Preventing Drop Outs in 4th Grade??

Preventing students from dropping out of school isn't just a middle or high school concern. Small signs can start showing in elementary, particularly in the upper grades when student motivation can change. I don't like to label kids "at risk," because I know we are ALL "at-risk" for something. However I saw two articles this summer that got me thinking about how we can keep students excited about school, confident in their ability to succeed and motivated to do their best. That is part of the "Hightower Way"...do our best to be our best! It is such a joy to watch student learning take place and their talents grow. That is probably the biggest reason I became an educator and school counselor.

Here are the links to the articles. I'm pasting the actual articles themselves below in case these web addresses ever change.


Preventing High School Dropouts Can Start in 4th Grade
on Jun 09, 2009 by Beth J. Harpaz (The Associated Press)
New York

http://www.edequality.com/press/archive/preventing_high_school_dropouts_can_start_in_4th_grade

Coaching Students To Stay In School (Parade.com)

Coaching Students To Stay In School | Parade.com
* this article features a school in the metro Atlanta area


Preventing High School Dropouts Can Start in 4th Grade
on Jun 09, 2009 by Beth J. Harpaz (The Associated Press)
New York

It's graduation time, but not for everyone.

One out of every four students fails to graduate from high school in four years, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

Risk factors for dropping out include low academic achievement, mental health problems, truancy, poverty and teen pregnancy.

But here's a shocker from Lynne Strathman, director of Lydia Urban Academy in Rockford, Ill., a small faith-based alternative program for dropouts.

Strathman says the one thing that she consistently finds is that "the last time these students felt successful was the fourth grade."

That's right: Fourth grade. Which means parents and teachers may be ignoring years of red flags.

"Dropping out of school is often the result of a long process of disengagement," agreed Stuart Udell, chairman of the National Dropout Prevention Center, based at Clemson University in South Carolina. And typically, he added, kids have multiple risk factors rather than one simple problem. Here are a few of the issues related to teenage dropouts:

-Adult responsibilities, from work to child-rearing.

Among girls who have babies at age 17 or younger, 60 percent drop out of high school, according to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. Udell said boys who become fathers are at higher risk too.

One famous example: Levi Johnston, father of Bristol Palin's baby, interrupted his studies to become an apprentice electrician in Alaska. But the apprenticeship required a high school degree, and he left the program. Bristol graduated with her class, but Levi has not yet earned his diploma, according to interviews in the July issue of GQ magazine and on "Larry King Live."

-Truancy, learning disabilities and mental health problems.

"Truancy is a symptom," not the cause, of dropping out, according to Frederic Reamer, professor at the Rhode Island College School of Social Work and author with his wife of "Finding Help for Struggling Teens: A Guide for Parents and the Professionals Who Work With Them."

Strathman said kids who can't succeed academically often become truants because school is "so frustrating to them. They're labeled that they're lazy, but they don't know how to function in school because of a learning disability or a mental health issue." Low achievement leads to behavioral problems: "They felt like failures, and they made themselves get kicked out."

John Stack, administrator of the Life Skills Center of Akron, Ohio, an alternative school for kids ages 16-22, said it's not unusual for dropouts to enroll in his school "at a fourth-grade reading level. We're trying to get people to understand that if these kids go from a fourth-grade level to a seventh-grade level, that's progress."

Only 64 percent of Hispanic students graduate in four years, with lack of English fluency and inadequate early schooling in other countries among the factors.

But kids from affluent, educated families drop out of school too. Reamer said that in those cases, truant or defiant teens may be academically capable, but often come from "a family where there's a lot of chaos, where parents may be divorcing, or where there may be alcoholism or mental illness. I don't suggest we have to tolerate or excuse the behavior. But it requires quick, constructive intervention and skilled professional help."

Reamer added that "a teenager who may be at risk of dropping out may also be at risk of slitting her wrists, or overdosing, or getting pregnant, or having an eating disorder."

While some kids act out, others may withdraw. They may have sexual orientation issues, or simply not fit in. "They are square pegs in a round hole," Reamer said.

Therapy, special academic programs recommended by independent educational consultants, and even online courses for kids who can work independently from home are among the options.

In addition to chairing the National Dropout Prevention Center, Udell is CEO of Penn Foster, an online high school diploma and college degree program. Two-thirds of Penn Foster's 50,000 high school students are over age 20. These online classes are the 21st-century equivalent of correspondence courses: Penn Foster was founded in 1890.

-Boredom. Nearly half the dropouts in a 2006 survey by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said they left school because it was boring and irrelevant.

Frank Scafidi knows about that: His son was "deemed a 'difficult' child" in school. Then an assessment showed that the 8-year-old boy was working on a ninth-grade level. Scafidi's wife home-schooled the child until he enrolled in a Sacramento middle school. Trouble started again in high school, so as a teen, he took the California High School Proficiency Exam. Today the young man is in the Air Force, having scored "the highest possible score on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery exams," Scafidi said.

-Lack of extracurricular activities. Stacy Hansen, drama director of Valley High School in West Des Moines, Iowa, says kids who aren't engaged outside of class risk becoming "disconnected to the high school community."

Hansen's recent production of "The Grapes of Wrath" had 110 actors and 40 kids backstage. "People say, 'Why do you put so many kids in? It would be a lot easier with 10.' But part of my job is to give everybody a chance," she said.

A club or activity "creates an immediate family, a place where they belong and they can just be safe, a place where they're known by their first name and they can connect, whether it's arts or athletics or mock trial or dance, or outside of school, a church group or tae kwon do," she said.

-Finally, experts say, we mustn't give up on kids who drop out, no matter how difficult their circumstances. One of the Life Skills Center graduates this year, Bonita Winston, is a 22-year-old mother of five. Empowered by a high school degree, she's got a career goal: Working in anesthesiology.

"If anybody can give an epidural," she said, "it should be me."

Beth J. Harpaz is the author of several books including "13 Is the New 18."


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Coaching Students To Stay In School
by Peg Tyre
published: 06/07/2009


The South Atlanta Educational Complex is a vast brick-and-glass building housing 1000 or so 9th- through 12th-graders. While its students look like those from any big-city school district, administrators estimate that about 85% come from families whose income is below the federal poverty line. In addition to getting an education, many of these teens are supporting a child or younger siblings or caring for an elderly relative or sick parent. Some are in foster care, and some are homeless. Others are children of recent immigrants who work long hours and don't know how to help them thrive academically.

Until recently, South Atlanta was one of the estimated 1,000 high schools in the U.S. where, at most, 50% of freshmen received diplomas three years later. Collectively, America's more than 20,000 high schools graduate just 71% of their students. This means 1.2 million young people a year -- about 7000 every school day -- are dropping out without the necessary skills to get and keep a good job.

Low graduation rates affect America's ability to compete in the global workplace. "To get this economy back on track, we need to lower our high school dropout rates," says U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. "These students need an education, and our economy needs these students." A 2008 report from the nonprofit organization Education Trust found that the United States is the only industrialized country where teens are less likely than their parents to earn a high school diploma.

All of us suffer when our high schools fail. Economists estimate that the students who drop out each year result in $320 billion in lost wages, taxes, and productivity. In recent testimony before Congress, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates singled out improving graduation rates as a priority. "Every student in America should graduate ready for college, a career, and life," he said. "Every child. No exceptions."

Dropouts are also a drain on tax dollars. Adults who've never worn a cap and gown are more likely to draw on government resources like welfare and Medicaid. UC Santa Barbara researchers studied high school dropouts in California and found that each year's group of dropouts cost the state $46.4 billion over their lifetimes. Part of that astronomical figure comes from correctional costs. "Kids who don't graduate are more likely to get into trouble and end up in jail," says former U.S. Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell, who founded America's Promise Alliance, a nonprofit group that aims to improve graduation rates. "It's a loss of human talent that will hurt America and that we can't afford." Currently, around 40% of state prison inmates are high school dropouts.

School districts have been experimenting with different ways to combat the dropout problem. One of the most promising approaches is being tried in Georgia, a state that posted a woeful 58% graduation rate a few years ago. In this program, at-risk teenagers are matched with graduation coaches. Like sports coaches, graduation coaches nag, guide, coax, and cheer their students toward earning enough credits to get to the finish line—in their case, graduation day.

"Coaches address one of the largest needs of kids who are falling between the cracks," says Jay Smink, executive director of the National Dropout Prevention Center at Clemson University in South Carolina. "They let them build a strong relationship with a caring adult. Coaching is one of the best programs we have to help kids stay in high school."

In Atlanta, there is a graduation coach at every middle and high school. Thanks to the coach program, which started in 2006, and to other anti-dropout efforts, South Atlanta's graduation rate has leapt from 35.4% to 77.4%.

Dollimeshia Richmond, 17, calls graduation coach Lauren Macdonald "my secret weapon," explaining, "She helps me figure out what I need to do to stay in school, graduate, and live out my dream of going to college."

Dollimeshia's mother, Yvonne, has struggled with substance abuse and been in and out of rehab programs. During middle school, her daughter spent several years bouncing between foster care and living with her mom. The chaos in Dollimeshia's life was reflected in the transcripts of her freshman and sophomore years of high school—her grades were poor and her attendance spotty. But Dollimeshia was determined to change. "I didn't want to live the way I'd been living," she says. "I wanted to graduate from high school, go to college, and do better so I could help my mother and my family," she says.

Enter coach Lauren Macdonald, 28, a wisecracking former elementary-school teacher. Each day at 7 a.m., some of the 100 or so students on her caseload start ringing her cellphone. She demands that they go to school every day. If they miss the bus, they call her, and she picks them up on her way in.

Once Macdonald's students are in their classrooms, she meets with some of them one-on-one to review transcripts, set goals, and devise study strategies. After lunch, she talks to their teachers and roams the halls, giving pep talks, school supplies, cookies, and the occasional scolding. "She supports me. She helps me. She motivates me," Dollimeshia says, flashing a cloud-splitting smile.

On the day I spent with her, Macdonald walked by the detention room and saw that one of her students was inside. Her body stiff with outrage, she stood in the doorway with a heart-stopping glare. A young man in the third row shielded his eyes and slumped down. "You don’t see me," he feebly joked.

"I do see you," Macdonald roared. "And we will talk!"

"Some of these kids need a lot of guidance, some need encouragement," Macdonald says, "and some need a kick in the pants. The trick, I think, is never to give up on them."

Launched throughout Georgia three years ago, the graduation-coach program costs $49 million a year. It is now also in middle schools, because experts believe that underachievement at that stage often kicks off a cycle of disengagement, truancy, and academic failure that leads to kids dropping out.

For Corey Johnson, 17, staying in school has required discipline and focus—two things that his mother, Cresia, complains are often in short supply. "He always knew what to do to succeed," she says, exasperated. "But knowing is not doing."

In his freshman and sophomore years, Corey did the bare minimum of schoolwork and often skipped classes, preferring to socialize in the halls. Then graduation coach Kemba Watson put the brakes on his fun.

"We had to get him focused on the things that matter," Watson says. To do that, she monitored his attendance and school performance. When she saw his grades start to slip, she promptly called him to her office. "She stayed on me," Corey explains.

Finishing his senior year, Corey says that his coach has helped him lift his GPA to the low 80s. "I think he has it in him to lift it more," Watson declares, nodding at Corey. He smiles shyly at his hands. "I want to make my mother and Miss Watson proud," he says.

Meanwhile, junior Dolli­meshia Richmond is already looking beyond graduation day. With an 83.0 GPA and a binder full of loan and scholarship applications, she is figuring out which college to attend.

"For me, a high school diploma is the way out, and a college education is the way up," Dollimeshia says. And with her coach's help, she'll get there.

Peg Tyre is the author of the best-selling book "The Trouble With Boys."