There should be a way of tracking the drop outs, or transfers, there is no accountability for these kids. My husband and his brother dropped out and no one even called the house.

"There should be a way of tracking the drop outs, or transfers, there is no accountability for these kids."

Agreed.

If 25% is the average off all the US, then the rates must be horrific in inner city schools - I know in Detroit only 4/10 graduate and even less finish 2 year of college.

I can't begin to imagine what the world will look like 50 years from now with how education in the US is deteriorating. So many other national issues are linked to education too, it seems likely that the more drop outs we have the more poverty and crime we will have.

**If 25% is the average of number of drop outs in all the US

I wonder what the statistics are of how many of those drop outs getting GED's or getting a diploma later on?

Isn't there some kind of program that provides an incentive to attend school? Like getting or retaining your driver's license?

I know it was waaay to easy for me to drop out of school when i was 16. I think it should have been a bit harder to get out of...all i needed to do was sign a paper!
If someone would have called me months later I probably would have gone back! By then I was already looking into getting my diploma somewhere else since I didnt know whether I could go back to school or not.
Hopefully someone comes up with some fresh ideas to get kids to stay in school.

I wonder sometimes... are the other kids better off when people who don't give a sh*t about school leave? Does it give the kids who actually care a better shot? I know a couple teachers in pretty bad areas who would probably cheer if some kids in their classes dropped out. I know that sounds awful but they spend like 50% of their energy trying to discipline 3 kids who are just insanely out of control. School is a privelege. If these kids want to throw away their lives why should we force them not to? Am I horrible for thinking this? Probably.

Pop, you're not horrible for thinking that. I agree. I do think people should be encouraged to get an education, but they also need to appreciate whats being done for them. If they can't... well... the world needs all kinds of workers to keep functioning.

No POP i dont think your horrible for saying that. There are alot of kids out there who are completely out of control that teachers cant stand. I've known a few guys like that. Im pretty sure they were cheering when they finally left.
But i do know there are a lot of kids out there who just need a push and a person who will listen to them. Some kids who have horrible parents dont get that at home and sometimes counselors need to put a little extra work for them. Of course a lot of those kids dont speak up and eventually they leave.
I dont think that all the kids who drop out have the same reasons. Me for example..I started working as young as i could (13) and i got a taste for always having money. So when i turned 16 and I could finally do full time and I decided to leave...
I think that it comes down to really helping kids who want the help. More teachers, special classes, much more counselors..ect.

Momma, do you think they should make it harder for kids to drop out? At my high school they had a program called Delta for kids who needed to make up a whole lot of credits, perhaps they could require people to try that for a semester before dropping out? Maybe, at the very least, they could require meetings with a career counselor?

Would something like that have made a difference for you?

They should definitely make it harder for kids to drop out! I'm not sure how it is now in some schools but i literally just signed a paper and went on my way. I thought that I would have had to talk with someone about it first! I remember the lady telling me "Well you've skipped so many classes you might as well..".
I'm sure its not like that in every school but it was in mine.
I think a special class for kids who are thinking of dropping out would be good. Better counselors for these kids...honestly a lot of things schools could do but at the end of the day its really all up to the student!

Momma, I think it's still that easy to drop out. I was an aid for my high school's registrar, so I had to take the drop-out forms to all the teachers to get them to sign it. The kid just had to sign and go.

I think maybe thats the first thing they should do..is make it a bit harder.

I have to say, I noticed that it was easier for me in college just because I wasn't surrounded by people who made it difficult for me to learn.

Choochoo, that makes total sense.

I think another serious problem with the school system (at least the way it was run in my hometown) was the honors/regulars classes. The honors classes were for the more advanced kids, and then the regulars classes ended up having to deal with the kids with learning disabilities and the kids with discipline issues. It was a strange way of splitting up the students.

I was lucky, in highschool and middleschool I only ever took honors and AP classes. They labeled me gifted in elementary school. Despite going to public schools with 4000+ students I saw the same group of 60 all 7 years. It wasn't until my senior year when I had to take lifeskills, a highschool requirement, that I realized how bad it was in regular classes. I had gotten away with taking health at a cc. So much time was wasted in that class disciplining and the material was all textbook and boring because of it.

seriously, with the US school system in the state it is, a 25% drop out rate probably doesn't make a difference -- even plenty of highschool graduates can't read well or do simple math.

We should get all China on the system and make junior high hyper-competative so people have to pass super-hard entrance exam just to get into a prestigious 7th grade!!

just kidding.

But the "no child left-behind" is only making the system worst, not better.

And America's whole thing with online universities and the GED is a global joke. There's a college in my city that's a decent school, but mostly it's for the kids that didn't make the cut for university. We make fun of it for being easier and not as cutthroat as "real" university, but even it doesn't even accept the GED as equivalent to a highschool diploma. And why should they? A GED is not the same as completing your grade 12 levels here.

The drop out rate in Canada is 7% for women and 12% for men, but most go back.

We have separate highschools and little colleges that help students to get their highschool diploma, or upgrade their marks in courses for university.

Jessie, they put me in the GT programs and tried to get me to take all the honors and advanced classes, but I couldn't stand the over-achievers and grade-grubbers, so once I got to high school I stopped playing the game and kicked back in regulars classes.

*worse not worst

but Michelin, AP, IB, and honors is how you snag all the money for post-secondary!!

they don't give as much to regular kids.

I like the model some other countries have adopted where people who aren't that interested in academia go to more technically focused schools. Not everyone is meant to go to college and I don't think we should force everyone into the track of a liberal arts education.

Hithatsmybike, I'm extremely lucky in that I didn't have to worry about my parent's ability to pay for school. Plus my SAT scores, etc, made schools more eager to give me a little monetary assistance

Pop, I like that model, too. I respect liberal arts education, but I think technical and blue collar work isn't given the respect it deserves. It's the basis of nearly every society.

I think that a minimum education in all subjects is critical. We can let them off the hook because they don't really "like" academics.

Even a car mechanic should have a basic idea of what cell biology or chemistry is, just for the sake of being an informed, well-rounded individual.

I don't think graduating from grade 12 is asking a lot of anyone.

oh right SATs.

I took the ACT for my US school, but there's no entrance exams in Canada so nobody does them.

Hithats, why is it the government's job to pay for every individual to be well rounded? And it's not like most people are actually 'learning' most of the subjects they're forced to sit through. They jump through hoops because they have to.

If the schools were private, it wouldn't be the government's job.

I'd be all for a private education system. I want smart kids, so I'd like the opportunity for them to attend the best schools.

Lucky for me, I just happen to live where the best schools are.

Ok, secondtofifth best, but I don't want to move to Finland or Korea.

Haha, I don't want to move to those places either.

I really wish people would just learn what they're supposed to in school, because it would really cut down on the number of idiots in the general population.

I'm thinking of the greater good, here! I swear!

Less idiots = less people to try my patience for stupidity..

"Even a car mechanic should have a basic idea of what cell biology or chemistry is, just for the sake of being an informed, well-rounded individual."

I agree with this 100%.

But I do think it's the government's job, because this is something that affects the nation and democracy as a whole, not just individuals. How informed and educated a person is about basic things--and how well-trained a person is in critical thinking skills--is crucial to the future of a democracy.

How can people be expected to vote knowledgeably and responsibly if they don't understand civics or the way government works?

How can people be expected to push their nation towards a better future without any grasp of history, what's been tried and failed and what's been tried and succeeded before?

As far as questions about what's taught in schools, how can people be expected to make intelligent decisions if they don't know the difference between, say, unsubstantiated religious dogma and scientific theory backed up by empirical observations?

How can people be expected to understand not just the economy, but personal finance, if they don't understand basic math and economic and financial principles?

How can this country be expected to grow as part of the global community if its citizenry is not at least basically educated in cultures and languages besides its own?

The list goes on and on. A well-educated populace makes for a successful nation. No, not everyone has to go to college, but I think for the future of this nation everyone should at least have to stay in school long enough to learn the basics of human knowledge, progress, and culture.

Jude, how can people be expected to make independent, rational decisions about how they want their country to be run if the federal government is the institution responsible for telling them everything they know about how government should work?

It's better than them not knowing anything at all, Mich. Not perfect, not always great, but better than nothing.

And I don't know about you, but the federal government, despite its basic authority over curricula, generally doesn't preclude teachers from injecting their opinions (from both sides of the fence) into their teaching. In my own experience, I followed up one year's super-extra-crazy-psychotic right-wing Poli-Sci teacher with a pair of the most liberal ex-hippie Native-American-paraphernalia-wearing Western Civ teachers in the universe.

I know a lot of people are afraid of "indoctrination" in the school system, but that part of education is far less pervasive than one would think.

I think it's important for me to point out that my big issue here is with he federal government taking a hand in education. I don't think they ought to have anything to do with it at all. Would I fight for compulsory education in my own state, on a state level? Absolutely, but it would look very different than his one-size fits all, state-decided curriculum system that we have now.

Michelin I couldn't agree more. I was total nerd, but I was a nerd who came from a really rough, poor background (I was homeless for my last year of school) and it was hard, as far as belonging, going to class side by side with kids whose parents made more money than the rest of the school and paid for private tutors and SAT prep classes. These kids weren't taught to love learning, but to try to get the highest grades, at any cost (some unethical), and get into the best UC possible. Funny thing is I outscored most of them on my SAT and went to a "better" school.

Right now I love my liberal arts education, but I agree its not for everyone. We need more trade school programs like they used to have. I'm all for my future kids not going to 4 years as long as they have a plan. My respect for everyones different kind of "hard work" is also why I'm an advocate for higher minimum wage. It does take all kinds of work to run America and unless we plan to have indentured servants or illegal immigrants do them, it makes sense that even a janitor should be able to support his family if he works full time. Ultimately that respect that even low income people work hard is why I am a democratic socialist.

Mich, I see your point, but I do think elementary and secondary school education need to be standardized. You can't have one school saying that an adequate high-school education requires one to know basic division and another one requiring calculus. There have to be standards and empirical measures of achievement. And in that sense there isn't a body that would have the reach or authority to do so but the government.

Michelin how do you think that the state handling education would differ from the federal government?

Jessie,

Jessie, I appreciate your point of view, and it seems like you and I think pretty similarly, I just have a very different view of how an efficient market works. I think the minimum wage hurts workers in the long run. I also feel like socialism functions to bring everybody down to a common level, whereas capitalism functions to bring everybody up, not to where everyone is equal, but to where everybody is better off than they were.

I think the government is great at teaching kids about the way government should work.

Before the first day of school, when I was little Organic, I went shopping with my mom for school supplies. She bought me new markers, and let me tell you how excited I was.

So, there I was, on the first day of class with my bold, fresh markers, when the teacher asked us all to bring our supplies up to the front, so that they could become the property of the class, so that we would all be equal. Now I was sad to let go of my markers, of which I had been so proud.

But, I've never been one to question a system, so I took them up to the front and put them in the box.

So, skip forward a few weeks and the box of markers is in complete disarray, and most of the markers are dried out. Why were they dried out, you ask? Because no one cared about them, because they belonged to no one.

And that, my friends, is the tragedy of the commons and the failure of socialism.

"There have to be standards and empirical measures of achievement. And in that sense there isn't a body that would have the reach or authority to do so but the government."

Agreed, we are divided up into states, but we are one country and there has to be some sort equality in education.

*Sorry, Jessie, I was trying to respond to Organic.

Jessie, the benefits of doing things at a state level are that it allows for experimentation and specialization. What works in one state might not work in another, but if New York figures out a great system, Texas can borrow their ideas so that everybody ends up with a system that works best for them. Furthermore, under our Constitution, the Federal government was not afforded the power to set up a school system. I believe this is because too much federal power leads to tyranny, and because the founding fathers wanted all the states to function as sort of mini-nations (because of those first reasons I listed).

Jude..

It's funny, because I feel that there's less overarching federal standardization than there should be. That's what causes certain states and school districts to consistently humiliatingly underperform others--it's not that the students in those states and districts are any dumber, but that there isn't uniformity of enforcement and accountability to standards.

There are places for experimentation, Mich--I went to just such a place as that (hardcore math and science charter school in Illinois). But those places tend to answer to different standards than the regular public school system; there's room for both.

"Agreed, we are divided up into states, but we are one country and there has to be some sort equality in education."

The problem with 'equality' in education is that every individual is so radically different, and has such radically different education needs and desires. When you ask for education to be 'equal', you're asking for a mass production line. People's minds are not products. It does not work to send them down the assembly line, installing the 'important' information, and using mass-produced tests to inspect for the 'quality' of the 'product'.

Mich, can we at least agree that there are extremely basic things which any functioning member of a democratic society should be made to learn and expected to know?

Jude, absolutely. Unfortunately, I don't feel as if the federal system has been successful in teaching those things.

But do you think a privatized/non-mandatory system would do any better at teaching those things to the largest amount of people? I'm talking a system with a built-in opt-out like what we discussed a while back.