CNN has an article up about a recently released report on high school dropouts.
The report can be downloaded from here – unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be an HTML version, only a PDF
http://www.civicenterprises.net/pdfs/thesilentepidemic3-06.pdf
In a nutshell:
- 47% of dropouts say that their classes were not interesting.
- 69% say they were not motivated/inspired to work hard
- 70% say they could have graduated if they had tried
- 88% say that they were passing when they dropped out
- 81% say they recognize a high school diploma is “vital to their success”
- 74% would have stayed in school if they were able to “do it again”
The results are certainly interesting, but this was a poll (the study does not indicate – or at least I couldn’t find where it indicated – that actual transcripts of the dropouts were obtained). Having quite a bit of experience comparing student perceptions of academic performance with actual academic performance, I’ll simply say I notice that many students think that they are doing better than they actually are. I don’t think that they are necessarily lying about it, but many students simply don’t know whether they’re passing or not. I’m not buying the “88% were passing” figure without transcripts, frankly.
Lots of students complained that their classes were “boring” or “not relevant” to their future job prospects or to their “life”. I wonder if having more contact with people that work outside of the school or people in industry can help.
Both the teachers and the students need this interaction – the teachers so they can use more real-world examples, and the students so that they will believe that the real-world examples are relevant. Some students simply won’t believe that anything they don’t choose to do on their own is important. I see too many pre-nursing students around here who actually don’t believe that things like basic knowledge of human anatomy or the ability to calculate how much of a drug to give a patient will be useful in the nursing profession!
Will more contact with “real” professionals at an earlier age make their lessons more “relevant” and save these students?