Considering high school dropout rates

Jimmy Biblarz, a student at Hamilton High School, writes:

When the reports came out a week or so ago, I was as alarmed as the rest of Los Angeles: LAUSD has a 33% dropout rate, considerably higher than California's equally tragic 25% dropout rate.

I understood how horrific such as statistic was, but I was taken aback for a different reason. I don't know any high school dropouts! I couldn't believe 1 in 3 LAUSD high school students drops out, and yet I know none of them. Hamilton High School is one of the most diverse campuses in Los Angeles. More than 3,000 students attend, and I thought surely there must be hundreds of dropouts at my school alone.

After some research, I found that the majority of students who drop out of Hamilton don't come from the magnet schools (there are two on Hamilton's campus, a performing arts magnet and a humanities magnet) but from the community school. Most of the people I know are in one of the two magnets.

Something has to be done about high school dropout rates. A vicious cycle has been created in which generations of families don't graduate from high school, let alone get a college education. The cycle needs to stop, and it can only stop through a combined effort of community activism, personal responsibility, government intervention, state funding, and overall school improvement.

Comments

[blacknews]

Maybe more schools and teachers need to take the Stand And Deliver approach to education.
http://www.onlineschools4us.com/