Graduate or Drop Out

Hi everyone

I pose a different question to you this week. Colin Powell, one of my favorite Americans, was in the news last week. I wish General Powell would have ran for the 1996 presidential campaign’s Republican ticket. I think he would have made a fine a president. He is a highly decorated Army officer with experience in Vietnam, command in Desert Storm, and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I believe Gen. Powell’s resignation as President Bush’s secretary of state was due to the former’s violation of Powell’s own doctrine of warfare. Colin Powell experienced Vietnam and has set clear and strict parameters if a nation’s is going to consider war. Anyway, enough history teacher admiration of Gen. Powell’s past achievements.

Colin and Alma Powell founded America’s Promise Alliance. The group studied America’s fifty largest school systems. It found that fifty-two percent of students in those schools graduate on time. Fifty-seven percent Hispanic and fifty-three African-American students graduate with a regular diploma. Nationally, seventy percent of students graduate on time, regardless of race. Alma Powell said that every twenty-eight seconds a student drops out of school. General Powell recently shared those figures on the CNN program Black in America 2. Gen. Powell said, “The minority dropout rate is catastrophe. It is true that our nation’s minorities drop out a much more exaggerated rate than Caucasian. I stress the importance of race; yet want to consider this issue irrelevant of skin color. I believe socioeconomic status also plays a considerable role. Bagley, a neighboring school, consistently loses twenty percent of a kindergarten class to drop outs.

Finishing high school is one of the minimum standards of success. I share the difference between dropping out, high school graduation, a college education, and professional’s on the first day of school. The U.S. Census estimates an extra ten thousand dollars is earned yearly for the high school graduate. Students will have nowhere near the earning potential each rung down the ladder. Children’s Defense Fund president Marian Wright Edelman believes quitting school can lead down the “pipeline to prison.” The U.S. now has the world’s highest per capita prison population.

I am a psychology teacher. I teach about a concept called hyperbolic discounting. It is postponing the day of reckoning. It is a defense mechanism similar to denial. Think of the ant and the grasshopper story. A person simply refuses to recognize the enormity and risk of their behavior. Or, they skew or rationalize their choices to fit what they believe. One of my favorite experiments gives people a choice. Would they rather have fifty dollars today, or one hundred dollars a year from now? One hundred is double the amount of money, yet most choose the immediate fifty. Cigarettes cause lung cancer. People know this fact. Do they simply discount the future for the pleasure, acceptance, or whatever reinforcement they get from smoking. Does this concept explain why students drop out? Or, are they ignorant of the facts. A handful of Fosston students drop out every year. My question is why, when it leads to such potentially disastrous consequences.

We are educators? I want to be proactive. What can we do? Is there something that we aren’t doing for these kids? The economy today is hard on college graduates. I don’t even like to think about what’s going to happen to these kids. I think prison, addiction, family problems, divorce, absentee parenthood, and stress to name a few.


Minnesota state lawmakers considered a proposal this legislative session that would increase the legal dropout age. It is currently sixteen years of age. The new law would change it to eighteen. Wisconsin is one of the eighteen states that require students to turn eighteen before dropping out. They were right about Brett Favre, are they right about this? State and national figures have spoken out for and against the bill. I am interested in your comments on this proposal. Do you believe that increasing the dropout age would make a difference? Would there be any unforeseen effects? Finally, do you have any other suggestions to slow the rising tide of students that make the bad decision to drop out?

Say Yes to No!

Hello all,

My last couple of blogs I addressed bullying, inappropriate use of cell phones, merit pay, and Britain’s penalty system for delinquent behavior. All of these subjects share a common denominator; parenting.

I don’t have children. Hope to have some one day. That would probably require a wife. All kidding aside, I can’t even consider the level of difficulty today’s parents face. However, I believe that every generation’s people are tested in some way. Current parents are stressed out and sleep deprived. Few can get by with a parent at home with the children. Their time, energy, and resources are taxed to the limit. Many powerful forces are pulling parents and their children in opposite directions. Here in the U.S. the culprit is economics.

Giant companies do everything possible do gain face time. According to Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation, global multinational’s main target is a child. Advertising constantly bombards today’s kids. This has created a materialistic ethos among children and teens. Young people are the ultimate consumer. Their age and inexperience makes them extremely vulnerable. Food, fashion, cars, and hand-held technology are a few can’t live without products. An extremely recent Stanford University study backs up our dependence on mobile technology. Dr. Richard Menken, the main author of the report, suggests a near constant daily exposure to “glowing rectangles.” Thirty different types tell us how to think, feel, and act. These boxes define school, work, entertainment, daily rhythms, and communication. Is it me or have our brain’s been replaced by an external machine? The key point is that the deck is stacked against parents. The TV and computer have replaced the family meal. Constant text messaging interrupts holiday conversations with extended family. My cousin was good for over 10,000 messages per month! What’s the use of a “birds and bees” talk when children learn about sex and relationships from cartoons? The following alarming statistics come from U.S. News and World Report . Sixty-five percent of U.S. households have a TV in the bedroom. Twenty-five percent of toddler’s have sets in their rooms. Children average over forty-four hours of weekly screen time. Only sleep accounts for hours of the day, and it’s a close call. All that screen time adds up to over a million messages of various types yearly. Yes, you are reading a glowing screen. I think that’s irony.

Dr. David Walsh is a psychiatrist and founder of National Institute on Media and the Family. He has made it his life’s work to educate and empower parents. Major parent-child issues that he has extensively studied include screen dependence, instant gratification, and self-discipline. I plan on reading his book No: Why Kids of All Ages Need to Hear It and Ways Parents Can Say It in the near future. Maybe when I conquer my ED 630 reading schedule! I am more familiar with the grassroots reaction Say Yes to NO - MN that his book had on my home state of Minnesota. Dr. Walsh has spoken to groups of concerned parents, educators, and businesspeople. Every Minnesota principal has been sent a toolkit. This tour has gone national and his book is now published in several languages.


All of us have seen the spoiled, rotten kid at the store. Crying, cajoling, begging, and pleading to get what he or she wants. When a parent says no the child throws a humiliating temper tantrum, or can even be abusive with a parent. I have been probably been that kid before. A lot of us can say we were. There were probably times that my mother was embarrassed, gave in, or was flabbergasted. Knowing my mother most of the time that I acted out I got the cold shoulder. This is just a minor example. Dr. Walsh suggests that this generation is plagued with instant gratification. Dr. Walsh suggests that the media promotes a “more, easy, fast, and fun” mentality. As a result kids have a sense of entitlement. Kids want the latest gadget and aren’t willing to work or wait for it. Many parents pacify their demands in exchange for peace and quiet and a friendly relationship. Many of us have been on the wrong side of this exchange in the classroom. Jimmy’s mom says it’s all the coaching staff’s fault that he isn’t starting on the basketball team. Or Suzy’s dad wants an explanation from her social studies teacher why she failed her history test. Nothing is ever the fault of the student. They can do no wrong. Nobody wants to do homework anymore. What I have noticed is that it isn’t a source of shame to earn an incomplete or fail a test. This mentality has really divided teachers and parents in the classroom. It has soured many young teachers on a career in education. I believe apathy is a career killer. The contrast in investment level between teachers and students creates a lot of dissonance.

All of these instances add up. Dr. Walsh believes that this entire saying “yes” trend has dire consequences. Positive traits such as persistence, perseverance, resilience, and determination are lacking. As this generation enters the real world they are in for a rude awakening. Young people are unsure of who they are. A whole era of young people who were given everything as kids isn’t willing to work for anything as an adult. They are looking for somebody else to clean up their mess. There will be a lot of failure for America’s youth. People will either slip through the cracks or leaders will have to lower their standards. Either way, we all lose.

I think this ideology will be tremendously empowering to parents, educators, and the business world. It gives them assurance that saying no will not cause them to lose their children. Of course it is just one small piece to a much larger puzzle. You have to earn a license to hunt but not to parent. There is ultimately no manual that comes with becoming a parent. Many do a great disservice to their offspring in a few short years. The mutual student and teacher experience will be enriched by a return to traditional values. I hope one day, that my generation of young adults can do right by their kids. I will leave you with Dr. Walsh’s battle cry. “No is not the destination.” “It is the road to Yes.”

Why won't they pay us more?

The topic today is merit pay for teachers. Clearbrook-Gonvick, school in my area has implemented it. One of my colleagues is a former teacher from that school. While he seemed to believe in the system, he did have some concerns. I think there are many advantages to the way we are paid. Minnesota system of tenure is a great motivator. After three years of teaching and administrative evaluation an educator’s job is fairly safe. However, I don’t believe that our salary structure is completely fair and balanced. The increase in our pay during union negotiating years pales when compared to inflation. Most of the increase goes into rising health care costs.

The Economic Policy Institute suggests the idea comes from the marketplace. People think that in the real world bonuses, raises, and paychecks stem from a job well done. According to the institute, anytime the incentive system is tied to single standard problems arise. The researchers from the institute state that performance based pay cannot be tied to student performance. Personally, I believe it is a two-way street. Students have to be motivted to learn. Parents have to care.

University of Wisconsin economist Scott Adams challenges the assumption that the real world operates on merit pay. He concludes that less than one in ten workers have incentives tied to bonuses. My good friend Mike contradicts this. Mike’s wife Mandy is a vocational rehabitation counselor. Unemployed people come to her for advice and training. If ten people maintain gainful employment for six consecutive months she recieves a small raise. However, she would could be terminated if she doesn’t meet those objects.

Therein lies the problem. What is the major source of teacher motivation? I believe teachers strive to do a good job. They care about their students and want to see them succeed. All want a comfortable standard of living, yet aren’t necessarily obsessed about monetry gain. Although, more dynamic young people would enter and stay in the profession if the salary was more consistent with other professions.

The article listed some fascinating examples of performance objectives backfiring. As a history teacher these got me thinking. There is a sociological term called thelaw of unintended consequences. This phenomen basically suggests that any stimulus will cause an unforeseen response. Alcohol was banned during the 1920s Prohibition era. The demands stayed just as strong and the supply was driven underground. Organized crime filled the vacuum and the streets became more dangerous. The Soviet Union demanded that its shoemakers produce a alloted quota of shoes. Craftsmen produced massive quantities of small children sized shoes to meet their quota. There was then a shortage of adult shoes and the population suffered. The Pentagon marked success in the Vietnam War by a rising bodycount. As a result, commanders on the ground killed civilians and embellished the number of Viet Cong and NVA killed. Finally, the current events magazine U.S. News and World Report ranked colleges according to their admissions difficulty. Failure to appear on the report led to negative public perception. As a result colleges eased their admisson standards and hordes of ill-prepared students qualified. Would merit pay lead to an unintended consequence? What would that then be? The researchers from the institute state that performance based pay cannot be tied merely to student performance.

An addition barrier to implementation is public perception. Many people believe teachers work part-time and should work in the summertime. Countless educators do so. That is the way it is. Would summertime be better spent improving your techniques as a teacher. Of course, recharging the batteries to prevent burnout is another requirement.

The roadblock to merit pay is evaluation. What in the world constitues a good teacher. A well respected teacher knows content, related well to students, is helpful, and connects to parents. Lastly, students have to learn from that teacher’s instruction. Any possible combination of these objectives constitutes a well rounded teacher. Would there be a way to uniformly judge teachers on these standards. Who would then evaluate these teachers; students, parents, peer teachers. I would think a combination of these people would be an adequate group.

Have the Brits figured out parenting?

Hello everyone,

I was perusing through one of my favorite websites CNN Cafferty File and I came across this interesting blog. Jack Cafferty poses this idea; “penalizing parents if their kids misbehave at school” Schools in Britain are fining parents for various behavioral infractions. Moms and dads must take parenting classes if their children are misbehaving. If they refuse to, a fine can be issued up to $1,500. Parents of students that are suspended or expelled and are caught out in public are fined $75. For a student to return to the classroom after an expulsion the parent(s) must be interviewed by the teachers. Conversely, prizes like televisions and IPods are offered to students that follow the rules.

I am a little torn on this issue. When I took my first teaching job I knew that classroom management and discipline would be a large part of the job. I take it as a challenge to instill positive values and morals in my students. Whether or not I am getting through with my message remains to be seen.

However, what I didn’t know was to what extent that I at times would feel like a babysitter. Often times I feel like very little of my time is spent teaching and coaching. In addition, nothing is more infuriating than a climate of disrespect and apathy that is often pervasive in the classroom.

I once read an article in US News and World Report entitled how they do it better. It is a broad list of things that other countries do better than the U.S. The Dutch are pioneers at flood prevention. The Norwegians pay to parent. The Japanese crime rate is non-existent. I do believe there are lots of things to borrow from our neighbors. The fines and classes seem a bit draconian to me. We should find a version of this system that gets parents involved. Up here in northern Minnesota the parent involvement in the high school is minimal. Parent teacher conferences are sparsely attended. Few parents check their children’s grades online. A small number show up for sports meetings and other awards banquets. As an educator I want to be a world-beater, but sometimes feel powerless in the face of insurmountable odds. Is there a form of this Brit procedure that we could adopt? Thanks, Arek.