Re: High School Dropout Rate

cliff84373@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Jerry Okamura wrote:

Would you say that is a failue of the school system or the students, or
someone else?



That's a great question. My knee-jerk guess is that it's a combination
of culture and tradition, immigration laws, race and ethnicity.
According to one website the U.S. ranks The United States ranks 49th in
literacy rates among all United Nations countries. The number-one
magazine in sales and readership is the TV Guide. The number-one
newspaper in sales and readership is the National Enquirer. The
number-one TV "news" show is probably Fox :)

Historically, part of the problem might be due to labor unions (I'm
pro-union so no flames please). Unions are now rapidly disappearing,
but it wasn't that long ago, that you could make more money if your dad
got you a job with the local steel mill or his brick-laying crew, than
you could make with a bachelors degree.

I would go along with Bill Cosby and what he said in his controversial
"Pound Cake" speech:

"50 percent drop out rate, I'm telling you, and people in jail, and
women having children by five, six different men. Under what excuse, I
want somebody to love me, and as soon as you have it, you forget to
parent. Grandmother, mother, and great grandmother in the same room,
raising children, and the child knows nothing about love or respect of
any one of the three of them (clapping). All this child knows is
"gimme, gimme, gimme." These people want to buy the friendship of a
child....and the child couldn't care less. Those of us sitting out here
who have gone on to some college or whatever we've done, we still fear
our parents (clapping and laughter). And these people are not
parenting. They're buying things for the kid. $500 sneakers, for what?
They won't buy or spend $250 on Hooked on Phonics. (clapping)"
http://www.eightcitiesmap.com/transcript_bc.htm

I don't think the problem is limited just to the lower classes, though.
Years ago I helped my wife get through nursing school and soon
discovered that she couldn't do fractions. After that, I did an
informal survey of family and friends (all with HS degrees) and
discovered they couldn't do fractions either. My bet is that 90% of
those who post on these newsgroups can't do fractions. What is 2% of 5%
of 1/4 of 20, for example? What is (1/3 / 1/2) / (1/4 / 1/5)? Is a/b /
c/d the same as ad/bc?

Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if George Bush can't do fractions. I
would be surprised if he knows very much about the history, culture and
religion of Muslems and the Middle East. Although, he undoubtedly knows
more now than he did when he invaded Iraq. Are our problems in Iraq
largely due to Bush's lack of intelligence and education? As leader of
the free world, can George Bush tell you what are the effects of
Vitamin A deficiency, for instance?

I remember one teacher telling me once about a student that rarely came
to class and always got A's on his test. He gave the student an oral
test to confirm he wasn't cheating and he passed that also. From that
the teacher said we can learn one very important principle: "Don't let
school interfere with your education".

Part of our problem is undoubtedly due to the politics of selecting
text books for students. When I was in the 8th grade, 50 years ago, my
civics class taught about logic, politics, xenophobia, chauvinism and
nationalism. When my children went to school they memorized trivial
information about the 3 branches of government, etc.

I definitely wouldn't blame the problem on the school teachers. I
remember when I went for my second bachelors degree (only 28 additional
credit hours), my daughter looked at me and said, "Your going to be an
educated idiot!". I do believe there is something in our culture that
is sometimes anti-education.

Cecil Rhodes was a multi-millionaire and the founder of the Rhodes
Scholarship. Rather than focus on the positive aspects of a Rhodes
Scholarship, it's more popular in some circles to attack him
personally. Here's a quote:

[Rhodes] was dedicated to establishing a socialist one-world government
controlled by a small group of elite . . ."

Having muddied up Rhodes reputation, they then attack Bill Clinton with
the following quote:

"Webster's dictionary defines "unctuous" as "oily in speech or manner;
plastic; moldable; characterized by a smug, smooth pretense of
spiritual feeling, fervor, or earnestness, as in seeking to persuade."
It is Clinton's special Rhodesian qualities that gained him the moniker
"Slick Willie."
http://www.wealth4freedom.com/truth/15/EO.htm

The bottom line, perhaps, is that our culture pays lip service to
education, but it isn't ingrained in our culture, like it is in some
other countries, like Japan for instance.

Very nice treatise, however, it's off the mark. First of all, the problem is based on history. If you study educational history, you see that around 50 years ago, the Social-Emotional Philosophy of education became the cornerstone of educational thinking. This philosophy held that the primary focus of education is the social and emotional growth of the learner. Build the learner's social and emotional confidence( read: self-esteem ) and educational success will follow. Note the major emphasis is on social growth, with the unsubstantiated assertion, without evidence, that educational success will follow, as a secondary characteristic. so we got social promotion, special education( because if a youngster fails it could not possible be because the child didn't study; he must be disabled, because otherwise it would hurt his self-esteem ). Corollaries of this bankrupt philosophy were cooperative education with the thrust that cooperation is more important than competition( competition is bad because it can hurt one's self esteem if one 'loses' ). Individual achievement was subordinated to collective cooperation, hence children no longer needed to study for personal achievement. Effort became paramount, not achievement, hence we grade inflation grew out of this. To promote that view, there had to be some public way of demonstrating success, so the curriculum was dumbed-down because students were no longer achieving at the levels that they needed to.

The public bought into this, because it took the responsibility off the shoulders of the parents and their children and transferred it to the school, or society, or some imagined disability. So we now medicate our children for disabilities and psychological infirmities which exist only to support this philosophy, we do not tell our children that they are responsible for their learning, and we do not tell them that they receive grades based on what they achieved, rather than on what they consider to be effort.

Now, we have come up with the term school failure to provide yet another area to place blame. Unfortunately, you don't measure school failure by measuring student achievement. You use different yearsticks to measure that. Student achievement measures only what the individual student has done. And if he/she fails to achieve, then it is his/her fault, and NOT the fault of the school. If they studied more, they would have achieved more.
.

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