President Obama's Speech & Striving for School Success

Hi Everyone,

President Obama was made history yesterday by addressing the nations students. I know there has been controversy and discussion about this. All opinions and political persuasions aside, I really appreciated his comments about working hard, never giving up and going to school in order to discover what your special talents and gifts are. That is so true, and it is my pleasure to work with students on that journey of self-discovery and success.

My classroom guidance lessons this month are focusing on academic skills such as listening, persevering, managing time, setting priorities and knowing what your learning style is. My hope is that these lessons give children the knowledge, attitude and skills they need to be successful at school. It is sometimes thought that school counselors deal mostly with personal problems and feelings. That is true, but there is so much more we help with! If you see a student who is struggling, please let me know!

If you missed the President's Speech, you can watch it here. I've pasted the text of his speech below.

The President: Hello everyone – how’s everybody doing today? I’m here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we’ve got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade. I’m glad you all could join us today.
I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it’s your first day in a new school, so it’s understandable if you’re a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you’re in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could’ve stayed in bed just a little longer this morning.
I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn’t have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday – at 4:30 in the morning.
Now I wasn’t too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I’d fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I’d complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, "This is no picnic for me either, buster."
So I know some of you are still adjusting to being back at school. But I’m here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I’m here because I want to talk with you about your education and what’s expected of all of you in this new school year.
Now I’ve given a lot of speeches about education. And I’ve talked a lot about responsibility.
I’ve talked about your teachers’ responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn.
I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox.
I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve.
But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.
And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself.
Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide.
Maybe you could be a good writer – maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper – but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor – maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine – but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.
And no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You’re going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.
And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.
You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.
We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that – if you quit on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.
Now I know it’s not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.
I get it. I know what that’s like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn’t fit in.
So I wasn’t always as focused as I should have been. I did some things I’m not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.
But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn’t have much. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.
Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don’t have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there’s not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don’t feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren’t right.
But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying.
Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.
That’s what young people like you are doing every day, all across America.
Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn’t speak English when she first started school. Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez.
I’m thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who’s fought brain cancer since he was three. He’s endured all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer – hundreds of extra hours – to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he’s headed to college this fall.
And then there’s Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods, she managed to get a job at a local health center; start a program to keep young people out of gangs; and she’s on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.
Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren’t any different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their education and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same.
That’s why today, I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education – and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book. Maybe you’ll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you’ll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you’ll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines, I hope you’ll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don’t feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.
Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.
I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work -- that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things.
But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.
That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, "I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.
No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in.
Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust – a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor – and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.
And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you – don’t ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.
The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.
It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.
So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?
Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.
Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

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."


_______________________________________________________________________

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."