Where Have all the Children GoneLos Angeles Times

Where Have all the Children Gone
Los Angeles Times, Westside Our Times section

June 17, 1999

By Carol Jago

Last February I wrote a column called "Where Have All the Children Gone?" In it I pointed out the discrepancy between the Department of Educationšs claim that 87% of California students complete high school when 450,000 students are enrolled in ninth grade while only 250,000 graduate. The Los Angeles Times recently ran a front-page story exposing these shocking statistics. Almost fifty percent of the students who enter Los Angeles high schools never earn a diploma. At one LAUSD campus, half of the entire student body is made up of ninth graders. Where did all the children go? The simple answer‹which school administrators try hard to hide‹is that they drop out.

One part of the problem is the issue of students coming to high school without the skills they need to pass ninth grade coursework. More than their middle school counterparts, high school teachers focus on content. As a result, many children begin flunking out within their first 6 weeks. It is not uncommon for 40% of a freshman class to have Ds and Fs on their first report card.

Holding students to benchmark standards from kindergarten on and providing those who canšt meet those standards with tutoring will help, but urban schools are a long, long way from having the resources to accomplish this. Nor do schools any longer have alternative curricula for nonacademic students.

Another part of the problem is the issue of students who come to high school to be with their friends. Up to a point this is true for all teenagers, but successful students manage to strike a balance between their social and intellectual pursuits. Often studying together becomes an integral part of their social lives. Moms donšt get as mad about the hours on the phone if the conversation every now and then turns to math.

But for other students schoolwork exists only in the minds of their teachers. Many do little in class and nothing at home. I will never forget overhearing a 10th grade boy telling his English teacher that he "didnšt do essays." Didnšt do essays? What kind of a high school would grant a diploma to a student who refused to do any work?

The first step towards dropping out is skipping school. I have students who through the year have not attended a full week of class, Monday through Friday. At best they are learning a fraction of what the student sitting next to them with regular attendance has learned. Chronically absent students are always playing catch-up. Lessons are out of context. Knowledge, both theoretical and practical, is missing. In ten years of erratic attendance, they may have missed up to two years of instruction. No wonder they are failing. No wonder they drop out.

As I wrote in February, one solution may be to stop threatening schools with public censure when they donšt keep all their students through the twelfth grade. GED programs and tuition-free adult education keep the door to higher education in this country open forever. In the long run it shouldnšt much matter if students pass through that door at 18 or at 20, as long as they do. Itšs time to shift our focus from dropout rates to curriculum, attendance, and the quality of instruction.

Carol Jago teaches English at Santa Monica High School and directs the California Reading and Literature Project at UCLA. She can be reached at jago@gseis.ucla.edu.