Drop Out Rates in New York and L.A. Schools

andyfox · #1 10-01-2005, 01:26 PM

L.A.: http://unitela.com/slcnewsmar05/html/dropout.html
Harvard researchers found an overall graduation rate of 71 percent for 2002. Graduation rates for non-Asian minority students were significantly lower, with a 57 percent rate for blacks, 60 percent for Latinos and 52 percent for American Indians. For minority males, the figures were even worse: 50 percent for blacks, 54 percent for Latinos and 46 percent for American Indians. Nearly 75 percent of the district's 746,000 students are Latino. In the LAUSD, just 39 percent of Latino students and 47 percent of African-American students graduate in four years. To comply with requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, districts in California are asked to have an 82.5 percent graduation rate. If they haven't reached that, they are expected to improve their current rate by at least one-tenth of 1 percent. Even so, the LAUSD failed to comply this year because the districtwide graduation rate fell to 67.7 percent from 72 percent.

New York: http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/si.../rising_rates/
While nationwide 50 percent of minority youth graduate within four years, in New York the figure stands at 35 percent.

Too many children are being left behind.

RacersEdge · #2 10-01-2005, 03:21 PM

MAybe they should try studying more.

Dynasty · #3 10-01-2005, 04:42 PM

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Too many children are being left behind.

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Graduating from high school is not even close to difficult. So, I've never excepted that children that fail are being left behind. They're falling behind on their own merits.

andyfox · #4 10-01-2005, 06:14 PM

I thought that a big part of the No Child Left Behind initiative was to increase graduation rates. I know Ted Kennedy has since criticized the Bush administation's educations policies, pariticularly lack of funding for No Child Left Behind, but when I saw Bush and Kennedy making nice-nice on this thing I knew we were getting hosed, as so often happens when Democrats and Republicans agree wholeheartedly on something.

I agree that many, if not most, are falling behind on their own merits. But Chicago has recently made progress in slowing drop-out rates. To me, it's a bigger crisis than homeland security.

lehighguy · #5 10-01-2005, 06:17 PM

The point of No Child Left Behind was to pass a bill.

Some words were on it but they weren't important.

[censored] · #6 10-01-2005, 06:30 PM

This is what happens when a society places the responsibility for things like graduating high school on the Government on not on the family and individual. I don't blame either party or perhaps I blame both.

The notion that the federal government can do a damn thing to keep kids in LA, NY or bum [censored] Kentucky from dropping out is extremely retarded.

Thankfully no child left behind was just a campaign promise used to get elected and not some a serious but doomed program sucking and wasting tax payor money. If you told me it was being fully funded then I would be upset. As for dumb fucks dropping out of high school? why should I give a [censored] exactly? I have enough problems of my own and don't have time to worry about Johnny Deliquent getting to school.

theBruiser500 · #7 10-01-2005, 07:27 PM

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[ QUOTE ]

Too many children are being left behind.

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Graduating from high school is not even close to difficult. So, I've never excepted that children that fail are being left behind. They're falling behind on their own merits.

[/ QUOTE ]

And what exactly do you mean by that? You don't get it Dynasty. It's easy for you to graduate from high school, it was easy for me, it's easy for everyone who posts on this message board. How easy do you think it would be though, if your dad left before you were born, your mother had AIDs and you were often hungry for lack of food; would graduating from high school still be "not even close to difficult"? You are where you are today because you were fortunate, if you were born into the wrong circumstances there is nothing you could do about it, you'd be acting the same as they do dropping out of school and wouldn't be able to be so arrogant.

MMMMMM · #8 10-01-2005, 07:36 PM

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You are where you are today because you were fortunate, if you were born into the wrong circumstances there is nothing you could do about it, you'd be acting the same as they do dropping out of school and wouldn't be able to be so arrogant.

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That isn't absolutely true, Bruiser--although granted it would be much more difficult.

I STRONGLY suggest that you read the autobiography of Booker T. Washington. Through sheer force of will and application he overcame obstacles that make the obstacles you list appear like like a walk in the park by comparison. Seriously, you should read it; it is short, and you may come away from it holding a new appreciation of the powers of the human spirit to overcome the most seemingly insurmountable obstacles, and to achieve true greatness.

Reading that book was a humbling experience for me--and at times it even brought tears to my eyes. It should be in every high school curriculum.

theBruiser500 · #9 10-01-2005, 07:42 PM

I will put the book on my list of books to read but it in no way diminishes my point.

nicky g · #10 10-01-2005, 08:26 PM

[ QUOTE ]
You are where you are today because you were fortunate, if you were born into the wrong circumstances there is nothing you could do about it, you'd be acting the same as they do dropping out of school and wouldn't be able to be so arrogant.

That isn't absolutely true, Bruiser--although granted it would be much more difficult.

I STRONGLY suggest that you read the autobiography of Booker T. Washington. Through sheer force of will and application he overcame obstacles that make the obstacles you list appear like like a walk in the park by comparison. Seriously, you should read it; it is short, and you may come away from it holding a new appreciation of the powers of the human spirit to overcome the most seemingly insurmountable obstacles, and to achieve true greatness.

Reading that book was a humbling experience for me--and at times it even brought tears to my eyes. It should be in every high school curriculum.

[/ QUOTE ]

That there will always be some individuals who can ovecome the most adverse of situations is inspirational. But the point is that if for example you or Dynasty or benfranklin and your likeminded friends had have grown up in the circumstances that a lot of more disadvantaged people grow up in, the probability of your graduating, or not committing or being caught committing some kind of crime or whatever would have been greatly reduced. That intelligent poker players can't see that is beyond me. Did you have to emulate Booker T Washington to do well? Is it fair that poor children should have to while you don't?

Reducing it all to a question of individual will power ignores the fundamental unfairness that some people are born into situations where success requires far greater effort and becomes far less likely an outcome than it does for more privileged people. There are many people in jail or on skid row that would have become Dynasties or George Bushes (God forbid) or what have you if they hadn't been born into much more trying circumstances than those people were.