by INFORUM
Fargo pushes to curb dropouts
August 1, 2010 at 7:00 pm in INFORUM
Students couldn’t leave until age 18 under law
Fargo school officials plan to again push the North Dakota Legislature to move up the age to which students in the state have to attend school. Continue Reading
First do this. Second, bring back the ability to discipline the kids who get out of hand. Teachers now-a-days have little bark and zero bite. The kids aren’t dumb, they pick up on this quickly. Classrooms are out of hand and nobody gives a tinkers da__. If you can’t maintain some level of authority and respect you can’t teach them anyway so you might as well let them walk.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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What methods of such discipline (can I assume you mean corporal punishment?) would you endorse?
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Jack, how about detention, when possible I prefer working detention not just sit and relax for an hour. For small kids more timeouts even time in the corner or nose to the wall. When out of hand proceed to suspension from extracurricular activities. How about requiring parents to come and pick them for the day when they cross bigger lines. There’s always school suspension if necessary, and even expulsion in extreme cases. Rules: 1) kids listen not run the classroom; 2) bullying of other students how about having the teacher not turn away which most often happens; 3) swearing, talking out of turn, rude behavior, and smart mouthed talking back zero tolerance instead of being frequent occurrences without punishment; 4) how about enforcing rules like no cell phones instead of most teachers only preaching and threatening; 5) In general kids who get out of line, exceed their boundaries, and disturb classes on a regular basis take the more severe disciplinary actions. More teachers than not, for whatever reasons each may have, tolerate so much that our schools have little structure anymore. Just listen to our kids tell stories of what they see every day and how little is done to stop it. There’s simply no debate on whether we need better rule enforcement in our schools. The atmosphere will help determine what you cultivate.
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Government-factory-instituional- modeled schools would have everyone believe that we need them, that parents get in the way of raising their own children, that parents are incapable of making intelligent decisions on behalf of their own children. Making parents believe this is the defense mechanism of institutional schooling because they can’t change and still survive as the schools we all know if they didn’t make us believe this. But this is corrosive, it is discriminatory against families and parents, and if we believe schools when they tell us we need them, this negative thinking often sadly becomes a self fullfilling belief most parents fall into believing. Except home school parents, who know they love their children best of all, and know how bad institutional schooling is for their children. I’d invite everyone to pick up as many books on home schooling as you can get your hands on and really learn about education. We all assume because we had to go through k-12 schooling, that we automatically know about education, well, you’d be surprised what you can learn in home school books about education. Even if you never intend to home school, its still important to learn about education. You will will learn nothing about education in college, ironically, but you will learn everything you need to know about education in home school books. Try it, you’ll be pleasantly surprised. And it will open your eyes.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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compulsary attendence age doesn’t restict the ability to home school. maybe you should read some material on the rights of parents to home school.
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The problem with home-schooling is that kids loose out on the social aspect of school. That is just as important as what they learn in books. They learn how to deal with other people they don’t necessarily agree with.
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The only problem I see is: will forcing kids to stay in school solve the problem? I’m sure the numbers will look better, but will we really increase the graduates or will we just force kids to attend another year or so till they turn 18.
Why do so many drop out? Are there other problems that need looking into vs just forcing this?
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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If you had to stay in till the year you should normally graduate, would just drop out when almost done? Or would you decide to finish it out since you are almost there?
It seems most leave because they don’t want to deal with school for another 2 years.
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Good question. Maybe the focus should be turned to “WHY” people are dropping out, and tackle that issue. Its sad tho, our society would rather pass laws telling each other what to do.
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Problem with finding out why is getting the people dropping out to answer truthfully.
How many are going to say they dropped out cause they were too lazy to go to school?
Some just leave cause they want to. Some think it is too hard. I have a feeling though that most kids would rather stay in school then head to a juvenile detention center for skipping school.
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I really don’t think that most people dropping out are going to be too timid to tell you the reason they are dropping out.
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your question is right on the money. age requirements really put the burden on education leaders to find new and innovative ways to engage all students. without them we can continue to just assume we are offering what kids need and some of them are unable to adapt to what we expect!
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I would actually go further and say to get rid of the option of dropping out except in extreme cases where a person has to apply to drop out and do paper work and then it is reviewed.
As it is these days, even most of the military will not take drop outs anymore. Many jobs require a degree of some sort just for entry level now. So unless you dream is to become a superhero gas station attendant, you virtually HAVE to finish school.
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Yes let’s bring back the paddles and head slaps from 60′s, that will help.
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Till they are 18 is the wrong approach, it should be until they complete the 12th grade. If the law is 18 the students will just hang in until they are 18. If they have to stay in school through the 12th grade they may just want to learn so that they graduate by 18 or maybe sooner.
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Nah, I don’t think that would work, either.
When I entered the 7th grade, there was one guy who was repeating it. He was 22.
There are some kids who just CAN’T make it, no matter how hard they try. Of course, that was in 1966.
At least he was trying.
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HUGE mistake. Rather than keeping somebody someplace where they don’t want to be, they should be allowed to leave and that should be age 14. Not everybody is cut out to be a student. Those that don’t want to be there just ruin it for those that do. Save the taxpayers some money and let these kids get their jobs at Mickey Dees or the sanitation dept or let their parents take care of them. You can’t make a student learn. If they take up space sitting in an overcrowded classroom tuning everything out, who exactly are you helping. I knew a kid who quit after the 8th grade. He went to work on the family farm and had all the skills he need to grease the manure spreader, stack haybales, and drink beer. Any further attempts at educating this guy would have been an absolute waste of tax money. We can all agree not everyone can be a brain surgeon. Then why push them in that direction. And as our good friend Rush says “what about the we toddit?”
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You think it’sacceptable to have 14 year olds drop out, work on the farm and drink beer? This explains a lot.
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I didn’t say I agreed. I only said this is what occurred. His parents provided the genes and enabled his behavior. He certainly didn’t belong in school. He ruined school for everyone that wanted to be there. It was best for him and all his classmates that he left. Life is tough sometimes.
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not everyone is college material. There’s nothing wrong with that. School programs should be set to include the various trades. Identify these people and get them educated in some more non traditional programs. I know people who barely scraped through school but are highly skilled tradesmen who make a very good living. Education needs to cover the entire spectrum or someone is getting left behind.
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A recent article in the Forum indicated North Dakota has a very large pool of college graduates in fact on of the highest. Is this an indication students are returning to school after dropping out?
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Maybe the legislators are tackling the problem with some cultures that don’t promote education. They even encourage not going to school and dropping out. They don’t see the long term benefits of getting an education to get a better job, especially females that are only supposed to raise families.
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So, given the fact that Lutheran Social Services has been bringing in third world people by the airplane load, do we have any demographic information on these dropouts? I’ll bet that an inordinate percentage are people that LSS dragged in. Let us see exactly WHO these dropouts are.
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From one study in 2005, 11% for black youth, 23% for Hispanics, and 6% for whites with more males than females in the totals. Given the low numbers of blacks and Hispanics in ND, it is likely that there are more white drop outs in ND than minorities. I think everyone knows that there aren’t any dumb nodaks!
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