Cause and Effect essay

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High School Dropouts Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection. 2015. Lexile Measure: 1290L. COPYRIGHT 2019 Gale, a Cengage Company Full Text: High school dropouts have received increased attention in recent years as the number of dropouts in the United States has remained persistently high. Students who drop out face a host of risks and repercussions throughout their lives, and society as a whole is poorly served by having a high number of undereducated citizens. Opinions are plentiful on how to fix the problem and help more students stay in school, graduate, and move on to college.

Many reformers have focused on the issue of standardized tests, which have assumed ever greater importance in assessing the success of students and teachers. Federal initiatives such as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 and the Race to the Top program launched in 2010 seek to reward schools that perform and punish those that do not; one key measure for this performance is standardized test scores. Entrance into college is largely dependent on test results as well. With so much riding on test scores, the pressure proves daunting for many students, who feel they cannot compete in this environment and instead choose to drop out.

Examining this high-stakes educational competition, some question whether the price is too high, when so many students are left behind under the current system. Steve Denning, who writes on leadership for Forbes magazine, is one expert who has offered a diagnosis of the problem. Denning asserts that the issue with K-12 education is that it is based on a factory model of management. This methodology, which is applied in the majority of school districts in the United States, puts the needs of the system above the needs of those who are in it. The burden to adapt is placed on the students and their families, teachers, and school officials. Reformers point out that while this model of management has repeatedly been proven to be ineffective in the industrial world, schools continue to cling to it with negative consequences.

Denning believes the intense focus on student education as a product, similar to a product assembled in a factory, has a harmful effect on students. It does not help them become adults who will flourish and be lifelong learners. Denning asserts, in a September 1, 2011, column in Forbes , that the single most important reform that can take place in K-12 education requires a shift in focus: “The goal needs to shift from one of making a system that teaches children a curriculum more efficiently to one of making the system more effective by inspiring lifelong learning in students, so that they are able to have full and productive lives in a rapidly shifting economy.”

Denning is not alone in his views. “ Community schools ” have become a nationwide movement that stand in contrast to the predominant educational model. David L. Kirp, writing in The Nation on May 27, 2010, provides this description: “These schools break the traditional six-and- a-half-hour day, 180-days-a-year mold, with programs before and after school, as well as weekends and during the summer. They supplement academics with medical care and social services. They involve parents as learners and teachers. And they partner with high-asset city agencies, community groups, and businesses, attracting new funds to the schools while connecting students to the universe beyond the schoolhouse door.”

Community schools recognize that academics do not happen within a vacuum. If a student’s basic needs are not being met, it is difficult to succeed in school. These schools, located in areas of high need, can change the course of children’s lives and increase the possibility that students will stay in school and avoid risks in their lives as they mature. “The research shows that at topnotch community schools fewer students are suspended and fewer drop out. The achievement gap shrinks, and more youngsters go to college,” says Kirp.

While these models are a bright spot in the battle to keep students in school and on a path to graduation, they have proven to be difficult to replicate on a large scale. Unlike businesses that can take a successful model and expand it, schools are more organic in nature, requiring local leadership and effort at the grassroots level in order to succeed. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is one philanthropic organization that has found this to be true. In the last ten years the foundation has tackled the challenge of reducing the number of high school dropouts and increasing college readiness. But its reform efforts have had mixed results. According to Amanda Paulson, writing for the Christian Science Monitor in January 2010, “The Gates Foundation has invested more than $1 billion in improving US high schools, with both noteworthy successes and a number of false starts.” Even among the positive results, replication has proven difficult to attain.

A growing body of evidence suggests that the high-pressure, high-stakes atmosphere of most schools today does more harm than good and can indeed lead to more students deciding to drop out. While rigor and high expectations are important components of any education, the message of how to succeed has been undermined. “Children will race to the top when they discover passion and purpose from the inside, not because of extrinsic rewards like test scores, grades , or trophies,” says Marilyn Price-Mitchell in a September 2011 article in Psychology Today . “What matters most to families and to our democracy is that children develop into caring, productive young adults who critically think about and actively engage in the world around them,” suggests Price-Mitchell.

Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition) "High School Dropouts." Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection, Gale, 2015. Opposing Viewpoints in Context,

http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/PC3010999231/OVIC?u=yorktech_main&sid=OVIC&xid=415b2a25. Accessed 3 Apr. 2019.

Gale Document Number: GALE|PC3010999231