So much for No Child Left Behind. Wow, a third of all students don't graduate. That's the good news. The bad news is the dropout rate among blacks, Hispanics and low-income students is about 60 percent, according to the Center for Education at Rice University.
Naturally, the dropout rate in urban centers is higher. According to people that know about such things, higher dropout rates lead to lower wages for those without a high school education. Additionally, they are at risk for for living in poverty, health problems and jail. (I think that was from the Department of the Obvious)
So, what do we do about it? We think they should put parents in jail if their kids drop out of school! I bet we could get Rep. Wayne Smith behind this initiative. Other things we could do with dropouts? Fertilizer.
Just a thought but it might be time to recognize that not every kid in Texas is headed to college and start preparing a workforce. Now, every kid should have the opportunity to go to college, but NCLB seems to think we need to keep cramming more and more info into kids that will never use some if it. Vocational training is no longer even available at the high school I teach at and it is 80% low income, 45% black, 52% hispanic and about 3% white. Think that might be a problem.
Rick Perry says we need to build more prisons.
Something I don't understand about the math here. It costs upwards of $20,000 to keep an inmate in prison for a year, more as they get older, but we spend what, maybe $7500, per pupil in Texas per year.
Can someone explain to me how it is that we let Republicans anywhere near our government?
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I say we give them mandatory hobo training, with such courses as: Shoe Boiling, Bindle Tying, and Gloves-without-complete-fingers Finding.