Hallway Discussion

We received a memo in our mailboxes... One of the articles from a recent New York Times paper.

What the article discusses is the increase in the drop out rate across the country. They were saying that it's nearly 1 in 5 students in America that drop out of high school.

Another statistic they used was that out of the 20,000 schools in America, 12% of them are responsible for more than half the drop outs and nearly three quarters of minority drop outs.

First off, where's the shame in dropping out? Students drop out for several reasons:

1. They fell behind early and never caught up
2. They were never pushed to succeed academically at home
3. Medical/Psychiatric/Low Self-esteem/Whatever
   
4. They experience excessive entitlement (they talk the talk without walking the walk)
   
5. They just suck at taking tests
6. They hate the subject matter or are excessively bored
   
7. They actually cannot do the work (can't read, don't know English, etc)
8. They are stubborn learners who make poor compromises
9. They miss 70% of the school year because they'd rather go to school in the DR/PR
10. They settle for less of themselves because they know that a college education isn't a requirement to live life

The only way that these statistics are meaningful is if you look at them in context with the life circumstances of each individual student. Here are some questions people should ask when they encounter bold-faced statistics about high school drop-out rates:

1. Where's the statistic that students who drop out are sent into vocational programs?
2. Or the statistic that students who drop out end up as apprentices or manual laborers?
3. Or the statistic that the reason for dropping out is genuinely school-related and not an issue at home or in their personal lives?
4. Or the admissions statistics and student compositions of "high" quality high schools that don't have this problem?
5. Or the accessibility of resources of students who drop out relative to their socioeconomic status and ethnicity?
6. Or the statistic that students who drop out usually exhaust several alternatives (and extra years in school) in order to drop out as a last resort?
7. Or the statistical correlation between setting HIGH STANDARDS on a population of LOW PERFORMING students in high-need populations?

One of the biggest abuses of data is that people use them as punchlines without ever really questioning their significance. That's the flaw in broader American society is the lack of balanced and objective data analysis, which is why you end up with radical groups (AKA idiots) like "The Flat Earth Society."