Public education must change

By JIM BOREN

FRESNO BEE

Public-school leaders across America make the dropout problem seem complicated, because they really don’t want to fix it. They mostly see dropouts as either disrespectful troublemakers who waste valuable education time or kids who have long ago given up on school. If they drop out, it’s better for the students who want to learn.

This is a major reason that 1,700 high schools nationally have been labeled “dropout factories.” But the educational establishment would rather quibble over the definition of a dropout than actually implement bold solutions to keep these troubled students in school.

This pattern is repeated across the nation, even as administrators wring their hands over all the students who don’t stay in school long enough to graduate. In most cases, the concern is phony.

There are several ways to keep kids in school, and educators can rattle off solutions like they are part of a political stump speech. But they seldom back up their words. A fundamental reason is that dropouts don’t have someone lobbying on their behalf, so solutions don’t translate into the funding needed for action.

School leaders would rather pour money into traditional programs, sports, band, clubs and other activities for the “good kids.” Nothing wrong with that, but the public schools should be serving all children, not just the ones headed for college.

Administrators seldom make huge financial commitments to career and technical education — what was once called vocational education. But they should. If you can capture the interest of marginal students, you’ll probably keep them in school.

Career training

Take Duncan Polytechnical High School in Fresno, Calif. It’s one of the district’s great success stories. It offers career training, has good test scores and keeps kids in school. And there’s a waiting list to get into Duncan. So why isn’t this school being replicated? Why aren’t there a half-dozen Duncans in a school system with so many students dropping out because they are bored with the traditional curriculum?

Ask the question, and the excuses come pouring out of educators. We don’t have enough money. There aren’t enough qualified instructors to teach more career education classes. The high-stakes testing forces schools to concentrate only on the basic academic subjects.

The message is a simple one: We don’t want to change the way we deliver education, even if we’re in the 21st century and we’re still using a 19th-century model. It’s not working. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University say four high schools in Fresno are “dropout factories,” with at least 40 percent of their entering freshmen not graduating. There are 1,700 high schools nationally in that category.

These students cost us. They often get involved in criminal activity, spend their adult lives on public assistance and suffer poor health, with the taxpayers picking up the doctor bills. It makes economic sense to solve the dropout problem.

If the schools offered more career and technical education, it wouldn’t keep every student in school. But it would cut into a big chunk of dropouts who get behind academically and leave school because they are failing.

Want more proof that those in charge don’t want to solve the problem? They have the power to add schools and classes to meet the needs of disinterested students. They say it’s important, yet nothing happens.

I offer this challenge to Fresno school trustees and Superintendent Michael Hanson: Next year, convert six schools that are losing enrollment to schools similar to Duncan Polytechnical. If they did that, then you’d have to say they’re serious about dropouts.

But we’ll probably hear a dozen reasons why that’s impossible.

X Jim Boren is The Fresno Bee’s editorial page editor. Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.