Behind the Classroom Door; 34

The topic on this week's Behind the classroom door from Northern Illinois University is College of Education is why some children drop out of high school. Here's the modern writer Dean Robert F. top. There is no question but the fact that high school students who drop out of school before they finish their diplomas. Are a tremendous loss to the country. Particularly in view of the fact that any child of normal intelligence is capable of any high you finishing high school. And yet we know that nationally only about three fourths of those who enter high school actually complete that the diploma program. Now this varies tremendously from state to state and from high school to high school actually. In Mississippi for example. Only 62 percent of those children who enter high school finish the four year program. And in Minnesota 88 percent menes the high school diploma. And I don't know quite how to account for this

except that perhaps there are differences in the. In the well of the country and difference in the culture or the country which causes some children to stay in high school longer. But at any rate either of these percentages is too low. We think that we ought to come close to 95 percent of our children who enter high school finishing that diploma program. Now the reason there is a greater dropout rate in the high school than in junior high school or elementary school is because state law in Illinois and most other states place the minimum age for compulsory attendance at 16 years. And of course age 16 usually comes when the child is a Balti junior in high school. And I think within the memory of most of us here we can recall when. The compulsory attendance age was set at

14 years and then that was a point at which there were many dropouts. Previous to that there were no compulsory attendance evolves and then very frequently children would drop out after several failed the ERs say when they were 12 years of age which might have placed them in third or fourth grade if they had failed several times at that time we had a rural rural society so all these 12 year olds could go out and service society in a very useful manner. But today things are different whether we like it or not. There is no place in our society today for the school drop out. We want to put it another way that the school dropout has no future. I think I think that's a key point Lee over the age at which a person drops out of school I think varies from state to state partially because

you have greater availability for positions for jobs and some seeds for people who are in their teens and you have another's. However I think that as a panel we should be more concerned with what is or about school that would cause an individual to want to drop out. And my concern would be that we still tend to offer college preparatory college preparatory curriculum for all youngsters even though many of the students who complete their high school educations will not go on to college. And I think we need to be more concerned about making high school curriculum meaningful for all students not just those who plan to go to college. I agree with you already but I'd like to point out that the seeds for the drop box could be sown on the elementary school level where we have the single.

Standard program for each grade in each subject you know prior to the opening of the Quincy Grammar School in Boston in 1848 there were no great classifications and instruction was fairness on an individual basis. With the coming of the graded school I think that we got something that really does not fit in modern day society. It was all right back in Boston and one thousand forty eight but I think there's no place for our present type of school organization today. What do you mean by that Leo are you suggesting that the grade level is second third fourth fifth sixth seventh and eighth grades should be eliminated and and children make individual progression. That's what I'm saying right. The graded system worked back in 1848 because there were no compulsory attendance laws and children were free to drop out and I believe they were

encouraged to dropout back in those days. But today with compulsory attendance we're creating something with which. These some children cannot call you know I often raise a point is a good one and that there may be something there is something about our high schools that is not meeting the needs of the typical student. And we might am I that a little further to. To determine what it might be. I think Ray you hit upon one important thing that it is the typical high school seeks to prepare all students for college. When all school children shouldnt go to college. And then I think that there are some other factors involved. I think parents sometimes believe that their high school child must take the college prep program rather than some kind of a terminal program which would enable him to make a better living. And would prevent his dropping out of school right.

I think there's even another way to look at it too. The term that comes to my mind it certainly isn't original with me as a term and sort of drop a push on. Because. I see so many of these kids being exposed to experiences that really just aren't very meaningful to the kids in somewhere along the line. Educators have not through intention but just by not really maybe looking at what we know about how to educate people. We haven't been able to make some of these things meaningful or part of it is caught on. When you start to prepare high school students for some of the trades that they might engage in at the close of the high school and also in that they would enjoy more plumbing auto mechanics TV work things of this nature. The cost of the equipment and keeping it up to date is enormous and I don't think the schools have been able to afford this.

However I do think that some schools have been able to offer those programs and cooperation with industries through the various work study programs and diversified occupations or distributive education. Very example in which the high school students found as part of his time in the high school taking academic courses that are related to the field that he plans to enter. And then for the rest of the school day works you know that you know the history and I think some of these work study programs have been outstanding in terms of. Keeping youngsters in school who normally would drop and in some cases of motivating youngsters by showing a relationship between academic work and the world of work. Back to that idea of meaningfulness Yassin has become a meaningful great deal and some of them have continued on past nice cool into college work. Others have gone into

apprenticeships and various industries that have turned out very well. I think normally would have dropped out of school. I'd like to point back to still just a little different direction we're talking about the high school what I'd call push out. I guess for me I believe that this push Ah begins the first day this child walks into kindergarten or first grade. For example. We get kids coming to kindergarten who because of the kinds of things that they've been exposed to by their environment they are ready. They they know their colors they know their A B C's they're ready to go on to begin the experience of learning how to read. We get other kids coming to kindergarten that haven't learned those things but very often our kindergartens offer one kind of program for all these kids. And so the kid that starts through this experience with. This readiness is never going to be ready. He's always going to be big. Unless we do kinds of things right at this level to help him catch up and give him some of the meaningfulness.

But I mean I can see that Canada's being the place where a child. Begins disliking school and I know that grade failure was conceived of the originally to give the child a second chance a second year to learn the essentials. But it doesn't always work. Often the child repeats a grade does no better the second year than he did the first. And research indicates that he might not even do as well at that he might have done better had it been allowed to go into the next grade. And I want to child repeats a grade I think. That's where he begins to dislike school. If he does not already dislike it and when he fails twice he doesn't want to go to school and when he fails more often than that he is a potential dropout and he will drop out the first opportunity he gets. And it would be age 16

if that is a compulsory attendance age. I think the kind of feeling that I'm thinking of is. Not necessarily the failing grade but I'm thinking about failing the things that happened in the kindergarten let's say minute by minute where other kids have moved beyond him because of what they brought with them to the schools. And then he immediately begins to feel himself as a person as less ionic what it's frustrating failure day by day. And I think he begins dropping out of school right there. Of course there is a wide range of individual differences and we cannot deny an every child who goes to kindergarten and on into the first grade isn't going to be equally successful and I have this feeling of satisfaction that he should have comparable to all the other children in the classroom. Teachers should be sensitive to this is no question about it and they should have a sense of success. But I think there are so many things we can do right now at the high school level

that will bring about a change in the in the present dropout rate. For example it is ridiculous for parents and counselors to out of embarrassment or sensitivity to let a child go right out and to say two years of foreign languages and higher mathematics when he has neither the ability nor the interest and I think sometimes this develops where the school people are afraid to be too directive to give too much advice to parents and children at the high school level even though they have all the test results and the parent for his part is saying well I went to college or even if I didn't go to college I want my child to go to college so he's going into college prep program. That child is forced into foreign languages are advanced sciences and of course hates it because he can't do it and he's not interested in it. Again I think communication between parent and school is very significant and I would like to see parents. See the test results that

the schools have. Because they have a good idea when the child is going to be able to do the work the rest of the high school years and the pre-college worker or not. I agree that the impact of the parents is very great in a Maryland study it was found that 70 percent of the mothers and 80 percent of the fathers of the dropouts had never completed high school themselves. This was in 1960 and 61 a study done by the State Dept. of Education of Maryland. They dropped out early in their 16th year and the dropouts were slightly more often male than female. They dropped out mainly in grade 10 and more than half of them had been retained at least once in a previous grade. They were seriously retarded and reading and arithmetic ability and had a lower average IQ scores and their peers who stayed on. Furthermore 25 percent of the

mothers and 30 percent of the fathers had never gotten beyond the sixth grade themselves. When Leo at the point you're making is that in our public schools through the high school we try we should be trying to educate every child every parent. There are even laws now that provide for the education of the mentally retarded child. But these are not mentally retarded children their IQ is maybe lower their IQ to maybe 90 but they still can and can benefit from the proper type of high school curriculum. And Ray you've been working a lot in the curriculum field and what what kind of a curriculum would be best to meet the needs of this wide range of individual differences. I think Leo's comment simply shows that the parents failed to place value on education for themselves and they may also do that for children. I think this same reason prevails for the youngster in other words there was no relationship between the type of courses that

the parents took when he went to school and life courses were not meaningful to him. And I mean child from the same type of home goes to school and has no relationship there between what he sees life to be and what he's doing in school. So he may also rebel against the school a great deal and I think programs attendee individualize instruction that provide work experiences that move into vocational work and school all tend to be quite successful just to support that idea to rein in and go back to one of the things I mentioned earlier. For example I've been in second grade classes where they had a reading series that was quite a difficult reading series and yet every child in the entire district had the same kind of book in it obviously wasn't. It was too high a level for some of the kids they were not ready for it.

Can you just have to conclude that that school district was not up to date and not even to the point where more school districts should have moved 20 years ago. Where they adopted a reading series perhaps. But they also had supplementary tax and many of the children weren't reading in the series. So I think that there is an educational lag that accounts for some of the problems that we have. As I analyze the problems of the dropout I wonder if the departmental ization of the high school. And the run up to really impersonal nature of high school studies as contrasted to elementary school where there's a teacher who takes a deep interest in the child's progress might have something to do with this. I think so but I think there are certain needs that an adolescent has that you don't find in the elementary schools. Adolescents from lower social economic often for example needs money. If you look at many high school parking lot you see many many cars peer

approval almost requires a high school student today would have an automobile. The youngster who comes from the lower socio economic often buys his automobile and self in mean teens the automobile has quite an expense unless he has a job. So something has to be done at the high school the individual I's and child's program enough to permit him to work. Besides that I think the work experience is good for anyone even the child of a middle class or upper. HOLMES Yes. If a school is concerned only with college preparatory work the homework may be so exhaustive that it prevents a youngster from working on weekends or working after school and raise this. This child about whom you're talking realizes that he's in a high school that just trains students for the college and he doesn't see where a high school is going to help him get a job where he

can earn this money which he needs to maintain as automobile. That's right and I think Ken pointed out something very important before that teachers in the elementary grades as well as in the secondary grades may still tend to look at work as being this is second grade work. This is 3rd grade work rather than misses work that a certain individual can do. If we use a developmental approach all the way through school. Another is that we dig a youngster where he is. We try to advance him as much as possible during the period that he's with us. We meet eliminate some of the dropouts. I think there are other policies such as a policy that if you get married you must drop out of school. That should be examined very carefully to see whether it makes sense. You know Ray your reference to automobiles and earning money. Presents some pretty complex ideas. Some of the high school

principals I've talked to say they almost wish that. Their poorer students wouldn't get a decent job in the summer working at a gas station or something and wouldn't earn money because immediately they discover how nice this is and that money that seems quite a bit of money to them at that time is really not much money in terms of a lifetime career. What is enough for them to buy an old jalopy. And once they get an old jalopy they want to add always extra parts to the to the car. And I recall a study that was made locally that indicated that the dropout rate was greater among high school students who owned automobiles or were paying off automobiles. Now I think this is is not necessarily the cause of the drop out I think this is part and parcel of the picture of the drop. They want to grow up and they want to be start to earn their way. And some of their parents want this do they say. What are you going to be come up

to these are parents who are not as inspired of about the necessary use of education as perhaps they should be. I think that's one of the characteristics of this type of child and as parents they're more concerned with immediate goals and long range bright and Ray's comment here. If a child sticks with it for four years if he and his parents. And the counselor together can come to the understanding that this goal is the important goal not the immediate goal of getting out and earning money. But he said maybe there's another way to look at it. I agree and this is what kids do very often they're looking for immediate gratification. Maybe we're going to have to do in our schools is find some way that the school can give them immediate gratification with implications for long range goal that by step I think we have to go to their value system a little bit too. And I think it's a very good point again because I think that the school is Ariana Duran middle class values and most of the teachers have long range goals for themselves

and therefore they expect that youngsters will all be motivated by appealing to them through offering some long range gain or goal. And it's simply not true. We may not like the idea that a child from a lower socio economic environment has immediate goals. Perhaps placed in the top position of the receiver they're much more concerned about immediate goals and remote goals but it is a fact and therefore I think I agree with you the school should do something to offer youngsters a way of achieving them immediate goal and will do things go back to what you said earlier about some kind of a work program where in some ways these immediate goals can be reached. Yes and I think they are expanding rather rapidly but I think any school should look very carefully under work study programs. If they do not have

work study programs. I also think the school should examine policies that tend to encourage dropouts which kids are put pushing and I kind of like that. Pushing kids out of school because that's what's happening. And. I think it's a mistake on the part of the school to say that if the youngster gets married he must drop out of school. And yet many schools continue to have that policy. You know Ray it's often been said that the child who benefits most from a high school education is hurried through while the child who gains the least from it is detained. It seems as though a better procedure would be to exaggerate the program for the potential dropout and retain longer those children who would gain most from a high school education under an arrangement such as this the potential dropout perhaps could graduate at age 16

and the child who would profit most from the high school program would stay the longest. But his exoneration would have to be in coursework and experience as it were designed for him to get him out so that he can start to make a living at some trade and there are many a trade these very well because I think this may be based partially a little on the idea that the youngster who does well in high school goes on to college. So he's still in a school situation longer than the individual who does not go on to college. Think that many of the things we do in our academic programs also tend to appeal to middle class youngsters but not to children from lower social economic environments. Schools that have made an attempt the individual AIs instruction for many different sections of English for example that are keyed toward the

interest of youngsters they may be really reading Shakespeare in a college preparatory classes but in some of the other classes in order to build up reading speeds they're reading about athletics all car. Oh yeah I thought it was obvious. Had he anything that might be more meaningful to the non non college preparatory youngster. And I think that good schools are doing this in addition to that I think it's important for a school system to drive to provide a high school education for youngsters who have dropped out and then decided after year two that they should not have dropped out and some schools are willing on I for example are offering what they call last chance programs in which they do provide evening evening courses that lead to a high school certificate. And I think this certainly is a step in the right direction.

Or an effort to make it easy for a child or young person who makes the decides they made a wrong decision to come back. So what were we doing. You know the word discipline as occurred to me several times. I think discipline is important in the lives of everybody. And yet the old kind of discipline that the rigid type of home or the rigid type of school is in my opinion definitely wrong. Discipline as I view it is something that the individual starts to acquire even before he goes to school. And as he matures the discipline should move from X turn only in the form of a parent or a teacher to internally these should be his internal goals and his internal desire to apply himself each day to carry on and to finish a high school education if you will. And I don't know how to establish this discipline I don't have a formula for. Except that I do believe that it takes an

adult to whom that child can tie to an adult in the life of the child that he can try out his ideas on who won't judge and condemn him but won't try to understand him. And there was a study made I believe in the state of Illinois which demonstrated that delinquency which is closely related to high school dropout the high school dropout problem was prevented and our former D.A. Lynn Quince were prevented from going back into the unlawful acts by finding an individual who to whom the child could go to and and relate to. Now I wonder if a more high school teachers realize this or we had more counselors and had lots of time to talk with these young people and to help them with their course selections and to help them with their personal problems. We wouldn't have fewer dropouts perhaps pointing out how important it is for a high school to try to have a variety of personalities as

faculty members and others people we have Friday of personalities employed on the faculty. I think in some schools coaches for example and people who deal with co-curricular extracurricular activities tend to. Establish a much closer relationship with youngsters than people in academic subjects so that the coach may have an opportunity to work with a child concerning personal problems much better than a classroom teacher. Obviously a coach will not appeal to all people. But if you have a variety of individuals on a faculty and they realize that part of their job is to try to work with young people. I think this may help a great deal. When I think also we need to mention that social adjustment to high school is important the child can't be isolated from his peers his fellow students and still feel

comfortable and happy about going to school. We do have to give attention to this too as well as the academics but I think that the high school dropout is a problem of extreme significance to the nation as a home because these individuals frequently do not pay their way. Sooner or later they get in trouble and they perhaps end up on relief roles because you really have to have a high school education and a good one at that. In order to make your contribution to society and make yourself a good living behind the classroom door. By W. and in cooperation with the College of Education at Northern Illinois University each week focuses its attention on one of the many challenging aspects of public school education. The program is moderated by Dr. Robert F. A top dean of the College of Education at Northern Illinois University. Today's guest were Dr. Raymond B Fox

associate dean of the College of Education. Dr. Leo Laughlin head of the Department of Administration and services and Dr. Kenneth Green assistant professor of education. Next week's topic will be what good is a PTA. This program is distributed by the national educational radio network.