Student achievement is not the only problem facing educators in today’s world of standardized testing, but it often takes the largest bite out of funding and resources. Focus on standards and assessment moves the emphasis from teaching the whole child to teaching-to-the-test. That leaves little, if any, recourse to maintain student interest in school.
The good news is, more states are now taking student graduation seriously and pledging to tackle low graduation rates as part of their education budgets. The bad news is, information received by districts and teachers about possible dropouts often comes too late.
A common misunderstanding among administrators is that students drop out because of family or personal reasons. In fact, it’s usually because they’ve had one or more bad experiences at school, such as a dramatic and sudden drop in grades, confrontation with other students or staff, or literacy and numeracy struggles as the level of difficulty increases.
What can teachers do to avert students dropping out? Knowing what to look for and knowing what to do when you identify the danger signals can greatly minimize the risk factors.
Dropping out is not a sudden event. Educational disengagement and withdrawal from school are both signs that a student may not want to continue with secondary education. Researchers in Philadelphia claim to be able to identify 50 percent of eventual dropouts by the sixth grade and an additional 30 percent by the ninth grade. Warning bells are:
• Students who experience low grades during elementary school
• Students who experience a sharp academic decline during the sixth-grade transition year.
• Students who suffer so badly academically that they have incomplete grades.
Activities that are low intensity and encourage increased self-esteem can help. Tutoring, peer-mentoring activities, and workshops that enhance leadership skills have been proven to work, according to a rigorous experimental evaluation of the federal School Dropout Demonstration Assistance Program. Carefully monitoring students around the danger years of fifth and sixth grades along with implementing comprehensive character-education program will help teachers identify troubled students and enable them to work quickly to activate strategies that increase student involvement and their sense of belonging.
CHARACTERCOUNTS! offers a series of one-day in-service workshops that can address these issues. These seminars involve students in various leadership activities that improve their self-esteem, increase their ownership of school and community events, and help make their educational experience a positive one. And that can help keep them in school.
For more information on how CHARACTERCOUNTS! can help increase school connectedness, and seminars to encourage student leadership call the national office at: 800 711 2670
