dropout crisis

This year in Oklahoma a long-awaited dark curtain affecting high school graduation has finally come down.

That curtain, argues Tulsa Tech director of education Richard F. Palazzo, is a series of rigorous tests in mathematics, science and English language arts that will lead “disappointed, frustrated and disconnected seniors” to “throw their hands up and leave school.”

In the latest installment of the Fresno Unified School District dropout saga, the district's board has asked Superintendent Michael Hanson to explore the creation of a dropout intervention commission — and they've given him until February to do it.

Whoa.

Asked? 

Explore?

Commission?

February!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?

How much put-offsmanship will the Fresno community permit?

Seen this?

You should. 

This entire PBS NewsHour special is filled with ideas and inspirations for those who want to fight the dropout crisis. 

One of the keys: Giving teachers the tools they need to recognize their students' hardships.

Among the most heart-breaking examples was a student who was stabbed by his mother, kicked out of his home, and yet still found his way to school the next day. 

  By fourth grade, the average reading score of African American and Latino students is two years below grade level. And by the age of 17, the average reading and math scores of African American and Latino students are equivalent to a 13-year-old white child. 

  Those are some of the hard facts shared by Lourdez Ferrer and Stephen Garlington of the DuPage Regional Office of Education in Wheaton, Ill. during a session dedicated to reducing Latino and African American dropout rates on Monday.  

  As a U.S. military veteran and a former war correspondent for The Salt Lake Tribune, Utah State University journalism and communications professor Matthew D. LaPlante says he doesn’t use war metaphors lightly. 

  If you don’t have a student of your own attending a public school right now, chances are good that you’re not very impressed with the state of education in America. Fewer than one in five Americans who aren’t directly connected to a school rate the school system favorably.

From today's Baltimore Sun:

More students graduated from the Maryland's public schools last June than in any time in memory, but the high school dropout rate also increased slightly.

Confused by how the graduation rate and the dropout rate could both be on the rise? You're definitely not alone — and it's a shame that Sun reporter Liz Bowie has failed to clarify what is going on here.

So we'll do it for her:

Singer-songwriter John Legend will be the face of a Procter & Gamble promotion to benefit dropout prevention.

Legend will appear on the cover of a coupon booklet that will be included in Sunday newspapers across the country. Sales related to the coupons will help support Communities in Schools. 

It was good to see former West Virginia Gov. Bob Wise on CNN's "Your Bottom Line" this week alongside State Farm CEO Ed Rust and Dominique Demetice Ferrar — a formerly at-risk high school student from St. Paul, Minnesota who is now a spokesman for State Farm's 26 Seconds anti-dropout campaign. 

There is a lot of useful information in Beatrice Motamedi's three-part series on students and stress, but perhaps nothing more important to those engaged in the fight to end the dropout epidemic than this simple observation: