High School or Bust
It’s hard to get excited about President Obama’s push for more states to require school until age 18. I know kids’ life chances improve if they make it through high school. That’s a big deal. But don’t we have an obligation to make school better before we force kids to spend even more time there?
There isn’t much empirical evidence that raising the drop-out age actually reduces drop outs. So this feels a little retro. Kind of like No Child Left Behind: all stick, no carrot. You can hammer on kids (and teachers) all you want; but if you don’t simultaneously raise the quality of the whole system, then it won’t get you very far.
For 10 years, most American school districts kept the same inequitable funding schemes, the same lackluster principal and teaching pools, the same subpar education colleges. Then, under federal duress, they injected a bunch of lame tests into the system and pounded on schools to do better. Guess what? Most of them didn’t.
Washington, DC, requires that kids stay in school until they are 18. Let me tell you what that looks like. I have been in classes in DC schools that were fantastic, classes in which I had to consciously stop myself from joining in. Classes in which all the kids came in below grade level in the fall, and all the kids left at or above grade level come spring.
I have been in other classes—sometimes in the same schools—that would have driven me to drop out, too. I swear to God, the message in those classrooms was: Your time doesn’t matter. You don’t matter. It was like time stood still. Nothing happened. The teacher moved at the speed of mud. When she spoke, it was to tell kids to shut their mouths.
I know kids should stay in high school. Kids know kids should stay in high school. The cash price for dropping out has never been higher. You can’t even join the military if you drop out of high school. The disincentives are all in place. What’s missing are the incentives.
I want kids to stay in high school. But more than that, I want kids to want to stay.
It’s important to listen to the reasons kids drop out, as summarized in this 2009 Rennie Center policy brief:
Both national and local research studies have found that dropping out of high school is a gradual process of disengagement. Loss of interest in school, poor relationships with teachers and impersonal learning environments are among the factors that lead to the decision to drop out.
Spend the money on empirically proven methods to engage human beings. Then see if your dropout rate goes down—all by itself.
CarolineSF said on January 27, 2012 at 4:08 pm
Re-create an updated array of vocational-career-technical education programs and see what happens. Just a reminder that no other nation espouses the unrealistic notion that all students must be college-bound (or they and their K-12 educators are shamed as losers and failures), and that no other options should be offered and supported.
google calendar security said on January 30, 2012 at 2:55 am
Yes you are correct, children’s should enjoy their studies and learning in the schools. They shouldn’t study just for the sake of good grades and competition. It takes more than the good schools to teach them surviving in these complex world.
google calendar security
Marie Lawrence said on January 31, 2012 at 10:33 am
Great commentary, Amanda. Has there been any work, perhaps similar to the recent Chetty study, that quantifies the difference good teachers (vs. mediocre or bad ones) make in their students’ graduation rates? Does having a great teacher your freshman year in high school, for example, mean you’re more likely to walk across the graduation stage? How much more? Would be a fascinating follow-up to this post!
CarolineSF said on January 31, 2012 at 10:45 am
@Marie, the Chetty study is unsupported BS to begin with.
First, it’s not that easy to define and label a “good teacher.” No informed, honest and/or ethical person believes that “good teaching” correlates with test scores, because the major influence on achievement is poverty (even the teacher-bashers admit that, though they try to obfuscate as much as possible as it weakens their own efforts to demonize teachers).
Second, your theory would ignore the fact that correlation doesn’t equal causation. High-poverty schools tend to get the least experienced teachers (something that the current faddish school of corporate-education-reform encourages by exalting Teach for America beginner temps and disparaging experienced veterans as deadwood). But kids from impoverished families are far more likely to drop out in any case. So, the least-experienced teachers correlate with high dropout rates—but that’s not necessarily the CAUSE.
Dropping out is far more complicated than that. Family expectations factor into it hugely—and it’s pretty challenging for schools to fight family expectations. And much, much more so when education policymakers force schools to treat college as the only legitimate life path and brand anyone not headed for college a loser and a failure.
Marie Lawrence said on January 31, 2012 at 11:59 am
@CarolineSF. Of course poverty increases a child’s risk of dropping out and high-poverty schools are under-resourced in nearly every way. I appreciate those facts and their interactions. Rather I would be looking for a study that is longitudinal (longitudinal studies can say much more about causation than cross-sectional ones) and attempts to control for poverty in a meaningful way.
Also, I agree that vocational training should be more abundant and accessible and that college—more expensive than ever, with its own drop-out rate problem—should not be the only path to success. However, in the short term (before such training becomes abundant and accessible) kids have a greater chance for success by graduating high school.
Also, you imply above that the Chetty study correlates good teachers with test scores, which isn’t quite right. The Chetty study says good teachers help their students make substantial GAINS in their test scores. This means that teachers aren’t punished for their students’ absolute scores, but their good teaching can be recognized in increases in students’ test scores over the course of the year. Of course, poverty may be correlated with children’s ability to take in new information and make such gains, thus skewing their average gains downward and some teachers may be teaching to the test, but Chetty admits that evaluating teachers on value-added is just ONE in a number of ways to identify a good teacher.
On your more fundamental point about demonizing teachers, I’m sure you can remember being a student yourself, having wonderful teachers who encouraged, energized and built relationships with you, and other teachers who did so less skillfully. To recognize that some teachers are excellent and others could use improvement—as with workers in every other industry in the world—is to be realistic about the underlying bell curve that explains human performance in most endeavors. Of course, as you say yourself, poverty is a major factor in determining test scores, but it is not the only one. Outstanding teachers do exist (would you claim otherwise?) and, at least in my experience, increased my desire to engage in school, perform to the best of my ability, and aim high both in and outside the classroom.
CarolineSF said on January 31, 2012 at 2:36 pm
The Chetty study was done by economists with no experience whatsoever as K-12 educators and is being widely debunked—when I get a few minutes I’ll dig up a link to some of the challenges.
Just the fact that it was done by researchers with zero experience or knowhow about the field means it should be given no credibility whatsoever, by the way. That should simply rule it out as worthy of discussion (no matter what we think of the conclusions, in fact).
Regarding demonizing vs. respecting teachers: My point is that it is not as simple as “good teachers” and “bad teachers,” and that this entire notion has been used to attack, blame, punish and deprofessionalize teachers in an ongoing and malicious way. I call it out as simply wrong.
To respond to your points:
Yes, there are some teachers who are clearly excellent overall and some who are clearly not cut out for the profession overall. But there are also many teachers (a much greater number, I would submit) who work well with some students and not with others; many who work well with some populations and not with others.
A friend who teaches in a high-poverty school told me about a new teacher who had come from a high-SES suburban district, where he was viewed as a skilled master teacher. (This is not the usual career progression, but he had moved across the country.) The newcomer has struggled badly with classroom management in the different environment; in one revealing incident, a “social leader” in his middle school class incited almost the entire class to bubble in their standardized math tests in a pattern, thus blowing the test.
Good teacher or bad teacher?
My son had a very challenging chemistry teacher in his public high school whom he views as the best teacher he’s ever had, though he got B’s and C’s from her. My friends whose kids have the same teacher think she should be fired for being too hard to comprehend and too hard-nosed and rigid.
Good teacher or bad teacher?
You can’t be that simplistic.
Poverty is THE major factor in determining test scores and far outweighs perceived “teacher quality” or any other in-school factor. It’s unacceptable to try to deny or downplay that.
google calendar security said on February 04, 2012 at 12:46 am
I completely agree Poverty is the major Factor, government should taken some action. Because these children are the future of the country.
Shelly Wilkinson said on February 15, 2012 at 5:04 am
Why you make certain that poverty is the main cause is this issue? I agree that govt should take steps against the education problem to improve the children future life. And should come forward among conscious people to help the kids. bodycare Thanks!
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