E-motive Teaching

Dave Eggers TED Talk

Drop out to do what?

A new report about inner city graduation rates (.pdf) paints a pretty sobering picture, to put it mildly:

Our analysis finds that graduating from high school in the America’s largest cities amounts, essentially, to a coin toss. Only about one-half (52 percent) of students in the principal school systems of the 50 largest cities complete high school with a diploma.In Cleveland, Indianapolis and Detroit, the numbers are 35%, 31% and 25% respectively.

Amazing.

I worked for almost 22 years in a district that graduated over 90% of its students, sent over three-quarters to college, and by just about every measure was and is an amazing school by traditional standards. I’ve worked for the last two years going around the country speaking at over 200 schools and districts and conferences and I have come to realize very quickly just how much of an outlier my former career was. While I haven’t done a lot of work with inner city schools, I’ve done enough to see that without question, there remains an incredible degree of inequity between the haves and have nots in this country that has little to do with technology. This latest report is just one more indication: the system is broken.

We’re failing millions of kids.

This timely post is by Will Richardson, “Learner in Chief” at Connective Learning http://weblogg-ed.com/2008/the-state-of-american-education-not-so-great/ 

I read the report in the newspaper and heard it discussed in several podcasts I listen to daily. My husband and I discussed this topic in the car on his way to work at his high school, one that graduates about half of its students.  My situation is not much better.  I have about a 71% completion rate of the online class I facilitate- a required class to graduate.  If one takes out the home school population, the statistics are mighty dismal. The typical profile of my public school students is a 16-year-old male from an urban or suburban public school. He is taking an average of 1-2 classes on the virtual school to make up lost credits. These classes are taken on top of a schedule of 6-8 classes in the regular day, chores,  a job, clubs, sports practice and competitions, church, and the regular things that 16 year-olds-do- MySpace, WOW, Guitar Hero, watch cable, and hang out. To complete an online class- even with a teacher a phone call away- it takes diligence and self-discipline. Of course, one must be able to read on grade level and process the material provided on the screen. Computer access and a basic understanding of the Internet and word processing are also required.  I do have wonderful success stories of kids who complete while using public library computers but this is rare.  The large urban district from where I taught before moving to the virtual school had a particularly dismal virtual school class completion success rate. 

What my husband and I kept going back to in our conversation is:  where do these kids end up?  What can one do today without a high school diploma?

If you have not already seen Dave Egger's TED Talk this year, you will be mightily inspired.  His idea of one to one mentoring primarily aimed at elementary and middle school students will help the next group of students moving up.  This could take off and a true movement of connectedness could transform our society.

Since we are high school teachers, my question is what about the students enrolled right now?  What will happen to my virtual students who cannot possibly make up all their credits before their age peers graduate and even if they could, they cannot pass the state graduation test?  We can be the most engaging teachers ever imagined -- my husband will juggle and do cartwheels if that is what it takes to keep his 4th period on task and tuned in.  I have taken 11 PM phone calls, calls on Sundays, and even kept a student in my online course for 40 weeks to complete a 16-week semester. Yet, my husband has lost three this semester. They withdraw auspiciously to transfer but they never check in elsewhere.  Where do they go? What do they do? What can they do?