The Dropout Crisis
In a rural area just outside of Chicago, 150 students marched at the graduation ceremony. That is a far cry from the 300 students that enrolled as freshman just four years ago. This is not an inner city school, but it is a reminder that there is a crisis in our nation. The high school dropout problem is everywhere. Speakers at graduation ceremonies talk about the aspirations and big dreams of the graduating class. No one ever mentions or notices the bleak futures of their peers who chose to dropout before receiving their diplomas. The reasons for dropping out vary by race, sex and community. Teenagers live in the present moment, never looking too far ahead to realize what the consequences could be if they left high school without a graduating. They have no idea that their opportunities in life will be at risk without a high school diploma.
High school students do not know that there is a cost for not graduating.
There are many reasons why students choose to drop out of high school. In a national report compiled by Civic Enterprises, students who left school before graduating were surveyed on their experiences. “Nearly half (47 percent) said a major reason for dropping out was that the classes were not interesting,” (Bridgeland 3). They were bored and unmotivated. They also believed that the classes were irrelevant to real life experiences. “Thirty five percent said that failing in school was a major factor of dropping out; three out of ten said they could not keep up with school work; and 43 percent said they missed too many days of school and could not catch up,” (Bridgeland 3). Studies have shown that many of these students have low level reading skills, preventing them from keeping up with or under...
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...tart cracking down on their studies they will have a much better life ahead of them.
Works Cited
Bridgeland, John. The Silent Epidemic. Mar. 2006. Web. 16 Mar. 2010. .
High School Dropouts in America. Washington, D.C.. Feb. 2009. Web. 12 Mar. 2010. .
Miller, George. High School Dropout Crisis Threatens U.S. Economic Growth and Competiveness, Witnesses Tell House Panel. 12 May 2009. Web. 20 Mar. 2010. .
Mclaughlin, Joseph. The Consequences of Dropping Out of High School. Mar. 2007. Web. 15 Mar. 2010. .
The outcome of the twenty five percent graduation rate is clear to all that live in the neighborhood. In his book, Kozol quotes a reporter asking a sixteen-year-old dropout about how much she would like to ...
Do you ever feel like you want to just give up? In the video Dropout Nation there are a few students who don’t care anymore about how their lives go.That’s a problem,you see we all have something to look forward to in life. If we didn’t then most likely none of us would be here.Let’s go further into our topic we have here with us.
For some students, dropping out is the culmination of years academic hurdles, missteps, and wrong turns. For others, the decision to drop out is a response to conflicting life pressures -- the need to help support their family financially or the demands of caring for siblings or their own child. Dropping out is sometimes about students being bored and seeing no connection between academic life and "real" life (Furger).
The documentary “Dropout Nation” shows how difficult it is for students who live in poorer communities to receive a good education and graduate high school. Students and teachers are interviewed in this documentary to show that these students are intelligent but are not able to graduate due to their circumstances. These examples help explain the concepts learned in chapter 10 about social institutions and how it is affected by politics, education, and religion.
How does dropping out of high school affects students’ lives in the future? Students’ dropping out has become a crisis, President Obama said, “It’s time for all of us to come together parents and students, principals, and teachers, business leaders and elected officials to end America’s dropout crisis” (“ President Obama”). There are 7 thousand students’ that drop out of high school that adds up to about 1.2 million each year, wouldn’t it be nice to drop that number and help kids stay in school instead of dropping out of high school(“ President Obama”). Students’ shouldn’t drop out of high school because they couldn’t go to college, couldn’t hold down a job, and would struggle making minimum wage for the rest of their life.
High school can be tough for many teenagers. Some students may feel as if the classes they are taking are boring or the material being taught will not help them later on in life. These students begin to not show up for class and then their grades start lowering drastically. Next, these students come up with the idea that dropping out is the easiest and fastest way to escape all the stress that is caused by academics. However, they need to start looking at the bigger picture and asking themselves if quitting school is going to help them reach their personal goals. Most people want to live a life filled with laughter and have the least amount of trouble as possible. Dropping out of high school will not bring joy to anyone, it will only affect the dropout and also our society in a negative way.
Across the nation, 8.1 percent of students drop out of high school every year (Education Week). Studies have shown that not graduating from high school leads to more bad choices in one’s future. After one drops out of high school, it hurts their future occupation, their chances of getting in trouble with the law increases, and it hurts our country’s image.
Another reason we drop out of college is that we want to be independent. A lot of news has been saying that students are sensitive during the adolescence. Because of adolescence, they may think that school is “nothing”, it is just a waste of time. Also, facts have been saying that more and more students are being independent related to the school. A good reason that they are independent is that they want to have their own money. However, when we don’t know how to say no and face whatever problems may cause, we often use to drop out of college to avoid difficulties.
Many individuals that attend high school tend to drop out. There are various reasons as to why they do so. These reasons vary from wrong decisions made by the individuals to the families and communities they come from (Ciuffetelli Parker, 2012). There is an 8 percent national high school drop out rate (Canadian Council on Social Development, 2007). All though the national drop out rate is significantly low, the percentage of individuals that drop out differ by province; there are higher drop out rates in the northern provinces and less in southern provinces. A significant amount of minimum wage jobs require at least a high school diploma, but if i...
Working two jobs, paying bills, and trying to live a good life are what most dropouts go through. Education is a key factor in succeeding in life. However, not all students get to complete their high school and continue on to a college. Completing high school and getting a degree from college is the ticket to a better lifestyle. As we look around us, people are still living and paying off their bills even as dropouts from high school. However, they are living at a hand-to-mouth situation. Most dropouts probably work several jobs to just pay off their bills and support themselves. Today, you can have a well-respected job and a better lifestyle with simply an associate or bachelor’s degree. So, what is wrong with being a high school dropout? Even though the dropout and the degree students both have jobs, the students with the degree are better off because they do not have to work several jobs to support themselves. According to Staying in School..., “[O]n average, a dropout earns less money, is more likely to be in jail, is less healthy, is less likely to be married, and is unhappier than a high school graduate.”[1] Additionally, a student with a degree probably has a better chance of getting a high-paying job than a dropout. Now a day, employers are looking for students with at least a high school diploma or college degree. They want experienced people with diplomas, degrees, and educational backgrounds. Hence, Texas needs to find solutions to increase the number of high school graduates and fix the policies and their goals that contribute to the percentage of high school dropouts.
The study has attempted to identify the factors behind the dropout of students after taking admission in public universities of Bangladesh. Student dropout is a major issue that emphasises the withdrawal from a university degree before completion. Vincent Tinto’s (1975) social-anthropological approach to student dropout showed the ‘Student Integration Model’ where student dropout has been classified in two types: voluntary withdrawal and involuntary dropout.
According to Hynes (2014), there are at least twenty-five different factors that can cause one to drop out of school. These twenty-five factors can be categorized into two major groups: student relationships and environments. Multiple studies show that majority of time, students drop out of school not because they have bad behavior, but because they have multiple life challenges that pushes them to not finish school. These problems are overlooked and deemed unworthy to pay attention to. Neglecting to mediate and help abate these issues only adds to the student’s sense of hopelessness to finish school. Hynes’s (2014) surveyed multiple students across sixteen different communities and majority of the students mentioned gangs leading them to no to go to school. The gangs showed “love” to the students and taught them how to make money without an education. With all the “love and support” from gangs, they felt as though that school was not needed and decided to drop out. Some feel as though that they were alone and were “trying, trying, and trying” until they reached a “breaking point” (Hynes & America’s Promise Alliance, 2014). It seems apparent through the students’ stories that they do have goal for their lives and they want to succeed, but the pressures of the world and the places where they live seems to overpower the importance of getting an education. Parents were either absent in
In recent years, there has been an ever-increasing debate posed by young people about the long-held practice of mandatory attendance for high school students. For a variety of reasons, young people today are questioning the societal norm and attempting to invoke their own personal right to make decisions for themselves. While there is some validity to their arguments, regular attendance in high school is a necessary requirement to build an intellectually proficient, socially responsible and economically successful adult population in our country.
Teens today face a lot of pressure. Many students deal with difficult life situations that hinder them from focusing on their futures. This can lead to a loss of interest in school and school events, such as a sports, clubs, or after school programs. Teens start to prioritize other things over their education. Every year, over 1.2 million students will leave school without earning a high school diploma in the United States alone (“11”). That’s a student every 26 seconds – or 7,000 a day (“11”). The United States, which used to have the highest graduation rates of any country, now ranks 22nd out of 27 developed countries (“11”). Students may not realize that by dropping out of high school they are more likely to commit crimes, become parents at a young age, use and abuse alcohol and drugs, and live in poverty (“Drop”). Dropouts make up the majority of those
1. "'High school dropout crisis' continues in U.S., study says." CNN U.S.. Cable News Network, 5 May 2009. Web. 13 Feb. 2011. .