High School Dropout Rate “Dismal”
CNN reported Friday that a newly published report says that increasingly more high school students are dropping out before getting a degree.
The numbers are, as CNN rightfully puts it, “dismal.” One in four high school students drops out prematurely. That rate hasn’t gone down in recent years, this while other developed countries have improved considerably in the last five years or so.
“The U.S. is stagnating while other industrialized countries are surpassing us,” said Anna Habash, author of the report by Education Trust, which advocates on behalf of minority and poor children. “And that is going to have a dramatic impact on our ability to compete,” she said.
In the Netherlands, the government started a major campaign several years ago to reverse similar trends. Reforms were implemented, high school students should receive more guidance, laws were adapted and enforced in order to keep students in school, more money was spent on education in a way that would prepare high school students either for college or physical jobs (depending on the students’ intelligence), teachers were held responsible for the success of their students and schools, and the level of education was improved; the results, less high school students drop out now than five years ago.
Although the United States government has also tried to improve schools and to decrease the high rate of high school dropouts, it has not succeeded. A new approach to education in the U.S. seems necessary. The only question is what approaches may work, and what may not. If the Dutch experience is a good guide, more individual responsibility for schools, more competition, and more direct contact between teachers and student accomplish a lot.
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