National Dropout Prevention Network Conference

  Invoking the recently fallen “iCon of iCulture,” Steve Jobs (who was himself invoking Pablo Picasso when he said that “good artists copy; great artists steal”) Robert Shumer told hundreds of fellow educators that he had a debt to pay. 

The March 8 edition of the National Dropout Prevention Center Radio Webcast will feature Angela Wall, who will speak about project-based learning. 

Looking back on his high school experience today, Joseph Morales isn’t prone to rose-colored memories. At Philadelphia’s “infamous” Olney High School, he said, “I graduated... or actually, I should say, I survived.”

For Michael Carter, the recipient of the National Dropout Prevention Network’s 2010 Distinguished Leadership and Service Award, Tuesday’s award luncheon provided a special opportunity to remember two special people.

Tyler Shoesmith does this because he cares.

But although he thrives on the “warm fuzzy” feeling he gets when he helps recruit a dropout back into school, the former salesman knows that sometimes, all that matters is the bottom line.

Have you ever had to do something that you didn’t want to do? Sure you have. And it probably made you uncomfortable, angry, anxious — and maybe a little bit truculent — right?

Pat Davenport, of Families and Schools Together, Inc., in Madison, Wis., said that’s how parents often feel when they are called upon to become more active in their struggling child's education.

“They themselves may not have had very good experiences in school,” Davenport said at the National Dropout Prevention Conference in Philadelphia on Monday.

“Some people would say that innovation in the Department of Education is an oxymoron,” says Jim Shelton, the department’s assistant deputy secretary for innovation and improvement.

Are you at the National Dropout Prevention Network Conference?

We want to hear from you! What are you learning? What stories are you sharing? What is your part in the fight against the dropout epidemic?

Email us at editor@nodropouts.org

When it comes to keeping students in school, one of the most important factors can’t be created by politicians and policy makers.

“You can’t legislate a caring adult,” Rhonda Tsoi-A-Fatt, of the Center for Law and Social Policy, said during a session at the National Dropout Prevention Conference in Philadelphia on Monday.

There could not have been a more inspiring opening to the 22nd Annual National Dropout Prevention Conference in Philadelphia on Monday.

“My name is Antonio Jones,” the fresh-faced introductory speaker told more than 800 people at the Loews Philadelphia Hotel, “and less than two years ago I was a high school dropout.”

Today, Jones is on his way to college, where he intends to study youth development.