Education
Most high-school dropouts think they could have stayed in
school, gotten better grades, and graduated. They just didn’t want to.
That was one of the findings of a national survey funded by
the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. And it was part of a discussion about
dropouts in a roundtable program at the University of Rochester last week, led
by incoming School Board member Van White. The district’s drop-out rate was a
focus of his successful election campaign this fall.
Participants in the roundtable included School Board member
Tom Brennan; the Rochester school district’s chief of staff, Kim Dyce-Faucette;
former School Board member Jim Bowers; Police Chief David Moore, and the University
of Rochester’s special programs director, Gayle Jagel.
All acknowledged the urgency and complexity involved in
improving the district’s low graduation rates.
“A number of years ago, these students could still leave
high school and get a decent-paying manufacturing job,” White said. “But that
is not going to happen today.”
The UR’sJagel described some at-risk
students as “academically neutral.” These students attend school, but they are
there in body only and have little interest in the core subjects of English,
math, and science. They don’t see a benefit to getting good grades, since they aren’t
planning to attend college.
“If you talk to these kids,” she said, “they will tell you
they could have done better. They just didn’t want to.”
Jagel cited the national survey
funded by the Gates Foundation, which was titled “Silent Epidemic: Perspectives
of High School Dropouts.” Surveyors talked to dropouts in 25 urban, suburban,
and rural school districts and reported that 70 percent were confident they
could have graduated if they had wanted to.
The students believed they could have handled the workload,
said Jagel. “They didn’t lack aptitude. They had the wrong attitudes about life
and learning.”
As part of a local effort to intervene with at-risk students
and reshape their attitude before they drop out, the UR
and several other area higher-education institutions are offering enrichment
courses to area high school students. Some of the UR’s
programs are held at the high schools. Others are held on the UR
campus. In its Taste of College program, for example,students take
undergraduate courses at the UR for
credit. Seventy-six Rochester school
district students have participated in that program.
In the UR’s Rochester Scholars program, students take non-credit
mini-courses during school breaks. The program helps students improve their
study habits and learn how to cope with the rigors of college life. In the UR’s
year-long Young Entrepreneurs program, students create and run a small
business.
“We’ve learned to capitalize on their interest in earning
their own money,” Jagel said. “It really clicks something on with them. They
see this as a way out of poverty. They gain a real sense of power and control
with this kind of success.”
The UR plans to
increase its commitment to enrichment programs, the majority of which are in
their third year. Satisfaction surveys from students show that more than 98
percent would take the program again. And the UR
is starting to see undergraduate students who have participated in their high-school
programs.
“This is a big transformation,” Jagel said. “Getting them to
the point where they see themselves here after they complete high school is a
huge change. Many of them are the first in their family to attend college.”
But Jagel says it has been hard to
get Rochester school district
students to participate. This year, for instance, only one Rochester
student participated in the Young Entrepreneurs program. School counselors and
teachers can nominate students for the UR’s
programs. Many city teachers and counselors are either unaware of the programs,
however, or are too busy to complete the paperwork. Transportation and fear of
high tuition costs, she says, may also deter city students. The university
provides scholarships for some of its programs, she said.
But while college prep-style programs impressed participants
at last week’s roundtable, they represent only a partial solution.
The Rochester
school district’s chief of staff, Kim Dyce-Faucette, said it’s time to look at
options for students who can’t complete high school in four years.
“It would be nice if every student can make it across the
stage in four years,” she said, “but some of these kids are dealing with so
many personal issues. We have to look at creating options for students, and we
have to work with parents to make them understand that this is not failure.
Don’t fear this. It is much, much worse if they don’t graduate at all.”
It was a point welcomed by Police Chief Moore, who advocated
keeping students in school by letting them advance at their own pace. But White
and others were concerned about offering students that kind of alternative. It could
indicate that the district is lowering the bar for them, they said.
“This can’t become a dumping ground for the student that is
seen as not being able to achieve,” White said. “We have to look at every
student as being able to achieve, and I worry about the idea of an alternative
approach, because we are living in a traditional world.”
And White said his concern extends beyond improving the
district’s graduation rate. “The real goal,” he said, “is enrolling more
district kids in college.”
This article appears in Dec 27, 2006 – Jan 2, 2007.
