TeacherDrivenChange

End the Dropout Epidemic: A Call for Experts in the Field

Why do students stay in school? What do parents do each and everyday to make sure their daughters and sons appreciate and value education? What do teachers and administrators do to keep students in school? How do we begin to identify and replicate the behaviors and practices that support student retention and graduation rates? These questions and others will help guide the CTA IFT Positive Deviance Approach to dramatically reduce high school dropouts in California. Beginning with a few high schools, the CTA IFT will utilize the Positive Deviance Approach – an approach designed to identify what works well in each school-community – to end the dropout epidemic and insure academic and social success for all students.

But, the CTA IFT can't do it alone. We need the experience, expertise and wisdom of researchers, scholars, classroom teachers, administrators, policy makers, and elected officials to help us define important parameters, objectives and expectations for reducing high School dropouts and increasing student retention. We are hoping key individuals from around the state will join us on August 30^th from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm to develop a broad-based action plan to make our schools dropout proof. Click here to register for the August 30^th forum. You are also encouraged to attend the August 29^th information session on the Positive Deviance Approach and the CTA IFT Planning Grant to end high school dropouts.

End the Dropout Epidemic: Focusing on What Works

The high school dropout problem is not something that can be fixed by a single initiative or change in policy. To make our schools dropout proof we need to consider an alternative approach, one that treats high school dropouts not as a problem to be fixed, but more like a virus or epidemic to be cured or prevented. From a health related perspective, an epidemic tends to have few boundaries, takes place over a long period of time, and impacts a large number of individuals. Portrayed in this fashion, it makes more sense to describe student dropouts in epidemic terms.

As a society we are determined to eradicate disease – not for 75 percent, 85 percent or even 95 percent of the population. When it comes to disease, we have only one goal: 100 percent eradication. For example, no one in the United States would have been satisfied with only marginal success when fighting the polio virus. As a matter of public policy, we demanded the complete elimination of this dreaded disease. Teachers, administrators, and other school community stakeholders should expect and work for the same results and end the dropout epidemic.

To turn things around and eliminate dropouts, school-community stakeholders need to focus their attention on those students that stay in school and not those that dropout. Using the epidemic metaphor, requires an approach that is culturally appropriate and tailored to the specific community in which it is used. This is generally contrary to conventional wisdom and current educational thinking which does not view the dropout crisis as a disease or illness but rather as a systemic challenge. In every community there are certain individuals whose unique practices, strategies, and behaviors enable them to find better solutions to prevalent community problems than their neighbors who have access to the same resources. For example, staph infections have been significantly reduced by hospital employees who simply wash their hands. This knowledge came about from watching and observing those hospital employees where staph infections were relatively low.

The lesson here is that the fight against disease may be more of a behavioral and cultural challenge than it is a technical and medical problem. For those of us who want to end the dropout epidemic the implication is to identify the behaviors and practices of students that remain in school and the behaviors and practices of parents, teachers and administrators who develop a culture of success that encourage student retention. Once these behaviors and practices are identified we can then begin to replicate them throughout the school community with the goal of having all students stay in school and graduate and making our high schools dropout proof.

The Positive Deviance Approach, Professional Learning Communities, and Dropouts

The Positive Deviance Approach moves professional learning communities and teams to a new level of engagement and support: one that focuses on what's right and great about our schools. While professional learning communities (PLC) have been configured in a number of ways, in some sense they have become a metaphor for teacher driven change. Unfortunately, most PLCs tend to be based on deficit thinking that views the public schools as something to be fixed. The Positive Deviance Approach (PDA) brings to PLCs a new dimension – one that asks teachers and other stakeholders to use what's working in our schools as a framework for improving student learning and outcomes.

For a topic as complex as high school dropouts, it will take more than an honest and open dialogue to dramatically increase student retention and graduation rates. Using the PDA, however, students, teachers, administrators, and parents can actually investigate the behaviors and practices of their respective groups to determine which behaviors and practices are aligned with and encourage student retention and graduation. While a number of public and private organizations advocate for dramatic changes in our schools (making classes more interesting, enforcing truancy laws, increasing the number of role models, offering financial assistance and support, and reducing poverty, violence, and drugs) in order to reduce high school dropouts, there is little evidence of success when dropouts are framed as a problem to be solved,

In fact, it is becoming increasingly clear that the cure to the dropout problem will not likely result from any particular reform initiative, strategic plan or political mandate. While the accumulation of research data is important and serious conversations on student dropouts are essential, the instrumental design generally undertaken to study the public schools has not been found to produce any beneficial results. Teachers and students are not instruments to be tinkered with, either from forces within or outside the public schools. While it is understandable that our public schools are viewed from this point of view – a machine which can be fixed or repaired with the right set of tools – it is ironic that those who claim that our schools must move into the 21^st Century are using 19^th and 20^th century models to bring about change.

California Dropout Report February 2008

The exact number of students who fail to graduate in California remains unknown because the state is still developing a system that can accurately calculate the proportion of entering ninth grade students who graduate four years later. Available estimates, however, suggest the Comparing that figure problem is severe.

In 2005-06, 349,191 California high school students graduated. to the number of ninth-graders four years earlier (520,287) suggests that only about two-thirds of California's students graduate on time, with more than 170,000 students dropping out or failing to graduate. For that same year, the California Department of Education (CDE) estimates a graduation rate of 83%, with 70,000 students dropping out. Estimates by the U.S. Department of Education and other outside agencies are substantially lower than those reported by the state, ranging from 65% to 74%.

Despite the lack of accurate estimates, available data suggest the problem is concentrated among particular students, schools, and districts. Estimated graduation rates in California are substantially lower for Blacks (57%), Hispanics (60%), and Native Americans (52%) compared to Asians (84%) and Whites (77%). For more information go to: http://www.lmri.ucsb.edu/dropouts/

 

What is Positive Deviance?

The Positive Deviance (PD) Approach will be utilized by the IFT to reduce high school dropouts for African American and Latino students. PD is a developmental approach that is based on the premise that solutions to community problems already exist within the community. The PD approach differs from traditional problem-solving models in that it does not recruit outside experts to solve problems. Instead it seeks to identify and optimize existing resources and solutions within the community to solve community problems. For high school dropouts, the PD approach asks us to focus our attention on what works in our schools by paying attention to students that graduate and what their parents and teachers are doing to create a culture of success for these students.

Greater Teacher Involvement Required in Setting ECE Policy

As most early childhood educators know, external groups, policy makers, and community-based leaders have developed various positions and policies concerning the proper direction for early childhood education. Unfortunately, most of these policies have been developed without the involvement and support of ECE teachers. While there has been token representation, from time to time, this has often been more cosmetic and symbolic than authentic and substantive. Over the past several years, the CTA IFT (with the support of CTA and the Packard Foundation) has brought ECE stakeholders together with teachers to determine a proper and appropriate direction for early childhood education. Click here for a summary of this work.

One June 6, 2008, a report summarizing the work of the CTA IFT was provided to the CTA ECE State Council Committee. Click here for a copy of this report.

Below is a sample of the various studies and reports that have been for the most part externally driven and filtered by the biases and predispositions of non-ECE teachers. ECE teachers are encouraged to add their comments and thoughts for involving teachers directly in the development of programmatic and structural changes necessary to meet the needs of all students.

RAND Studies: The RAND Corporation has provided a number of research studies on preschool. The third in a series of preschool studies from the RAND Corporation is scheduled to be released on June 18. The research will feature new data from parents, teachers and providers on the quality of pre-k and child care serving California's children. More information on the third study is available here.  Click here to see the findings of the first two RAND preschool studies. 

Community Dialogues: Secretary of Education David Long is hosting a series of community dialogues on the recently released Governor's Committee on Education Excellence report on education reform. The report identified expanding pre-k as a key ingredient for successful education reform.  Read more about the report. 

The first dialogue was held in Los Angeles on June 3. Upcoming dialogues include:

San Diego: Monday, June 16 at the University of San Diego's Kroc Institute of Peace & Justice 

Sacramento: Tuesday, July 8 at the Sacramento City College Auditorium

New study on the economics of early childhood policy released. Citing an increasing chorus of business and economic leaders calling for increased public investments in young children, a new report by the RAND Corporation explores the economic argument for investing in early childhood.  Read the research brief and full study, The Economics of Early Childhood Policy: What the Dismal Science Has to Say About Investing in Children.