High school dropouts

Political driving force of The Future of Technology in Secondary Education in 2020

Description:

There is a high school dropout epidemic in America. Each year, almost one third of all public high school students – and nearly one half of all blacks,Hispanics and Native Americans – fail to graduate from public high school with their class. Many of these students abandon school with less than two years to complete their high school education. Deciding to drop out of school is dangerous. Dropouts are more likely to get unemployed, receive public assistance and get in jail.

There are several reasons why students decide to drop out, but most of them say that the major reason was that the classes weren't interesting. Also the fact that failing was a major factor for dropouts, they couldn't keep up with schoolwork and couldn't catch up. Most of these dropouts say that they wouldn't have dropped out if they would have been encouraged to stay on school. Almost all of these students say that if they could do it over, they would stay in school.

How can these students be helped from dropping out? 4 out of 5 of the students state that the classes would have to be more interesting. This could be done by seeing a good connection between school and getting a job. Other changes that could help the students is better support for these students who have a harder job to keep up on school. Last thing is a better connection between school and parents, because parents have a strong influence on the behaviour and decisions of their children.

Enablers:

• Schools that don't help students much
• Parents that don't support their children in their study
• Low-income students that can't afford to go to school and need to work instead

Inhibitors:

• Schools supporting and guiding students
• Supporting parents and family
• Collaboration between companies and schools
• Government supporting low-income families: the children don't have to dropout and go get a job if the family is getting support

Paradigms:

About one third of the students don't complete school every year. This happens to a variety of reasons, like not being interested in school or not able to keep up with the classes. Most students that are dropouts say that they wouldn't do it again if they got the chance. Options to solve this problem are making a better connection between school and getting a job.

WEB Resources:

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/nr/downloads/ed/TheSilentEpidemic3-06FINAL.pdf