Those putrid New Mexico dropout numbers
© 2009 by Michael Swickard, Ph.D.
It was a case of them holding up a red flag to get a charging bull to stop. I cannot resist commenting on today’s news that the graduation rate from the free education in New Mexico public schools is putrid. By graduation time, the free public education is being discarded by almost half of the students.
To make things worse, putrid politicians are barging around trying to make political hay. Every politician who chortles and grabs for power because of this misfortune needs a swift kick in the keister.
The New Mexico dropout numbers show that, statewide, for every student who graduates from a New Mexico high school another does not. At some high schools the graduation rate for boys hovers around 40 percent.
Relax. I will address what to do about dropouts. But first I have to vent about how most of our politicians are so sorry that we should trade with New Jersey.
Predictably, both political parties want to look at the problem as a political issue. I got a press release today — “GOP Agrees: 54% Graduation Rate Unacceptable – Time to Hold Richardson & Denish Accountable.”
The error is that neither political party can hit water from a boat about education. Most politicians have not been in a classroom this century. It is not so much what they do not know as what they think they know that is not so.
They puff, “We must treat these students like we were treated when I was in school. Beat them until they learn to enjoy school. They will thank us in their prayers.”
If you are waiting for them to say something sensible, you lose. Many think if we would just make these students more miserable they would stay in school and graduate. We nod our heads and wonder how they get home at night because they are obviously too stupid to drive themselves.
Before worrying about junk food…
Given how bad our dropout numbers have been over the years, I was appalled that Governor Richardson was chosen as “America’s Greatest Education Governor” this year by the National Education Association. Why did he get the award? Because he restored collective bargaining rights for teachers, put in a statewide pre-kindergarten program, supported a tiered-licensing system for teachers and personally was at the forefront in the effort to remove junk food from schools.
Say, before I spent time worried about junk food it seems to me I would try to get the other half of the student body to graduate, eh? A place to start with this problem would be understanding why that half of the students decided that a free education costs too much for them to continue.
Many people believe a student dropping out reflects irrational behavior. Not me. I have been on the frontlines for the last couple of years and have spent a lot of time on just this question. In fact, dropping out may be the most rational thing they do, given the inflexibility of some public schools. Many students cannot read effectively and feel stupid sitting in class without those skills. Many cut up in class to hide how inadequate they feel and have felt for their entire lives in public school.
The core problem is that when these students were in early elementary school they did not learn the skills necessary to become literate. They were taught those skills but they were not able to take that teaching and consolidate it into long-term skills, abilities and knowledge.
They were taught but did not learn.
It is wrong to think that students who are lacking in middle school were never taught literate skills. They were. But the instructional model precluded the method they needed to achieve their own literacy, and the system is not doing what it should to catch them up in literacy. The data is compelling that they are not being helped in a way that is useful to them.
Starting the first day of school
The dropout problem starts the first day of school for many students. The system wants to teach them one way; however, it is not a way by which they learn. George Evans wrote, “Every student can learn, just not on the same day, or the same way.”
Even if they have gone years without the proper skills, they can become literate. That is what I do professionally every day. I can provide anyone interested with data supporting this.
Every student comes to school that first day curious, excited and happy. Then the factory model of education descends upon them and they suffer hours and days that for some are just awful.
My friend Janet teaches first grade. She says to anyone who will listen, “Three things we must do with our students: First, we must engage their curiosity. Second, we must give them the literate and numerate tools they need to satisfy their curiosity. Finally, they must enjoy the passage of time while in school.”
“It does not have to be a carnival, but if the institutional need is for them to do work at preparing for standardized tests for which they have no interest, and they spend a great deal of time doing this activity which most despise, the heart and soul of education is lost forever for that child,” Janet says.
I agree completely with Janet. We can do so much to prevent dropouts, but we must change our perspectives. This is an educational problem that can only be solved with an educational solution.
Swickard is a weekly columnist for this site. You can reach him at michael@swickard.com.
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I agree wholeheartedly with your recommendation of addressing the dropout issue from day one of school and also for getting away from the factory model.
I would add that strategies for engagement in school must extend beyond school, into homes and families, of course, but also into our libraries, and into other community resources.
On the issue of libraries, other states have "teacher in the library" tutoring programs, early literacy programs that stress that reading and learning is fun, and summer reading programs for both children and parents and media centers open only to teens.
It seems to help.
I see way to little of this in New Mexico.
Having taught school in New Mexico, it frustrated me to no end to see student after student drop out — espically those from the Pueblos. The wasted potential still makes me weep, and I've been out of the classroom for 4 years now.
My observations were these:
1–there is a culture of failure in this state. Parents do not care about education, so their kids don't. Not all parents, but a good number.
2–Dropping out is too easy.
3–Teachers do not care about their jobs only their summer vacations.
4–The overabundance of small school districts means more money in going to administrative costs instead of the classrooms.
5–In the rural areas there is not enough oppourtunity for kids to see life beyond the valley in which they live.
6–High pregancy rates, drug and alcohol abuse disrupts the education process
7–Kids are not given the support at home they need to be sucessful in school.
8–In the rural areas there is a lack of access to technology. The school I taught at only had one lab with30 computers for the whole school. I didn't even have a computer in my room to work on, or any for my students in the classroom.
When you write about education, Michael, you are always in "the zone"–you really get it.
I know my four kids have all had terrific elementary and middle school experiences, partially because we were engaged parents and made sure of it. Our two oldest boys entered high school with high GPA's and hope and positive expectations, only to have their bright, curious minds crushed by the insanity of the block schedule or a class in which movies and questions on the board to fill in substitute for engaged discussion. In classes where they truly had trouble, they were often allowed to reach a point of such poor performance that they had no way to recover and pass (we'd get notice halfway through the semester that they were failing). So they eventually adopted a "whatever" attitude, and barely graduated–this with IQ's in the 140's. Guess what? Once they went to college, where they WERE engaged intellectually and rewarded for their hard work and sharp minds, they have flourished.
Now my beautiful, talented and gifted daughter is entering high school, and while she is a completely different creature than her brothers, I wonder if she too will end up in the trash heap that is "smart kids who won't put up with bull".
I know so many intelligent and capable kids, from "good families" that dropped out because they could return to night school or eventually get their GED without having to bear the excruciating agony that is high school in New Mexico.
I do think the fact that our state is forgiving to those kids who step away from what they perceive as a pointless waste of time is part of our large drop-out percentages. They can, and more often than some realize, do find alternatives, and later get back on track. But the problem is it that it ends up costing the NM taxpayer two times the cost to educate that student.
This is a complex problem and no one fix is going to solve them all.
(1) "The core problem is that when these students were in early elementary school they did not learn the skills necessary to become literate." But BEFORE they got to school they had parents who were not engaged in affirmative parenting. Don't blame it all on the schools.
(2) Do a comparison of teacher salaries in the 1950's, when the rich were really taxed, and teacher salaries today (adjusted for inflation of course). Our better qualified college students are NOT choosing careers in education. What? You think they should survive on dedication alone? Tell that to Wall Street.
(3) The problem isn't just in the public schools. Check the failure to make AYP in the state's charter schools. Two years ago it was slightly worse than in the public schools. And I am under the impression that they cherry-pick their students.
That's for starters.