Dropout prevention

Grad Nation: A Guidebook to Help Communities Tackle the Dropout Crisis - a resource that echoes many of the strategies NEA advocates - is available online from America’s Promise Alliance, one of NEA’s national dropout prevention partners.

The user-friendly guidebook is an excellent resource for NEA state and local affiliates that want to help communities develop tailored plans for keeping students on track to graduate from high school, prepared for college, work and life.

Grad Nation contains research-based guidance for addressing a community’s dropout crisis, links to additional online resources, and ready-to-print tools such as informational handouts to build support for community action, forms and tables to help organize and analyze local data, and charts to guide local decision making. 

Authors Robert Balfanz, associate professor at the Everyone Graduates Center housed at the Center for Social Organization of Schools, Johns Hopkins University, and John Bridgeland, president and CEO, Civic Enterprises, provide step-by-step guidance for:

1. Rallying a community to end its dropout crisis and increase high school graduation rates
2. Mapping the exact nature of a community’s dropout crisis
3. Developing comprehensive solutions to address the crisis
4. Moving forward to create lasting change

Released in late winter of 2009, America’s Promise plans to update the guidebook’s content periodically as new information becomes available and communities share what they have learned working with the guidebook’s resources.

Download Grad Nation: A Guidebook to Help Communities Tackle the Dropout Crisis

School propaganda from the Governor's office

California has a Secretary of Education as well as a Superintendent of Public Instruction.  The Superintendent organizes the state educational programs and implements state mandates.  The Secretary of Education is an advisor to the Governor. The current Secretary is Bonnie Reiss, about the 5^th. Secretary under Arnold Schwarzenegger. 

Secretary Reiss has a letter to the editor in the Sacramento Bee of Tues. June 29, responding to an earlier column by Dan Walters about the state’s persistent high drop out rate.  The letter is a classic piece of propaganda.

You begin with the statement, “schools with effective teachers and effective principals do well and those with ineffective teachers and ineffective principals do not. “  She is correct.  But, in the service of propaganda, this statement tells only a part of the story.  It says something you agree with in order to introduce the propaganda message.  She then goes on to say, “It is time for California to join the national education reform movement  and change state law to move away from our current failed system that is based solely on teacher seniority.”  That is the propaganda piece.

Lets see. There are schools with high levels of drop outs, and schools with very low level of dropouts.  The high drop out schools tend to be in poverty areas and the low drop out schools tend to be in upper middle class areas.  Both groups of schools have precisely the same teacher seniority requirements.  That is, there is no evidence that teacher seniority leads to the high drop out crisis in California.

I have  taught in public schools and university teacher preparation programs for over 40 years and written books on this subject.  Lets look a little deeper.

California has had a chronic drop out problem since at least 1969 and the drop outs are concentrated in low income schools. The problem has not been improved.  In the last two years the Governor has cut $16 billion from school budgets, will that make matters better or worse?   As the Robles-Wong v California lawsuit asserts California spends $2131 less dollars per student than the national average.  (www.fixschoolfinance.org) Significant budget cuts increase class size. Large class sizes mean that many  2,3^rd, 4^th, graders are not learning to read well- even with good teachers.  These students will be your future drop outs.

Severe budget cuts at the high school levels produce immediate drop outs. Most counselors have been eliminated. California ranks 49^th. out of the 50 states in counselors per student.  There are few counselors to look after students who fall behind or get in difficulty.  California ranks 49^th. out of the 50 states in librarians.  Severe budget cuts eliminate supplemental support programs such as having probation officers working with the schools.  As a result you have more disruptive student in classes.  Even good teachers have difficulty when there are large numbers of disruptive students in classes.  More disruption leads to more students failing. There is more gang violence and more gang related crime as gang intervention workers are laid off. 

It is precisely the 30 year history of under funding our schools, accelerated under the Schwarzenegger administration that is the problem.  As described in prior posts, the state is not the blame for the economic crisis.  That was the work of the Wall Street bankers.  However, the state is responsible for the response to the economic crisis- and it is failing. 

California dropout crisis

CDE Report Shows Scant Movement on California Drop Out Rates

Yesterday State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell today released the annual report on dropout and graduation rates for the 2007-08 school year.
In 2007-08, 68.1 percent of public school students in California graduated, up from 67.7 percent last year. The adjusted four-year derived dropout rate for the same school year is 20.1 percent, down from 21.1 percent last year.
“I am heartened that the graduation rate is up slightly, but California’s dropout rate is still unacceptably high,” said O’Connell. “If we look deeper into the data, we see alarmingly high dropout rates among African American and Hispanic students. There are long-term economic repercussions from not graduating for the student, for their communities, and for our statewide economy. These data provide even more evidence of the challenge and the moral imperative of closing the achievement gap as well as increasing graduation rates among all students.”
Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) commented on the report:
“The high dropout numbers reported today by Superintendent O’Connell illustrate that California’s most important work is ensuring that millions of students don’t simply fall through the cracks by dropping out of school. Even in these challenging fiscal times, we must do more for these students – especially in Latino and African-American communities where the crisis is demonstratively worse and where there are economic justice implications for our entire society. The way that California can build a just and thriving economy over the long-term is to provide education and training that inspires students to plan for careers in the state’s growing job sectors.”

Dan Walters of the Sacramento Bee comments, “the Department of Education numbers are highly controversial among outside researchers, with some contending that the true rate is as high as one-third, with some urban school districts losing 50 percent or more of those who enter the ninth grade.”
Meanwhile Senator Gloria Romero, Chair of the Senate Committee on Education descries the minimal dropout rate reduction and argues that education failure needs data reporting overhaul such as her authored legislation SB 651.
“We don’t need another report to tell us that we are failing miserably to educate the future citizens of California,” said Senator Romero (D-East Los Angeles). “We need to completely transform how we engage students to stay in school and to excel. We need better measures predicting dropout trends instead of gloomy statistics that just measure the body count. And we certainly need to increase our graduation rates far more than a measly .4 percent to meet the economic challenges of tomorrow,” she said.
The California Department of Education (CDE) release described in detail the report.
Duane Campbell response.
So, what should be done?
All Romero's bill does is ask for another report.
We know what causes dropouts. the problem is that the legislature refuses to fund the programs that would reduce drop outs.

Too many working-class students have been trained for defeat. Sitting in classes completing endless worksheets to prepare for poor quality exams confirms a cynical belief that schooling and education make little real difference in life. On the other hand, social participation—and school-to-work opportunities along with digital media empowers students and provides a means to break out of these defeatist patterns. Work in community agencies gives students a realistic view of the processes of change. Adult community activists serve as mentors to students and encourage them to complete their education. Students begin their transition to the world of work and return to school more mature and focused on improving their own education.
Interaction with life, work, racism, and poverty will convince many students of the value of education. Students gain a sense of social responsibility when they participate in projects that actually contribute to the health of their own communities.

California Drop out crisis

New Report Underscores Education Reform Needs

Senator Gloria Romero
Current High-School Dropout Rate Means 1 in 3 Students Will Fail
Today we again highlight the need for reform in California’s education system based on a report released yesterday by the California Dropout Research Project stating one in three high-school students will drop out of school before graduating.
It is simply unconscionable that we can project a failure rate in educating future generations. I’m not willing to wait one more year—and loose another 140,000 students—to enact serious reforms. We must make changes now that will enable kids to succeed in school and put California back on a path to real and long-term economic recovery.
According to the report in California, students abandon middle and high schools at the rate of 140,000 per year—equlivant to the populations of Pasadena, Elk Grove or the entire County of Napa—and cost taxpayers $46 billion annually in crime, social welfare, health, public assistance and other taxpayer costs. Even in the best of times, the high costs of dropouts to the state are a drain but, today starting new engines of economic growth are the rallying cry of all state and national governments eying recovery.
California’s needs an education system that produces more skilled high-school graduates today more than at any other time in our past.
In fact, for every $500 of wealth that households headed by a high-school dropout accumulate, households headed by high-school graduates possess approximately $5,000. This means that there would be an additional $74 billion in collective wealth in the United States if every household were headed by an individual with at least a high-school diploma, according to a 2008 report by the Alliance for Excellent Education.
The Public Policy Institute of California predicts there will be twice as many high-school dropouts in California in 2025 as there will be jobs to support them. Meaning twice as many high-school dropouts will have no hope for employment. This evidence underscores the importance of early intervention and prevention.
In March the Senate Committee on Education held an informational hearing with the objective of viewing education initiatives through the lens of economic recovery. The hearing and outlined the steps needed to ensure that a skilled workforce, representative of the state’s diversity, industry and need, will be ready to fuel the next stage of economic growth in the state. Further, this year I along with Senator Steinberg have also co-authored SB 651 that would use data to assist educators in developing better public accountability and a stronger focus on dropout prevention.
California’s economic development strategy must focus on growing human capital, and human capital starts with education. Education is the single most important factor in ensuring a capable and competent society in which every member has the opportunity to succeed.
A recent report by UCLA’s Institute for Democracy and the California Educational Opportunity Report, Education and Access (IDEA) and All Campus Consortium on Research for Diversity (ACCORD), found widespread correlation to renewed attention of the relationship between educational investment and the state’s economic health. The “achievement gap” represents the difference between what California public school students achieve today versus what they will require to gain work in a global economy.
To that end, Senate Democratic members have introduced a package of legislation “Jobs of Tomorrow” which asserts the real link between education and the economy. These bills seek to enhance California’s education system through:
• SB 675 (Steinberg) – Clean Technology and Renewable Energy Job Training, Career Technical Education, and Dropout Prevention Act of 2010
• SB 471 (Romero and Steinberg) – Education: stem cell research
• SB 515 (Hancock) – Career technical education
• SB 43 (Alquist) – Health professions
• SB 725 (Hancock) – Regional occupational centers or programs: California Apprenticeship Preparation Program
• SB 651 (Romero and Steinberg) – Drop out tracking
• SB 747 (Romero) – Career technical education- aerospace
Posted on April 14, 2009
___________________________________
Response

Only the Dropout tracking bill by Romero and Steinberg has much to day about dropouts.

What could the legislature do to reduce the extreme California dropout rate?
1.Pass a responsible budget for K-12 education. You have not done this in over twenty years. Provide funds for adequate counselors in the schools. ( all the other states have counselors). We should get to about 1 counselor for each 300 students in high school. Since Prop.1 California has fewer than 1 counselor for each 550 students. The result. The only students receiving counseling are the college bound students. There are practically no counselors working toward dropout prevention.
2. Provide adequate number of social workers for the schools. Both mental illness and gang membership begin by about grade 7-8. We need social workers in these schools. ( Other states have them). A large part of the dropout problem is caused by home and community crises. We need social workers to assist students with these crises.

Instead of these practical responses, your voting record produces more students per class and more useless tests of teachers- such as the TPA and PACT Assessments. See prior posts on PACT. You can use the search bar above.

California's alarming drop out rate

Jack O’Connell: California’s Alarming Dropout Rate and the Support Our Children Need


In this week’s Democratic weekly radio address, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell and Executive Director of the P16 Council José Ortega highlight California’s alarming high school dropout rate. They also call for the support needed to ensure our children are well-educated and our economy is competitive.

You may listen in English or Spanish. A full transcript follows.

Hello, this is State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell.

This year, for the first time using student level data, California was able to report with much more accuracy information about the number of students who either dropped out or graduated from high school.

Implementing a system that revealed the truth about our dropout problem was a very important first step. Now we must face the alarming news that one in four students is dropping out of our California public high schools.

These high school dropouts will struggle to find employment, let alone find a job in which their true potential flourishes.

What's even more troubling is that the dropout rate is even higher among our African American, Hispanic, and low-income students. This achievement gap is a crisis. The loss of potential for students who do not finish school is simply staggering. And it is a major loss to our state’s economy.

To keep California’s economy competitive, we need the jobs a well-educated workforce attracts.

According to the California Dropout Research Project, each yearly wave of dropouts will cost California $46 billion through increased spending and reduced taxes.

These alarming dropout rate numbers are in part a legacy of our state's embarrassingly low per-pupil funding.

Among the fifty states, we consistently rank among the lowest ten.

So when California's State Board of Education recently mandated Algebra 1 for every single 8th grader, I and educators up and down our state were deeply concerned.

California's educators are rightly working hard toward the day when all of our students in 8th grade are truly prepared to succeed in Algebra 1.

But as of today, less than one in four 8th graders enrolled in General Mathematics is even proficient on standards that are taught in 6th and 7th grades.

Now in light of this fact, and our 24 percent dropout rate, it’s clear that in order to improve our students’ education, we need to increase the support of our schools.

Bringing California's per-pupil funding up to par with the rest of the United States is crucial to achieving our educational goals.

Attracting the 8,000 new algebra teachers we will need is going to require competitive recruiting strategies including increased salaries.

Our schools must be repaired and well-maintained if we're going to help our kids focus on their education.

Textbooks, after-school programs, school counselors: these were the basics previous generations needed to excel in school; our kids deserve no less.

Additionally, harnessing the power of today's information technology for educational purposes is an opportunity we simply can't afford to miss.

If history has taught us anything, it’s that the investments made in education benefit everyone in our society.

To sustain California's business innovation, our arts, culture and scientific achievement there is no substitute.

This has been State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell, thank you for listening.
From: the California Progress Report.

Drop outs: Is the legislature listening?

High dropout rate puts California's future in peril

By Betty T. Yee - The Bee

California is failing our next generation as the doors shut for our young people to have a shot at a good quality of life.

Few would disagree with the notion that the state's competitive edge depends on a highly educated, highly skilled work force. However, California's investment in public education is woefully inadequate to meet this challenge, failing to provide the necessary support to reduce the high school dropout rate and to fulfill the promise of college for every eligible student.

This week, state educators predicted 24 percent of California students will drop out during high school. The dropout rates are alarming for African American and Latino students – 42 percent and 30 percent, respectively. While these figures are based on the most accurate student attendance data collected by the Department of Education, they certainly are not the first indication that California's public education system is in crisis.

According to the California Dropout Research Project in its August 2007 study, one out of every four adults in 2005 had not graduated from high school. Approximately 120,000 students do not attain a diploma by age 20 each year. And with each annual cohort of dropouts, California taxpayers foot the exorbitant bill for these young people – to the tune of $46 billion, or 2.9 percent of the annual gross state product, over their lifetimes – because they are more likely to be unemployed and pay no taxes, resort to criminal activity and rely on publicly funded programs for basic subsistence and health care.

On average, high school graduates earn more than high school dropouts, about $290,000 more over a lifetime; they also pay $100,000 more in federal, state and local taxes. High school graduation also contributes to a reduction in crime: by 20 percent for violent crimes, 11 percent for property crimes and 12 percent for drug-related crimes. A high school graduate is 68 percent less likely to be on any public assistance program than a high school dropout.

It's a no-brainer – not investing in strategies to reduce the number of high school dropouts does not save us money, but in fact costs California taxpayers exponentially more to address the consequences of low educational attainment.

The picture gets bleaker when one looks at public education in our urban core. In the America's Promise Alliance report released last month, almost half of all public high school students in the United States fail to graduate and are eight times more likely to land in prison. The report cites only 57.1 percent of public high school students in the city of Los Angeles graduate.

Our investment in public education has also failed on the commitment in the 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education to provide college access to every eligible student. The race is on: According to the California Business Roundtable and the Campaign for College Opportunity in its April 2006 study, one in three new California jobs by 2022 will require an associate degree, bachelor's degree or higher, up from one in four jobs today. Coupled with the retiring college-educated baby boomers, the number of new jobs that will require college degrees is equal to the population of San Francisco, San Diego and San Jose combined.

California's economy is heavily focused in specialized, knowledge-based occupations and industries, with technical services, education and health care topping the industries in need of the largest number of highly educated workers. Small increases in the number of highly educated workers yield significant economic benefits: a 1 percent increase in the share of population with a bachelor's degree and a 2 percent increase with an associate degree or some college result in the creation of 174,000 new jobs and $1.2 billion more in annual state and local tax revenues.

The data are clear: College access is key to producing the large numbers of engineers, teachers and nurses to meet California's work force demands, generate additional much-needed tax revenue and keep the state's competitive edge. We already have seen the hemorrhaging of manufacturing and information sector jobs to other states and countries, and can ill afford any further high-paying job losses. Additionally, we must not forget the need for vocational educational programs to address the ongoing needs for highly skilled trade and craft workers, technicians and service workers.

The studies cited above should serve as a wake-up call for state policymakers about the critical need to increase our investment in public education in California. Moreover, policymakers should compel every single Californian to shoulder the responsibility for averting this statewide economic crisis by fairly spreading the burden for contributing to the cost of public education and other government services based on income.

Our global economy is changing rapidly. We are running out of time to save our state.

If California is to maintain its place among the world's top 10 economies, we must increase our investment in public education now: Our industries demand it, our tax system depends on it, and our children deserve it.

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California drop out rate crisis

California moves toward honest drop out numbers
California high school dropout rate near one-quarter, report says

By Deb Kollars - dkollars@sacbee.com
Published 12:00 am PDT Thursday, July 17, 2008

A new high school dropout report released Wednesday shows significantly higher rates of students leaving public school in California than reported in previous years.

According to the California Department of Education, one in four high-schoolers – 24.2 percent – failed to graduate or move into another program to continue their education. The estimates were derived from data from the 2006-07 school year.

By contrast, the state claimed a 13.9 percent four-year dropout rate for the prior year.

The difference is due to a more accurate system for keeping track of students, said state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell. Under the system, students were given a unique identification number that enabled the state to better track their whereabouts in the education system.

It proved an eye-opening effort.

In the past, dropout counts were self-reported by schools and districts. In many places, the figures were considered serious undercounts, especially when compared with the rates of freshmen who actually graduated with their classes four years later.

The Grant Joint Union High School District, for example, reported an 18 percent four-year dropout rate in 2005-06.

Yet, that same year, the district (which recently merged into a new district called Twin Rivers) graduated only 1,232 students – fewer than half of the 2,547 ninth-graders enrolled four years earlier.

For years, such disparities ran up and down the state, leading to calls for reform of the dropout reporting system. Laws passed in 1995 and 2002 paved the way for a more accurate system, but financial and bureaucratic barriers prevented it until this year.

"Thank God we've finally moved in this direction," said Delaine Eastin, who was state superintendent from 1995 until 2003 and advocated for a better tracking system. "It's too little too late, though, for some of these students, these real-life people."

Under the new system, the Grant district showed a 36.2 percent dropout rate – double its prior year's and one of the highest district rates in the Sacramento region.

The Sacramento City Unified and San Juan Unified districts, by contrast, ran just below the Sacramento County rate of 26.5 percent and slightly above the statewide rate.

"We knew it was high, but this is a startling number," said Frank Porter, superintendent of the Twin Rivers Unified School District, which absorbed Grant and three other districts July 1.

Porter said he was grateful for more reliable statistics: "It will give us a more accurate baseline," he said, noting that Twin Rivers is taking steps to keep more students in school.

The announcement Wednesday that a fourth of California high-schoolers – more than 127,000 teenagers – quit school prematurely left many disturbed.

Rates run even higher for African American and Latino students. And although younger students are not accounted for in the four-year rates, the report shows thousands dropping out as early as seventh and eighthgrades.

"It's plain unacceptable," said state Sen. Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento. "These are young people who are largely uneducated and unprepared for the high-wage jobs in the new economies of California."

Mary Shelton, associate superintendent at Sacramento City Unified, agreed too many students leave early. She cautioned, though, that the rates listed for individual high schools may overstate dropouts because of mobility factors.

Hiram Johnson High School, for example, had a 35.4 percent dropout rate. But the school also has a huge transfer rate because families move so much.

"It's like a revolving door," Shelton said. "Last year half the kids transferred in or out in the course of the year."

O'Connell said the new system was designed to make better sense of transfers.

In the past, he said, when students left schools saying they were switching to another campus, their schools counted them as transfers, not dropouts, without checking if the students actually re-enrolled elsewhere.

With the new student tracking system, the state was able to determine whether such transfers took place.

If not, such students were deemed "lost transfers" and counted as dropouts. They were a big factor in the uptick in dropout rates.

"Twenty-four percent of students dropping out is not good news," O'Connell said, noting that the more accurate data should lead to greater accountability and more focus on helping students complete school.

Wednesday's report said 8.2 percent of students were considered neither dropouts nor graduates because they moved to a private school, earned a high school equivalency certificate, left the state or died, among other things.

Alan Bonsteel, a Marin physician long critical of the state's dropout counts, said the numbers still are not accurate because they fail to account for middle school dropouts and students who move to other states, countries or private schools or leave school for other reasons.

"We're still undercounting," said Bonsteel, president of California Parents for Educational Choice, a nonprofit that advocates for charters and vouchers.

According to the Department of Education, an even more accurate tally will be available when the state launches a longitudinal data system in 2009-10.

It will enable the tracking of individual students over time, rather than producing derived rates based on a single year's data.

Go to: Sacbee
Note. Average numbers are deceptive. Since California schools vary dramatically, you need to look up the scores on the specific schools

Teachers dropping out too

From the Los Angeles Times
Teachers dropping out too
A study blames working conditions. Higher pay isn't the answer, it says.
By Howard Blume
Times Staff Writer

April 27, 2007

As a mid-career professional with a doctorate in chemistry, Maurice Stephenson appeared made to order for the Los Angeles Unified School District, especially because he was eager to teach at a high-poverty campus in a system woefully short of qualified science teachers.

But the honeymoon ended abruptly after less than two years. Fed up with student insolence and administrative impotence, he stalked out of Manual Arts High School on March 12 and never went back.

Few teachers quit so dramatically, but leave they do. In California, teachers are departing the profession in alarming numbers — 22% in four years or fewer — but simply offering them more money won't solve the problem, according to a report released Thursday.

The real issue is working conditions, which are the flip side of a student's learning conditions, said Ken Futernick, who directs K-12 studies at the Center for Teacher Quality at Cal State Sacramento.

His study, which was based on a survey of nearly 2,000 California teachers, maps a growing crisis that fundamentally affects student learning.

The study also casts doubt on commonly pursued remedies both for the teacher shortage and student achievement in general.

Classroom interruptions, student discipline, increasing demands, insufficient supplies, overcrowding, unnecessary meetings, lack of support — all play a role in burning out teachers.

"They're not just driving teachers crazy; they're driving teachers out of the classrooms," Futernick said.

Stephenson is among the 35% of L.A. Unified teachers who quit within five years, according to school district data.

And as in most other cases, salary wasn't the primary factor.

In fact, L.A. Unified's data lists salary as the No. 9 reason why new hires leave. No. 1 is "moving." But also cited are "lack of support from administrator," "student discipline policy" and "unmotivated students."

Those results are consistent with Futernick's findings: "When teaching and learning conditions are poor, we discovered that many teachers see their compensation as inadequate. When these teaching and learning conditions are good, not only do teachers tend to stay, they actually view their compensation as a reason for staying."

The findings suggest that when teachers unions advocate primarily for salary, they have it somewhat wrong. On the other hand, Futernick said, administrators are clearly misguided when they focus single-mindedly on getting rid of "bad teachers."

That issue pales in importance to teacher retention. Moreover, at a struggling school, "one is hard-pressed to know the good teachers from the bad. Such a place is not conducive to good teaching," he said.

At high-minority and high-poverty schools, teacher turnover typically runs at 10% annually.

"If this churning is going on, you can be sure you have a dysfunctional school," Futernick said. "As long as we think of these schools as combat zones, we'll never solve the retention problem and we'll never close the achievement gap" between white and Asian students and their black and Latino peers.
"I told everybody I would teach as long as it was fun," said Barbara Millman, who left her teaching job at a school in San Pedro for the severely disabled at age 63. "They kept squeezing more kids into a class and trying to get by with less assistants. I felt the kids were not getting the kind of attention they needed and that we also were not valued as experts."

Other states, including Arizona, Nevada and North Carolina, use teacher survey information in ways that California does not, Futernick said. North Carolina, in particular, has adopted workplace standards that protect teachers from unnecessary interruptions, paperwork and meetings.

Such standards seem a universe apart from the experience of a former Los Angeles middle school teacher who said she taught at a rodent- and roach-infested campus where students read at a second-grade level and frequently wandered the grounds because no one made them go to class.

"It got to the point where my morale was so low, and I cared so little that I would show up 15 minutes late, with my students waiting outside. No one ever said a word to me. I was still a star," said the former teacher, who asked not to be named because she has returned to the school system for a job outside the classroom.

She had to leave the classroom because "I saw myself turning into the others. What we attract are the martyrs and the lazy, and the conditions perpetuate it."


howard.blume@latimes.com

For the report, go to http://www.calstate.edu/ teacherquality/retention.

*

(INFOBOX BELOW)

Why teachers leave

Top 10 reasons cited by California teachers who quit or planned to quit teaching, or who planned to transfer out of their current schools, because of job dissatisfaction:

Percent saying each reason affected decision

Bureaucratic interference: 57%

Poor support from district: 52%

Low staff morale: 45%

Lack of resources: 42%

Unsupportive principal: 42%

Poor compensation: 41%

Too little decision- making authority: 405

Too little time for planning: 36%

Accountability pressures: 35%

Lack of teamwork: 35%

--

Note: Responses are from 220 current and former California teachers who participated in a 2005 online survey by the California State University Center for Teacher Quality.

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Source: California State University Center for Teacher Quality

Los Angeles Times

Latino Teacher reduces dropouts

Good story on a local teacher, and a graduate of our Bilngual /Multicultural Education Dept. at CSU-S.

http://www.news10.net/display_story.aspx?storyid=24644
Young Teacher Helps At-Risk Youth Find Pride from the Past
Written for the web by Ayesha Thomas, Multimedia Producer

The town of Greenfield is ripe with farms, fields of tomatoes, chiles and lettuce – picked by a large migrant farm community. Tucked away in the Salinas Valley of Monterey County the town has limited education resources. The high school drop-out rate is high. For many of the youth, there are limited avenues to get out of Greenfield.

For Martin Ramirez though, one word opened his world wide open. Throughout high school Ramirez ran with gangs.

"All of my friends are either dead, locked up or in jail," said Ramirez.

But now his life is much different. Today he is a teacher at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, a profession he never even considered.

"Never entered my mind because I was driving teachers crazy when I was in school," said Ramirez.

But one of his teachers noticed the young man didn’t only have street smarts. Mr. Dean Willingham had a heart-to-heart with Ramirez when he was 18. He simply told him he had "potential."

"Nobody had told me that. Truth is I didn’t even know what potential meant. I was 18 years old and I said 'potential?' I go, 'What does potential mean?'"

He quickly learned the definition and with Willingham’s help he decided to put that potential to the test. He applied and was accepted to American River College. In the fall of 2000, Ramirez piled his belongings into his car and headed up 101-North from Greenfield to Sacramento.

Ramirez would be the first in his family to go to college. And despite the opportunities that lie ahead, he admits his dreams were still small.

"All I wanted was a little certificate to work in a front office. I remember the counselor Mr. Ruedas asked 'Why? why do you want to do that?'"

Manuel Ruedas works at ARC with students on developing their education and career goals. He says it’s not uncommon for first-generation students to fail to fully understand what they can do with a college education, mostly because they’re the first in their families to pursue an education.

"They need role models. They need to see their peers achieving academically so they can follow the same path," Ruedas said.

Ramirez found his role model in Dolores Delgado-Campbell a professor at ARC.

"I started meeting him in my Mexican-American history class. And I befriended him because he was a really nice young man. And he looked eager," said Delgado-Campbell.

Ramirez not only took a liking to his new mentor, but the subject matter she introduced him to.

Learning about his Mexican ancestors inspired Ramirez. He felt all Latinos could benefit from their history. So he buckled down, hit the books and learned all he could. He then went to Delgado-Campbell and asked if there were classes where he could learn to teach the history about his ancestors.

Delgado-Campbell and Ruedas both recommended he go to CSU Northridge. After he graduated from ARC with honors that is where he went. Ramirez majored in Chicano and Ethnic studies.

After graduating from Northridge with honors, Ramirez made his way back to Northern California to attend Sacramento State’s Multi-Cultural/Bi-Lingual Education program.

The director of the program Duane Campbell (husband of Dolores Delgado-Campbell) says training minority educators and administrators such as Ramirez is essential in helping to close the achievement gap.

"Having a Hispanic president of the college doesn’t necessarily lead to more Hispanic graduates," said Campbell. However, he says if minority students see other people of color achieving success academically and professionally, they will be encourage to believe they do belong in college, and they can graduate.

Ramirez takes that knowledge with him each time steps foot on the campus of Luther Burbank. "We need more educators of color," Ramirez says. "If the student sees someone that looks like them and can relate to them every single day...that person is telling them look, look at me,look at you. You can do it."

During school hours, Ramirez teaches a world history, economics, and Latino/Latina leadership class. After hours, his classroom transforms into special hub where he takes time to mentor students having a hard time in and outside of class.

Ramirez believes the extra hours it takes to mentor students is well worth it. Occasionally, Ramirez will bring in yearbooks and graduation photos from some of his younger family members who have graduated from college. He hopes when his students see the pictures that they can envision themselves one day walking around a college campus.

"They don’t know anyone there and they don’t know anyone telling them they can make it there. And I believe repetition and examples helps them to make an action plan for themselves." said Ramirez.

His students have taken a liking to Ramirez’ style. Watching him interact with them, you can see how they look up to him as not only as a respected authority on their culture, but also a big brother and for some even a father-figure. At one meeting Ramirez sits down with two students to catch up on what’s going on in their lives. Elisabeth Starr catches him up on her activities at her church and softball.

Before she met Ramirez she didn’t believe she would live to see her 17th birthday. Starr admits she got into fights at school and had a hard time staying focused. However, learning about her Mexican history has given her a new perspective on her education.

"We had to fight to be in school. So now that we have a choice to be in school it made me really think. They fought hard back in the day for us, so I should make it mean something and be here," said Starr.

For Ramirez, he believes all schools should make it a point to teach students something valuable about their own cultures.

"Students need to be taught things that relate to them. We’ve been taught the same history over and over. We need to teach them a little bit about their own history," Ramirez said. "I guarantee you we’ll have less problems in the classroom."

Created: 2/19/2007 11:49:50 PM
Updated: 2/21/2007 8:07:12 AM

Legislature and high school dropouts

Yesterday's report on SB 1209 was picked up by the California Progress Report.
Today: Dropout deluge alarms officials!
Bills target state problem by increasing early help and limiting outside jobs to C-average teens.
By Laurel Rosenhall - Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:00 am PST Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Could preventing a high school student from holding a job if he doesn't have good grades keep him from dropping out? Would offering a struggling middle schooler extra counseling and after-school programs keep her on the path to graduation? What about giving high school students more access to college-prep classes and high-level career training? Could that stop them from leaving before they earn a diploma?
The Legislature will debate those questions over the next two years as it takes on a package of bills designed to get at what many consider a crisis in California's education system: the throngs of students who drop out.
Exactly how many leave high school without a diploma has been hard to pin down because the state's student identification system is not complete. Recent research suggests that it's about 30 percent of each class -- or roughly 150,000 students a year.
"Why are we allowing this to continue?" asks Sen. Darrell Steinberg.
The Sacramento Democrat known for tackling complex social issues and building consensus among colleagues has turned his attention to high school.
"Issues cry out to you as needing attention, and this is at the top of my list. It affects children, families, schools, communities and has major economic consequences for the state," Steinberg said.
"We need to make a systemic commitment to eliminating this high school dropout rate."

….She also found support at school. Reyes switched from River City to McClatchy High School, where she formed a close relationship with a teacher. She joined a program for at-risk students that stresses values such as courtesy, integrity and perseverance.
Reyes told the select committee that lawmakers should fund similar efforts to stem the flow of dropouts. She also said they should consider more training for teachers in how to communicate with teenagers, more English-language support for immigrant students and more college-prep classes for everyone.
Increasing the availability of college-prep classes is one proposal among the five bills Steinberg is pushing as part of his dropout prevention agenda. Fewer than half of California high schools now offer enough college-prep classes to allow all students to participate in the curriculum, according to UCLA researchers..."
Senator Darrel Steinberg makes an important attempt here. The failure to deal with dropouts is a serious problem of schools. The next question is will the proposed programs help? Past efforts by the legislature do not give a great deal of confidence.
One piece of legislation which did help was to provide funds for teacher-parent home visits sponsored by Area Churches Together. Building relationships works. Relationships also work on the drop out rate. The legislature could provide the resources to provide teachers with the time to build relationships rather than to drill for tests.
Building relationships takes time and mony. It is unclear of Steinberg's proposals will deal with the real issues of high school dropouts.
Duane Campbell