Too bad the article doesn’t mention the amount of seniors that transfer high schools within the district. It was my senior year experience in ’99 that transfering was common among “bad kids.” Also, although maybe not as signigicant, a number of seniors graduate from programs such as AI (alternative instruction).

I’m not convinced that AI and SOTA-type programs are bogus. After all, many of these graduates secure jobs and pay taxes faster than graduates that spend five to six years in the higher education system for whose loans we subsidize.

OK… something is not quite right here. I am amazed at how this catchy “drop out factory” story has acted as such a catalyst for public education bashing. Search the phrase and you will see the same story replicated across the country. Doesn’t it raise red flags that ¼ of all dropout factory high schools in Washington are in Tacoma when it represent only 3% of the state population? Not one HS school in Seattle or Spokane and all schools in Tacoma? And all other studies of drop out statistics contradict this study (OSPI, U of W studies)? Humm…. The answer is simple. Washington does not have a unified reporting standard for “class standing”. Most districts automatically move students from freshman to sophomore to junior to senior. Tacoma has a much more rigorous system of establishing “class standing” solely by credits earned. No social promotion… if you do not have the exact credits to be a sophomore the system keeps you as freshman. Has anyone investigated why the 12th grade enrollment in Seattle is greater than the 11th grade enrollment and it exactly the opposite in Tacoma? Did Seattle suddenly have a mass enrollment of new 12th graders? The Johns Hopkins method is a simple ratio of the enrollment of 9th graders compared to 12th graders. Because Tacoma has such a strict policy not changing the class of a student unless they earn the credits they have a large “bubble” of 9th grade students, thus the 9th to 12th grade ratio is skewed. These facts are not as catchy as “dropout factory” headline and require a minor understanding of statistics. Tacoma still has work to do in keeping kids in school. They lose about 1/3 of their high school students. But the Johns Hopkins study is a disservice to the Tacoma district by creating a climate of hysteria from mathematical methods not worthy of receiving a passing grade in a high school statistic class.

“Unless you have experience dealing with these things, please dont comment. Its offensive.”

Funny. I felt the same way about your taser comment.

Im sorry; I wont comment on police brutality since Ive never been tased. Experienced many other things, but thankfully never that. I have heart problems and Id most likely end up as a statistic.

Thumbs up to your comment Mofo. Im a former dropout myself, and although I did go back and finish it was due to the pressure from my family. Its amazing the things that you’ll do (or dont do) when you have nothing to care about.

Having put one child through our local prep school and one child into a local public school (I say into because he/she is one of your infamous statistic) Believe me there is a huge difference. Prep school was a struggle to be successful but the desire and the support were there. Each educator knew the Childs strong points and weaknesses. They made the time count and kept it positive at all times. If ? was behind in work, ? was given the opportunity to make it up or do extra work to bring it up. The school was in constant contact with the parent through progress reports and phone calls in the evening or at work. As a parent I was required to participate in some shape or form with the school. The entire experience was summed up in a graduation speech. “We had a great class. There was no degradation or segregation amongst us.”
The other child was enrolled in what is perceived to be one of the “better schools”. There is nothing different but the location. I believe that the only way we can fix or change this problem is to get back to basics. Bring class sizes down to a level that public educators can know each child and care about their future. In today’s system if a child gets behind there is no recovery, you become a failure with no opportunity to succeed. Think about the statement “Tacoma has a much more rigorous system of establishing “class standing” solely by credits earned. No social promotion… if you do not have the exact credits to be a sophomore the system keeps you as freshman”. In other words if you fail to meet the homework requirement consistently but pass every test with a A+, you will still fail the class, because that is the rule. I believe that teachers were so heavily criticized for just pushing them through and not really teaching them anything in the 70’s that they have gone 180 degrees to “You might be a circle but you have to fit in the box” system. Children have to have praise and feel accepted to even want to be successful. Otherwise they are going to seek it elsewhere. We are all aware of those consequences. Back to the point. Child two struggles today to find ? way out of the mess ? struggled to get through in the public school system.

Believe me Christy, what we paid to get rid of Milligan was a bargain compared to what it would have cost to keep him. Send him packing with nothing and we would have paid more in attorney’s fees. Cutting the dude a check fries me too, but this was an instance where the board actually made the right decision, even though it is easy to criticize.

So the question – how can we fix it? As we know, the devil is in the details, but when you have a problem that has gone on this long you can bet bet bet that there are serious flaws in the system overall.

It’s a tough situation. You have a lot of transient students with the military population. You have lots of poverty, with parent(s) who have a hard time providing the necessary guiding hand and perhaps have a hard time modeling success.

I’m not sure that world class high schools would mean a better local economy. You would simply have the best and brightest Tacoma grads continuing to move to Seattle and elsewhere.

Ultimately it’s up to parents and families, schools cannot guarantee success.

When you have a big, complicated problem it seems to me that you start with the obvious and move on from there. How about providing incentives and support. Incentive? Take up the College Success Foundation’s recommendation to establish a $100 million fund to provide college scholarships for underserved students. They announced their intention to do this last May, but what is being done to support their efforts to come down here. Look at similar programs in Kalamazoo, Denver and other communities as examples of how this works. And work it does.

Support? How about partnering with various non-profit social services agencies to set up on-site programs in the schools to help students with special needs or disadvantages. These programs operate very efficiently and are experts in the business, whereas the schools themselves would have to hire new competencies to provide the services at the premium they pay.

There’s a start.

No lottery or taxes. The College Success Foundation (they are based in Issaquah) solicits private contributions. It is a guaranteed, permanent endowment. In Denver and Kalamazoo, the program makes up any “unmet need” that students have after they get all the grants and scholarships available to them through colleges and federal programs like Pell Grants. The Foundation would have permanent, guaranteed funds. Not at all like the Promise Scholarships. $100 million generates $5 million a year and it grows with inflation since you only spend a portion of expected interest and investment proceeds. Believe me, this has been TESTED and it has worked in other communities that have problems like ours. $5 million goes a long way when it is being used as money to top off unmet need vs. funding the whole nut, which is not necessary. At a averate of $10,000 per student over a 4 year period, the program would fund at least 500 graduating seniors every year. A huge percentage of these students would not otherwise attend college.

Raising $100 million over 10 years from all private sources is not undoable for our community. In addition to Pierce Co. donors, it could well attract gifts from some of the large regional foundations as well, like Allen and Gates (already a supporter of disadvantaged Tacoma students).

Here come dat fool pushin’ the shiny cart.
Ya know, dat chrome crib on wheels he jacked from K-Mart.

I know he ain’t headed for his car. I seen him last week wit it. Get it?

How come dat fool don’t change his behavior? Down at the Mission they gave him three hots, a cot, and news about a savior.

Yeah, that’s the way it goes, says my brotha E. Dat fool left school in Tacoma after two years in a drop-out factory.

Christy, there’s some good people in the system. When I was at Lincoln my counselors helped me to enroll in Hamburger U.

I was the first child in my family to go on and get a degree.

Mofa from the Hood (Mofo’s sister)

Attending school and learning to develop a coherent mind is a priviledge.

I would add to Mr. Andersons’ view that not all schools or the teachers that profess in them are equal.

Take Johns Hopkins University—-For all the work involved to describe Tacoma schools, in the end it’s a study about nothing. It doesn’t say anything.

First of all, is it true that students are dropping out?

I read about it on Exit 133. I read the Tribune article. I read the JHU website including all its survey conditions which reveal that its survey is nothing more than pseudo-science.

If there’s a way to apply that survey data toward some practical end then I’d like to hear about it.

About all one can say about that data is, “Interesting, if true.”

But what about the term Drop-out Factory? That sounds like a hostile term because it is. Schools are not factories in any sense of the term. Humans are infinitely complex beings, not automatons, and not as some pseudo-scientists in the field of psychology might describe humans, as stimulus-response beings.

But I would say that people do imitate each other. And people are daily fighting off hostile designations like Drop-out Factory; or personal attacks of the same sort that serve to stigmatize.

It’s been said that all wars start with a war of words.

What do you think that survey was about?

Drop-out Factory? It wouldn’t be to try to get our attention would it? Nah, it’s Johns Hopkins, they’re just picking on us – have had it in for Tacoma from the beginning.