NYC as a model for effectively addressing the national dropout crisis
"Kids who quit school don't just suddenly drop out; it's more of a slow fade. Typically it begins in the ninth grade, if not earlier, often when life hits a particularly nasty patch and racking up credits in class no longer seems especially compelling or plausible. Ernestine Maisonet started fading in eighth grade, when the grandmother who had raised her died...Tanya Garcia, 19, of Brooklyn also went off track at the end of middle school. A fire destroyed her family's apartment and left them homeless for four months....Against all odds, Maisonet and Garcia are slated to graduate in New York City's class of 2007. They are among some 13,000 students who dropped out or were on the verge of doing so but have been recovered in the public school system. The city's secret? Finding out who was dropping out and why and offering a variety of paths-complete with intensive social support and personalized instruction-back to school." - "Stopping the Exodus," Time Magazine, May 3, 2007
Continued improvement in NYC Public School graduation rates
"By Mills' count - not the count of Bloomberg or Klein - only 44% of the students who entered high school in the city in 2000 wound up graduating in four years, but 50% of the kids who started in 2002 successfully completed their studies in four years. For comparison purposes, the graduation rate fell in New York's next four largest cities and remained static across the state.
Equally encouraging, when students who took five years to get through were counted, the graduation rate stood at 57%. All the arrows, in fact, were up, and if trends continue, the five-year graduation rate could well top 60% in 2007. Although that's still below the state average, we're seeing sustained upward progress - along with a vindication of Bloomberg and Klein's policies, such as shutting big failing high schools and replacing them with smaller schools.
Many have attacked the reforms, and many have doubted whether students were actually learning more... but Mills has now certified the trend. And it is happily up. So much so that Mills pointed other districts to some of the techniques now in use in the city's schools, virtually all of which hinge on constantly measuring the progress of individual students and tailoring teaching to their needs. The approach is at the heart of the drive by Bloomberg and Klein to hold everyone in every school accountable for producing results, as opposed to moving students along on a conveyor belt of failure. It's very basic, and it's working. Well done. - New York Daily News, April 26, 2007
Worth reading:
"School reform could also play a major role in fighting poverty and spreading opportunity. One sound proposal is to pay substantial bonuses to get the most effective teachers into schools with low-income students. It's simply unfair for America's neediest students to be continually assigned to the weakest teachers, perhaps consigning them to another generation of poverty. Higher pay will help recruit and retain excellent teachers." - Nicholas D. Kristof, "Gold Stars and Dunce Caps," New York Times, May 1, 2007
Showing posts with label youth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label youth. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Worst High School Graduation Rates
Worst High School Graduation Rates
Of the Nation's 50 Largest Districts
School District/Graduation Rate (percent)
Detroit 21.7
Baltimore 38.5
New York City 38.9
Milwaukee 43.1
Cleveland 43.8
Los Angeles 44.2
Miami-Dade County, Fla. 45.3
Dallas 46.3
Pinellas County, Fla. 46.5
Denver 46.8
Of the Nation's 50 Largest Districts
School District/Graduation Rate (percent)
Detroit 21.7
Baltimore 38.5
New York City 38.9
Milwaukee 43.1
Cleveland 43.8
Los Angeles 44.2
Miami-Dade County, Fla. 45.3
Dallas 46.3
Pinellas County, Fla. 46.5
Denver 46.8
Thursday, February 8, 2007
THE CHILDREN ARE OUT FUTURE? IF SO, OH BOY...
My vehicle needed maintenance so I had the unfortunate task of catching public transportation. That, in most cities, would be great but in Miami...but I digress. I walked from my stop to home and the middle school/junior high, however they are called today is behind it. So as I'm walking, there are a group of teens, maybe 8th graders, and they congested the entire sidewalk. Now most people would walk on one side to allow the path going the opposite way to clearly get through. No, not this crowd. Most folk would probably wait to allow this to subside. No, not me. They wouldn't move and neither would I so finally, some of them just gave way and were leaned over to the fence since I had my backpack on me.
What is up with these little juveniles thinking they can have their way? What happened to the days when, though teens rebelled, they still had respect for adults? I was a teenager just ten years ago. Granted, the youth in my time, we rebelled but for the most part, we still had to respect our elders. Just ten years later, that respect has melted away. That same school is where my nephew once attended. Because of the problems at that school, as with all black schools, we took him out but on the day we disenrolled (yeah, it's not a word, but hey lol) him from said school, there was a girl who was giving lip to one of the male administrators and instead of putting his foot down, he decided he wanted to laugh and joke with the girl. What kind of bullish is that? And that same girl, as she was walking to class, was giving lip to a female security guard who was advising her to get to class. The girl turned around and in her very eloquent way, told the security guard --who really wasn't, just the secretary doing someone else's job-- "Lady, why is you still talking?" I was appalled by two things: the teen's audacity to speak to an adult, a school employee as such and, "lady, why IS you still talking"? What exactly is going on with our schools that our kids cannot speak grammatically correct? And they are not ashamed that they cannot speak correctly.
What pisses me off more with this batch of youth is that they have the "I don't care" attitude when it comes to everything that will benefit them in the long run but if you argue with them over a souped up ride, or which entertainer is the best, or about some lame boy or girl cheating on them, chances are they'll end up dead by a gun shot or a knife wound. And for the most part, their parents aren't even around because they are working, two or maybe three jobs to support them or because of a single parent family household. Or in a lot of cases, these parents just don't give a f*ck. But they'll be ready to swing if their child commits a crime and claim they are innocent, no matter what the evidence may suggest.
And what about these teenaged parents? They are getting younger and younger. I was on the bus and heard a 7th grader talking about how a fellow classmate was pregnant... and may have AIDS. Correct me if I'm wrong but in 7th grade, the average age is what, 12? So when you're 24, your child will be 12. Wow. And where are her parents? It's sad that now parents aren't allowed to know when their child is taking AIDS test or about their sexual history but a parent can be found in neglect for not giving proper care for their sickly child. Our government is a wonderful thing, huh. I looked in the newspaper this morning to read the front page, then I read the local section, then sports, then the business section. On the front page of the sports, they had the high school football players who signed with national colleges to further their sports careers. This one young man, held a baby in his arms, about 13 mos-18 mos old. The boy has to be 17 or 18. But I assumed maybe it was his little brother or perhaps a nephew.
Why am I so naive? This college bound young man was actually holding his son. Where are his parents, or where were they to advise him on having sex, and unprotected sex at that? Back in my day, a child was shamed for having premarital sex and if a baby was borne of this, then that was double the shame. Like Fantasia said, it's like a badge of honor now. No it is not. When will we get out of the mentality that having a child as a child don't make you cute, nice, or any adjective close to those words? Me, I know I have goals in life and nothing will prevent me from achieving those goals. My parents made sure that I was properly educated in school and at home. They made sure to train me to have an open mind and to look at the broader picture in life. That is sorely missing with today's parents and their children. Sadly, it'll only get worse because if you tell these parents about their children, they get offended, want to curse you out and more often than not, the child will curse you out, too, as they are cussing like sailors these days IN FRONT OF THEIR PARENTS, no less. The fact that we have so many parents who had children when they were teens have given way to today's youth feeling like their parents are their friends and not the authoratative figures, which gives these little monsters leeway to talk to their teachers and administrators the way they do because they talk to their parents that way. And then, when you do chastise, or better yet, beat them, Child Protective Services are called for child abuse. This is another reason why these ingrates get away with so much because rights have been removed from the parents. What happened in the last couple of decades? I'm fed up with this.
What is up with these little juveniles thinking they can have their way? What happened to the days when, though teens rebelled, they still had respect for adults? I was a teenager just ten years ago. Granted, the youth in my time, we rebelled but for the most part, we still had to respect our elders. Just ten years later, that respect has melted away. That same school is where my nephew once attended. Because of the problems at that school, as with all black schools, we took him out but on the day we disenrolled (yeah, it's not a word, but hey lol) him from said school, there was a girl who was giving lip to one of the male administrators and instead of putting his foot down, he decided he wanted to laugh and joke with the girl. What kind of bullish is that? And that same girl, as she was walking to class, was giving lip to a female security guard who was advising her to get to class. The girl turned around and in her very eloquent way, told the security guard --who really wasn't, just the secretary doing someone else's job-- "Lady, why is you still talking?" I was appalled by two things: the teen's audacity to speak to an adult, a school employee as such and, "lady, why IS you still talking"? What exactly is going on with our schools that our kids cannot speak grammatically correct? And they are not ashamed that they cannot speak correctly.
What pisses me off more with this batch of youth is that they have the "I don't care" attitude when it comes to everything that will benefit them in the long run but if you argue with them over a souped up ride, or which entertainer is the best, or about some lame boy or girl cheating on them, chances are they'll end up dead by a gun shot or a knife wound. And for the most part, their parents aren't even around because they are working, two or maybe three jobs to support them or because of a single parent family household. Or in a lot of cases, these parents just don't give a f*ck. But they'll be ready to swing if their child commits a crime and claim they are innocent, no matter what the evidence may suggest.
And what about these teenaged parents? They are getting younger and younger. I was on the bus and heard a 7th grader talking about how a fellow classmate was pregnant... and may have AIDS. Correct me if I'm wrong but in 7th grade, the average age is what, 12? So when you're 24, your child will be 12. Wow. And where are her parents? It's sad that now parents aren't allowed to know when their child is taking AIDS test or about their sexual history but a parent can be found in neglect for not giving proper care for their sickly child. Our government is a wonderful thing, huh. I looked in the newspaper this morning to read the front page, then I read the local section, then sports, then the business section. On the front page of the sports, they had the high school football players who signed with national colleges to further their sports careers. This one young man, held a baby in his arms, about 13 mos-18 mos old. The boy has to be 17 or 18. But I assumed maybe it was his little brother or perhaps a nephew.
Why am I so naive? This college bound young man was actually holding his son. Where are his parents, or where were they to advise him on having sex, and unprotected sex at that? Back in my day, a child was shamed for having premarital sex and if a baby was borne of this, then that was double the shame. Like Fantasia said, it's like a badge of honor now. No it is not. When will we get out of the mentality that having a child as a child don't make you cute, nice, or any adjective close to those words? Me, I know I have goals in life and nothing will prevent me from achieving those goals. My parents made sure that I was properly educated in school and at home. They made sure to train me to have an open mind and to look at the broader picture in life. That is sorely missing with today's parents and their children. Sadly, it'll only get worse because if you tell these parents about their children, they get offended, want to curse you out and more often than not, the child will curse you out, too, as they are cussing like sailors these days IN FRONT OF THEIR PARENTS, no less. The fact that we have so many parents who had children when they were teens have given way to today's youth feeling like their parents are their friends and not the authoratative figures, which gives these little monsters leeway to talk to their teachers and administrators the way they do because they talk to their parents that way. And then, when you do chastise, or better yet, beat them, Child Protective Services are called for child abuse. This is another reason why these ingrates get away with so much because rights have been removed from the parents. What happened in the last couple of decades? I'm fed up with this.
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