know that we could use the extra help with the errands.
At the end of last year, my daughter starting having some emotional issues including shop lifting, cutting herself, depression, and skipping classes. Upon researching on the Internet, I found that these issues affect 1 out of 8 teenage girls between the ages of 13-18. Luckily, my daughter was open about the problems and told me that she was skipping classes and going to the bathroom to cut herself...on school property. I met with her guidance counselor, however, he did NOT inform me of the in-school psychologist available for my child. His suggestion was that she "apply herself and work harder".
I can't even find blame in her friends. They are all high achievers and do well in school and in their extracurricular activities.
So what is a parent to do? We can't go to the school and walk the child to class. We can make sure they get to the school but we can't make sure they get to their classes. My daughter failed 6 of 8 classes that trimester. This was mainly due to skipping classing and getting no credit when she did attend. Many readers and responders will say "you have to punish them". Take away their cell phone, their transportation, and their Internet. Well, I tried all of that and I know that it leads to a child that just sits in their room and gets increasingly depressed and lonely.
During the summer, my daughter received counseling and support for her emotional issues. Even the psychologist stated that in-school support would have been crucial to my daughters academic success. I blame the guidance counselor for not informing me of that much needed resource.
When the school year started this year, my daughter was in a good emotional state, had a positive attitude, and knew that she would have to work hard to graduate with her class. She needed 21 credits to graduate and if she took a full course load, it would be 21 credits. There was no room for error. The pressure was immense and ultimately ended up in her failing 2 classes. There were options like taking evening classes, on-line classes, and going to the alternative school.
The end result is that my daughter dropped out. I think this is a common teenage reaction to the pressures, the feeling of failure, and the embarrassment of facing your peers. I don't think that they need punishment added to the top of that pile of emotions.
She wasn't sure of what her future plans were. She didn't have a job, couldn't take her GED yet, and was 20 minutes drive from her friends. As a parent, how did I react? My first reaction was anger. My second was nagging. So, I did what any responsible adult would do...I called my mother. Wow, she is brilliant and I took her advice. You can't kick your children out of the house and you can't force them to go to school so here is what I did...I covered my daughters basic needs of food, clothing, shelter, love, and cable TV as I am not going to punish myself after all. That's it! No extras. No shopping trips, no manicures, no gas money, a prepay cell phone, and a little alone time to think about her future.
It worked! Currently, my daughter is taking an on-line course to study for her GED exam, has a decent job, and has decided to go to school for massage therapy next fall.
I know that I did everything possible as a parent and I know that the school could have done much more than it did. It started with the guidance counselor and his failure to inform me of all available resources within the school. They failed when they allowed a student to skip a class and not bother to look for them. They failed when they know that emotions run high in teens and fail to offer education and training to their staff to handle these students.
As a manager in the workplace, I am tasked with monitoring my employees in multiple areas that include their work performance, attendance, attitude, well-being, etc. I know each of my 350 employees including their experience, their goals, their home situation, and their challenges. Now...imagine if schools were given enough funding and enough resources to do that with our children including year round schooling. What a difference that would make for our children and for our future.
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