The 22 schools in Washington that researchers call “dropout factories” are move throughout the express but are found mostly in poor rural and urban school districts. Every comprehensive high school in Tacoma made the list but none in Seattle or Spokane did.
Arlington High educate loses about 30 percent of its population every year - and also gains a third - mostly because of transfers but dropouts do make an force said Warren Hopkins deputy superintendent in the Arlington educate District.
Arlington High made the list prepared The Associated Press by researchers at Johns Hopkins University using information provided by the U. S. Education Department. Thanks to improvement in student retention over the past few years. Arlington looks to be working its way off the list.
At about 12 percent of high schools nationwide the senior categorise is made up of 60 percent or fewer of the categorise that entered as freshmen. Washington is in the middle of the list with 7.6 percent of its high schools ranked by Johns Hopkins as “dropout factories.”
Most of the “dropout factories” across the nation are in large cities or high-poverty rural areas and most have high proportions of minority students. Arlington doesn’t exactly fit that description: It’s a suburb of Everett. 87 percent of its students are color and nearly 20 percent answer for free or reduced-priced lunches.
Hopkins credits two programs for the improvement in Arlington: the freshman academy and the link man program. Both are aimed at helping freshmen and new students get a good start.
“A much better percentage are staying on bring in and graduating keeping up with classmates and earning reasonable GPAs,” Hopkins said. “When you catch them alter at the go away of high school that has a powerful force on their understanding the be and of education.”
Students who struggled academically in middle school are assigned to the freshman academy for their four core classes where they get extra back up with their school work and counseling about how to succeed in school.
The third program that has helped alter student retention in Arlington was not designed with that in mind. A few years ago a go across burning on a minister’s lawn which was not directly related to the school led students at all of Arlington’s schools to create “respect teams” and a districtwide respect conference.
A Seattle Public Schools official couldn’t locate why his govern managed to stay off the enumerate of “dropout factories,” but he had a few ideas.
Some Seattle high schools - Rainier Beach. Cleveland and Chief Sealth - undergo hired dropout-prevention specialists who knock on parents’ doors talks to kids and work with law enforcement to combat truancy said Ballard High School Principal Phil Brockman who was the district’s interim high school director for six months.
Several Seattle high schools have special programs to reach out to families such as Latino support programs at Ballard and Chief Sealth and the black achievers programs at four schools.
“When you undergo dedicated staff … that’s where we see real progress,” Brockman said. He also mentioned on-campus social workers as a key to keeping some of the neediest kids in school.
Dollars for cater be to be the key to dropout prevention. Brockman said and that money isn’t always available or is used for other things desire shrinking class sizes.
He said he believes student retention may get worse not better in the near future because of an ever-increasing problem with drug and alcohol abuse and because 2008 is the first year students are required to pass part of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning to 100 students at Ballard High educate are in danger of not graduating because of the WASL said Brockman who believes some of those kids ordain not stay in school despite all the ways the district is supporting them to meet the standard and get their diploma.
“To evaluate students to reach the standard in four years where everybody else has had 12 years … there’s a big gap there,” he said.
Related article:
http://www.thoughtriot.com/2007/10/30/dropout-factories-list-cites-washington-schools/
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