linking data, policy and practice to improve graduation rates and stem drop outs michigan...
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Linking Data, Policy and Practice to Improve
Graduation Rates and Stem Drop Outs Michigan Association of State and Federal Program
Specialists
November 6, 2008
Rossi Ray-Taylor, PhD
Ray.Taylor and Associates
Linking Data, Policy and Practice to Improve Graduation Rates and Stem Drop Outs
This session uses data, policy and process review strategies to identify how school systems’ policies, traditions and
practices contribute to low graduation rates and high levels of drop outs. This practical session equips participants with
strategies that can be used in their district to improve graduation rates.
Introduction
Overview
What we will do today
The national & state picture
• Drop Out Rates
• Graduation Rates
• Changing Expectations
• Changing Definitions
Schools are designed for a 19th and 20th century vision of
schooling
Screen, sort and select
We have changed our expectations but have we really changed our practices?
Drop out factories
Johns Hopkins University
What research says
Changing trends
-- students who drop out are more likely than ever before to have parents with high school diploma, and
-- more likely to have the grades to complete high school
• Dropouts miss more school than graduates – dropouts miss on average 124 days by 8th grade (AZU study)
The Silent Epidemic: Perspectives of High School
Dropouts
A report by Civic Enterprises in association with Peter D. Hart Research Associates for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, March
2006
What students say
• Nearly 7 in 10 (69%) said they were not motivated or inspired to work hard
• 80% did one hour or less of homework each day
• 2/3 would have worked harder if more was demanded (higher academic standards, more studying, more homework)
• 70% were confident they could have graduated if they had tried
Why they leave
• 1/3 said they left school because they had to get a job
• 26% said that they left because they became a parent
• 22% left because they had to care for a family member
• 35% said that “failing in school” was a major factor for dropping out
• 3 out of 10 said that they could not keep up with school work
• 43% said that they had missed too many days and could not catch up
• 45% said they started high school poorly prepared by their early schooling
• Students reported that additional supports in high school would have made a difference, but were not there
• 32% were required to repeat a grade before dropping out
• 29% had doubts that they could have met their high school’s graduation requirements even if they had put in the necessary effort
• 59-65% missed class often the year before dropping out
• 38% said that there was too much freedom and not enough rules
Several roads to dropping out of school
• Foster care
• Housing instability & homelessness
• Grade level retention
• 9th grade failure
• Special education ( some designations e.g., EI and LD)
• Juvenile justice system encounters
• School disciplinary encounters
• Absenteeism
• Tardiness
• Health issues
• Low income – need to work
• Pregnancy
• Parenthood & childcare
• Language barriers• Unmet GTE needs• Mental health issues• Erratic and poor instruction• Immigration status complications• Safety• Abuse, harassment & bullying• Substance abuse• Run away
Parent issues can impact student dropping out
• Substance abuse
• Mental health issues
• Health needs
• Unemployment
• Immigration status
• Mobility
• Legal issues & incarceration
Quitting school is a gradual process that starts K-8
Critical Junctures
• Passage from pre-K to formal K-12 schools
• Movement from 3rd to 4th grade learning concepts and methods
• Movement into middle school 6th or 7th grade
• High school entry
Theory of Change
• Focus on school factors• Research informed change• Strong involvement of teachers &
practitioners in research & problem solving
• Listen to students & their parents
NO EXCUSES!!!
Focus on school factors – those things that schools can do
But also recognize the value of coalition building with other
service providers
Our challenge is to act but also to be focused and deliberate.
Examine policies and practices that serve as barriers and those
that serve as catalysts to achievement
Policy Challengesexamples
• Grade level retention policies
• Access to high level courses
• Tracking
• Attendance and tardiness policies
• Suspension and expulsion policies
• Homework policies
Systemic Barriers
• Location, location, location – ongoing racial and economic segregation
• Unequal school resources
• Unequal academic opportunities
• Differential teacher quality
• Differential disciplineFrom Race Matters; by The Annie E. Casey Foundation
How does the decision to drop out look from the student’s point of view?
Sometimes students even have a plan
• Work a while and get diploma later
• Enroll in a charter, alternative school or other institution
• Get GED
• Join the military
• Transfer to another school
• Enroll in an adult education program
Case Study
A few weeks of bad choices
The challenge: At what point are the consequences for bad
decisions made at 14 or 15 years old too high and life changing. There are no easy or readily available doors back into the system – no “do-overs”. What were the early signs and what could have been done differently to avoid failure? How could Crystal’s academic needs have been met at a level that challenged her?
Research driven school design
Are we pushing kids out?
Are we helping them to successfully navigate the system?
Are we ignoring their individual needs?
What schools can do
• Improve teaching and curriculum (alignment, rigor, relevance)
• Improve, evaluate and monitor access to supports for struggling students
Better yet become proactive – don’t wait for failure
• Provide re-entry opportunities…with peers their age
• Vary the skill levels, all returning students may not be failing
• Build a school climate that fosters academic success
• Assess carefully from the student’s eye view what it takes to navigate the school environment
• Ensure that each student has a strong relationship with at least one adult in the school
• Improve the communication between parents and schools
• Offer options e.g., shorter marking periods with frequent feedback
• Offer online learning and other academic options
• Develop early warning systems (lead indicators)
• Review school processes and systems e.g., scheduling
Dropout Prevention Self Assessment
Create your own self assessment
“When one has no stake in the way things are, when one’s needs or opinions are provided no forum, when one sees oneself as the object of unilateral actions, it takes no particular wisdom to suggest that one would rather be elsewhere.”
-- Seymour B. Sarason, 1991, p. 83 in “The Predictable Failure of Education Reform”
Resources
• The Differential Developmental Trajectories of High School Dropouts and Graduates; Journal of Education Research
• The Silent Epidemic: Perspectives of High School Dropouts by John M. Bridgeland, et al
Resources
• Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage by Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas
• Fires in the Bathroom: Advice for Teachers From High School Students by Kathleen Cushman and the students of What Kids Can Do, Inc
• Common Purpose: Strengthening Families and Neighborhoods to Build America, Lisbeth Schorr
• Within Our Reach, Lisbeth Schorr
