Teens drop out of high school to join gangs, work jobs, raise children or care for grandparents. They drop out to steal cars, paint, do drugs and flee authority. They drop out because they live in unstable homes, because they’re poor, because they’re depressed or feel alienated. They drop out because school is tough when you don’t speak English.
In other words, a lot of factors can influence a teen’s decision to drop out.
But the No. 1 reason students across the country drop out? Boredom.
According to “The Silent Epidemic,” a report financed by the Bill &Melinda Gates Foundation and released in March, two-thirds of high school dropouts interviewed said they would have worked harder if more had been demanded of them.
That helps to answer an important question in the debate over raising graduation requirements: Could higher standards also drive up dropout rates?
Don’t bet on it. If findings in “The Silent Epidemic” are any indication, American students are spoiling for a challenge. Former dropouts have sent reform-minded educators a message: Bring it on.
If educators embrace tougher graduation requirements and work hard to improve the quality of their instruction, dropout rates may well go down.
In Snohomish County, 2,110 teens dropped out during the 2003-04 school year. Only 67 percent of students who entered Snohomish County high schools in 2000 graduated in 2004, just below the state average of 70 percent.
The Everett School District shouldered a 12 percent dropout rate during that time, as 671 students stopped attending class.
Recent research from Columbia University makes those statistics even more sobering. At a conference held there last year, experts revealed that high school dropouts are more likely to be unemployed, receive public assistance, commit crimes and end up in jail. They’re less likely to receive job-based health insurance and to vote.
A report released last month by Achieve Inc. and Jobs for the Future emphasizes dropout prevention and tracking. It cites a Chicago research group that, in 2005, flagged with 85 percent accuracy, students who would eventually drop out of school based on their ninth-grade profiles.
Last month’s study rightly recommends that we work to create a healthy, supportive learning environment where all students may succeed – particularly one that’s never boring.
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