When do you age out of high school?

Our school district has an alternative high school program, and recently added an alternative middle school program. I am not that familiar with the middle school program, but I know the gal who runs it, and if anyone can do it, she can. But I do know the high school program. Here's how it works: If one can't succeed in a traditional high school setting, one can apply for our alternative program, with shorter hours and adapted courseloads and no homework and tiny class sizes and the suspension of most rules mandated by the board of education. One can potentially earn two semesters of credit for each semester in our alternative program. Previously, freshmen were not allowed to enter our alternative program, but lately that requirement has been waived as well. At the end of this program, one receives a diploma from the main high school with no asterisks, no qualifiers, no differentiation whatsoever between a diploma earned here and a diploma earned in the much more rigorous high school setting.

It's kind of like Barry Bonds' homerun record: the numbers are there, but one wonders sometimes how legitimate the accomplishment is, and how deep the ignorance goes.

So, anyway, I was walking the hallway the other day when I rounded the corner, and almost ran smack dab into a former student of mine, whom I shall call Moon Pie*. I'd had Moon Pie after he had been kicked out of our alternative high school program. That's right. You can fail to do well in high school, and if you fail to do well in the alternative program, you get put back into the traditional program that you've already not done well in. Life is full of irony.

But I digress. I started thinking about how long ago I had had Moon Pie. I teach juniors, and that was four and a half years ago. There is no way he is less than twenty years old. Twenty! When I was twenty, I was finishing my junior year of college. I had just begun dating the fella who is now my husband. Seriously, Moon Pie has now officially become the Phil Niekro of our high school, except that Phil Niekro was successful.

Moon Pie's time in that class five years ago, known forever in memory as "The Island of Misfit Toys," was NOT academically triumphant. He did learn not to sleep through class, and he thought the Great Depression was really unfair. He was in class with the Slasher, of whom I have written previously also here.

But he has been on the verge of graduation for three years now. Last year he swore to me he was going to graduate. He wanted to be the first person in his large family to graduate. His younger brother beat him to it. But three of his brothers are in the alternative program with him to keep him company each day.

He is not stupid. He is so lazy that if breathing wasn't involuntary he would have suffocated long ago. He smokes too much, drinks too much, tokes too much, and has raised himself. He turns 21 in 9 weeks. So far he is not a father, as far as I know, and he would have told me about that, even knowing that I would disapprove.

There is only one explanation for his continued presence.

He obviously does not want to be on the outside.

We have become a cocoon for him where he can get two squares and some companionship each day, all without too much being demanded of him.



*- A Moon Pie is a snack of "Southren" origin consisting of two round graham crackers with about two inches of marshmallow filling; this sandwich is then dipped in chocolate. This kid, while probably crackers, nonetheless has a soft marshmallow center that is definitely not kosher. Sweet, but of no nutritional value whatsoever.

So long! Farewell! Auf Wiedersehen! Good-bye!

My geography class is supposed to have X number of kids. Instead, my class habitually sits at X-1.

This is a real bummer, because our school randomly distributes doughnuts to classes with perfect attendance. There is a sullen smog that has settled over my kids every time one of these days is announced, a brow-lowered, teeth-gritted, bellicosity that I am having ever more trouble holding in check.

See, Casper was enrolled in this class because it's open to all ages, and I was fine with this. Except that Casper showed for exactly half of one day. On this day, he had been here since the beginning of school but had talked the counselor into a bull session, and then he didn't want to draw attention to himself by walking into the middle of a class, so the counselor walked in WHILE WE WERE HAVING A GREAT DISCUSSION on the predictions of Thomas Robert Malthus and she walks right up to me mid-sentence, 'pon my honor, and asks me when we are taking a break. Now, I didn't look at her with my mouth agape, because my students did it for me, and with a face like mine, you don't do mouth agape unless you want someone throwing fishhooks your way. When I said something to the effect of "Maybe never, we're kind of in the middle of something here," she began whispering in my ear that there was a new student but he didn't want to draw attention to himself and so he was hoping to slide into a seat while the other kids were off on a break. Then I replied, "Oh, like you walking into class isn't going to get their attention and they're not going to notice a new body occupying a seat in the class like he's been beamed down from the Starship Enterprise?" but she didn't get the sarcasm. So since she'd broken the flow, and frankly, I actually needed to go see a guy about something, we had our break, Casper shimmered into the room like Jeeves bearing a silver platter of his secret hangover recipe, and we sailed on through the rest of the period.

I don't know; maybe all the talk about carrying capacity and J-curves scared the daylights out of him, because he has not darkened our door since, and it's been over two months. He certainly made sure to reduce the population of our little world by one.

Yes, you heard that right, friends. We're coming up on 42 days of absence, and nothing. Now officially, I am wondering just what it takes to be declared truant around this neck of the woods, because I've seen kids avoid school before, but this case has reached a new low.

Now, I personally am a doughnut agnostic, which you wouldn't believe if you saw the breadth of my beam, but it really bugs the kids when they haven't completely blotted Casper's existence from their minds-- which they do until we hear the doughnut trolley screeching down the hallway. I am more bothered by carrying this kid on the rolls for lo these many weeks with no concern or perhaps consequences whatsoever for whomever is in charge-- kid, mom, dad, grandma, Great Aunt Tessie, I don't really care at this point. Every time I mention this to the counselor, I hear that his mom called in claiming he had scurvy or consumption or an imbalance of the humors and so on. But I've seen him hanging out at the nearby pizza joint three times since his vanishing act.

Let's just leave aside the law for a second, because we all know what that's all about. Let's just forget that, ten years from now, Casper will claim he was "never given a good education" and that he's a victim of public schools and we should all just keep him full of McMuffins and pork rinds and cartons of cigarettes on the public dime. Let's forget that somehow, we're supposed to make him read and do math on grade level, and his absence on test day will be held against us in the court of Spellings. I am sure our class is probably better without an unwilling someone taking up space. But, at the risk of sounding like a Pollyanna, I do care that this kid isn't being educated, and at his age, he really didn't seem to have the judgment to make life-altering decisions for himself and maybe, just maybe, we should send someone over there to make sure he's okay.

I am conflicted. And you know, I think that counselor owes my kids some doughnuts.

The "Drop-out factory"

There's a new term on the educational horizon: "drop-out factory."

It paints quite a picture, doesn't it?

It's a nickname no principal could be proud of: "Dropout Factory," a high school where no more than 60 percent of the students who start as freshmen make it to their senior year. That description fits more than one in 10 high schools across America.

"If you're born in a neighborhood or town where the only high school is one where graduation is not the norm, how is this living in the land of equal opportunity?" asks Bob Balfanz, the Johns Hopkins researcher who coined the term "dropout factory."

There are about 1,700 regular or vocational high schools nationwide that fit that description, according to an analysis of Education Department data conducted by Johns Hopkins for The Associated Press. That's 12 percent of all such schools, about the same level as a decade ago.

Read the whole thing. It also makes some interesting claims about GEDs.

I have seen many students encouraged to go get a GED when they have said they wanted to drop out. I do not think that this is an attempt to decrease the drop-out rate that we have to report to the state. I think this is an attempt to get kids another avenue to attain some sort of credential when they have obviously evinced a lack of success in a traditional high school setting. I think this option is refusing to give up on a student.

Perhaps I am naive, but I don't think so.

We still haven't dealt with the basic problem in all of this, though: how do you "make" someone value an education when everything in society denigrates the educated?

It may be that some people just aren't ready to do the work needed to get a high school diploma. They may need to try to go out into the world and work for a while until they are ready to dedicate themselves. Because, ultimately, you can't give someone an education, all wrapped in a shiny bow-- you can offer them the opportunity for an education, and no matter what, everyone will create an education from the choices they make.

I know sometimes it is difficult. I know sometimes everything seems to be conspiring against students. I grew up in a very violent, alcoholic home. I had one of my friends live with us our senior year because her house was worse. I was the first person to go to college. My grades weren't as high as I would have liked, but I did what I had to do to graduate and get into college. I made sure I didn't do drugs, even though some of my friends did. I made sure I didn't get pregnant-- barring divine intervention, one who isn't having sex tends not to get pregnant. I wanted the options and the life an education offered me, and I did everything I could to make sure I could get it.

Education isn't a passive process.

Another chance for drop-outs in Tulsa

Tulsa Public Schools have opened up a new alternative program in town for those who are close to graduation:

On Saturday, the [Tulsa Public Schools] district held a grand opening for its new high school credit recovery program, called Tulsa Learning Academy, as well as a Back to School Rally, where student groups from schools across Tulsa performed.

High school students or dropouts needing fewer than 12 credit hours can earn their high school diplomas through TLA, which offers 4-hour morning or afternoon sessions.

Two of the first students to apply for admission said they learned about TLA when they were hired by a temp agency to move furniture into the program's newly leased space at Tulsa Promenade.

Jerrod Grayson and Elizha Whitney said they recently completed their senior years at East Central High School lacking two half-credits and one half-credit, respectively.

"I was going to try to find another way to earn my diploma because I didn't want to go back to East Central and do seven classes when all I need is a half-credit," Whitney said.

Grayson and Whitney were accompanied at the TLA grand opening by Carolyn Duhart, the lead supervisor for furniture and labor in the TPS maintenance department, who told them about the program.

"I found out how close they are to graduating and I just stayed on them," Duhart said. "I want everybody's child to earn a high school diploma. The world is changing so much, you've got to have this."

Duhart vowed to keep encouraging the young men while they're completing their credits at TLA.

"The best thing will be when they get that piece of paper (at graduation) in December," she said.

At the grand opening ceremony, Richard Palazzo, the director of alternative programs and social services for TPS, called TLA a unique and innovative program.

"This program is precisely what we need," Palazzo said. "Our phone is ringing off the wall with people asking how they can get into this program."

There's more to the story, too.

This could be a wonderful program.

IF substantive learning is expected. IF discipline is addressed so that kids who want another chance can concentrate on learning. IF it is an accelerated program. IF earning a diploma means EARNING the diploma.

When I was a kid, TPS had Street School, and one of my friends went to it and did very well for herself. I have often pondered moving to a model in which school attendance is not mandatory and what the effects of that would be. Perhaps kids who don't value education and disrupt the learning environment would then try living in the big world for a while. When they finally realized the value of an education, they could choose to come to programs like this one, and be more focused and dedicated. It could be win-win for everyone. We could actually have real standards for behavior and academics in US public schools. Kids could find out whether or not education is really important for themselves, since we all know kids who don't believe teachers or other adults when WE tell them an education is vital for success.

When you're sixteen years old, you may think that eight to ten bucks an hour is perfectly fine. But I have had former students of mine try that route and then suddenly have that epiphany that maybe mean old Ms. Cornelius wasn't kidding. Sometimes this has happened when they have aged out of attendance at a public school, and so they have had to pay for classes at a community college or prep work for the GED. For those that AREN'T too old, programs like the Tulsa Learning Academy seem like they could be just the ticket.

Rasing graduation rates-- like herding cats

How does our nation truly improve graduation rates? Can it be mandated a la NCLB?

Dozens of states accept any improvement in high school graduation rates as adequate progress, and several set a goal of graduating fewer than 60 percent of their students, according to a study released yesterday by the Education Trust in Washington.

While the No Child Left Behind law has created a national focus on reading and math proficiencies, it has done little to raise expectations for the number of students graduating from high school, the report said.

Because the law allowed states wide latitude, the goals for graduation rates vary widely. Nevada, for example, says its goal is to graduate 50 percent of its students; Iowa sets a target of 95 percent.

Under the federal law, states must also set targets for annual improvements, but several states say that any progress at all — even just one more diploma — is good enough, according to data collected from the Department of Education.

The report found that state-set goals for raising graduation rates are “far too low to spur needed improvement.”

“The high school diploma is the bare minimum credential necessary to have a fighting chance at successful participation in the work force of civil society,” it said. “Yet current high school accountability policies represent a stunning indifference to whether young people actually earn this critical credential.”

But the report also found that the states’ goals are too modest to raise frequently mediocre rates of graduation. In Wisconsin, a high school can be considered to be making enough progress even it improves to just 60.01 percent, the report said.

The expectations for improvement “serve as an alarming indicator of an unwillingness to address the critical need of our high schools,” wrote Daria Hall, the author of the report. “We need targets that provoke action on behalf of the students, not ones that condone the status quo.”

In a speech this week, Representative George Miller, Democrat of California, chairman of the House Education Committee and an architect of the original No Child Left Behind legislation, said reauthorization of that law should include changes so that graduation rates were used as a key measure of performance.

The report praised New York City schools for making sizable improvements in the past three years. But while New York has raised its graduation rate by six percentage points over the last three years, it still hovers around 50 percent. For the class of 2006, just 41 percent of Latino students graduated in four years.

The problem, as we have certainly seen from our experiences with NCLB, is the bad consequences of good intentions. I fear that if higher graduation rates are mandated, all that will happen is that standards will be lowered to reach whatever magical threshhold is established to graduate warm bodies.

Just like with NCLB.

Let me use a little metaphor. We love cheap goods. We need cheap goods. Therefore, we import loads of goods from China. Then we're surprised when those cheap goods from China end up being... well, cheap. Hopefully, the cheapness will make up for the stagnation of wages that makes it imperative to keep those goods cheap. And not just cheap, but sometimes downright dangerous. Toys covered with lead paint. Food augmented with sawdust. Tires that shred at highway speeds. But those goods are cheap, yessir.

Same thing with the current "standards" hubbub, which is positively Orwellian. We reduce education to the lowest common denominator so that we can claim success under NCLB. Rather than actually try to improve the quality of education, we tinker with what "proficient" means so that more kids can be labelled with that word. We claim that ALL children will read or do math on grade level, even as 25% of our students qualify for special education, and the number of students coming to school as non-English speakers-- there's another unintended consequence of our current lack of immigration policy-- mushrooms.

We have already seen the ironic erosion of dedication to a well-rounded education in the name of NCLB. In the name of raising math and reading scores, science and history classes have disappeared at nearby elementary schools. And you know, I could speculate as to why people setting policy are okay with that, but it would just depress me.

Even before NCLB became law, many states attempted to reform school accountability. To be fully accredited by the state, minimum graduation rates were established that seemed pretty rigorous. Schools all around have allegedly met this standard and reeived accreditation. So why is it that classes of seniors eligible for graduation remain so much smaller than freshman classes?

Here's the secret: at some schools, counselors spend untold hours counseling kids who have indicated an intention to drop out. There's several possible outcomes that are sought. They get the kid to claim that they are simply going to get their GED. As long as they are listed as pursuing a GED, or their parents claim to be home-schooling them, these kids do not count against the school as drop-outs. Or, they can go to a strip mall, pass a 5-20 item multiple choice exam on a computer in a room run by a for-profit company, and voila! They can magically receive credit that would have taken weeks to earn in a regular classroom. It's magic!

It's also appalling.

Everyone knows these kids have no intention of sacrificing their time and effort in preparing to pass a GED exam. If they couldn't be bothered to fulfill the very minimal requirements for a regular diploma, or even worse, one from an alternative school, they certainly aren't going to spend hours studying. Everyone knows that their parents have no intention of providing any educational program whatsoever-- they're too busy trying to earn a living, and they couldn't even make their kid attend school. And that multiple choice test at the mall is too revolting to even contemplate.

But, by golly, all of these things make those drop-out rates look absolutely fabulous.

Return of Mr. Do-Over

I was staring out my classroom window for a few seconds after school when I heard the door open. In walked The Slasher, of whom I wrote in December.

I hadn't seen him around in a while, so I feared the worst. Yet here he was, massive tattooed biceps bare (does this kid even own a sleeve? Some things never change....), camo pants, spiky mohawk and all. We chatted for a while. Here's what he's been up to:

1) He was recently detained by the cops "just for walking through a neighborhood." He says that happens a lot-- and really, I'm not too sure I'd want to see him walking down my street.

2) He's not in school right now, but claims to be selling "magazine subscriptions" door-to-door. I ask you, would you buy a magazine from a person who looks like a meaner version of a cross between the body of Sergeant Slaughter and the druggy beady-eyed overbite of Gary Busey?

3) He is currently "hooking up" with a 34 year old married woman, whose husband wants to kill him. Y'know, I really am puritanical about that kind of thing, so all I could manage was, "Gee do you really think that's wise? Some people do get rather testy about their wives...." Eeewww. Really. I would not have believed this part, but after we talked, I saw him in a lock with a woman who looked like she'd been "rode hard and put up wet," as we used to say. He then got in the car with her.

He has no plans. He doesn't think further than tomorrow. He is functionally illiterate. Every time I try to encourage him to try some education, he shakes me off like Nuke Laloosh in Bull Durham. He's getting by on-- not charm, certainly, but some sort of strange animal magnetism, some kind of primitive vibe to which people on the fringe of society seem to resonate.

What are we supposed to do with kids-- can't use the word "students"-- like this?