Dropouts are not lazy

School officials in Roanoke, Va., are taking an aggressive approach to improve graduation rates. They're visiting the homes of hundreds of students who didn't show up for school this fall and connecting those students with intervention specialists charged with helping them graduate.

That sort of personalized student service demonstrates a forward-thinking approach to battling the dropout epidemic. As such, it's unfortunate that in reporting this story, the headline writers at The Roanoke Times turned to a simplistic, antiquated and demeaning description of high school dropouts.

They called them "lazy."

While a small number of students drop out of school because they simply don't have the drive to continue, most are victims of a far more complicated set of obstacles.

Maybe they're poor and they need to work to support themselves or their families.

Maybe they have children and they cannot afford child care.

Maybe they need to take care of a sick family member.

Maybe they are afraid to come to school because they're being bullied.

Maybe they have a learning disability that makes it difficult, if not impossible, to succeed in a traditional classroom.

Deriding dropouts as "lazy" is a convenient way of not addressing one of the most important issues facing our nation.

And that is lazy.