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DPS numbers tell dismal story; for solutions, listen to kids

Published May 20, 2005 at midnight

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pictureWhat should we make of the fact that Hispanic, African-American and American Indian students are dropping out of Denver's comprehensive high schools at an alarming rate?

Of the 5,633 students who started eighth grade in DPS in the fall of 1999, 2,584 were minority youth who continued on to ninth grade in DPS. Not counting those who transferred outside DPS, only 44 percent of those minority ninth-graders graduated from DPS.

The fact that other large cities generally have similar results doesn't soften the blow. Without a high school diploma, the odds of making a decent income in this country aren't much better than the odds of doubling your money playing the lottery.

If we know a few things about DPS students' family income and previous academic performance before high school, we can predict with 74 percent accuracy whether or not they will graduate. Regardless of ethnicity, students from low-income families who have low grades and poor attendance as eighth-graders are much less likely to graduate than students from higher-income families with good grades and good attendance. If students have been suspended or held back a grade, their odds of graduating are still lower.

There are large differences among schools. The graduation rate of Hispanic students in this class at Thomas Jefferson High was 63 percent, compared with 27 percent at Montbello and 31 percent at North. Thomas Jefferson serves a much more affluent community, but the difference in graduation rates remains large even after that is taken into account.

Minority students from low-income families attending more affluent and racially diverse schools such as Kennedy, Thomas Jefferson and East are considerably more likely to graduate than similar students at schools that serve mainly low-income minority students.

These statistics help frame the problem, but they don't offer much guidance in solving it. For that, it is important to talk to the students themselves.

What the kids say

In addition to the more than 100 students interviewed by the Rocky Mountain News, high school focus groups have been conducted across the city in recent years by my colleague, Dr. Oscar Joseph in the School of Education at the University of Colorado at Denver. And I am currently involved in a project collecting academic personal histories of African-American students who dropped out of comprehensive high schools, then returned to an alternative program. Three themes that emerge from these inquiries seem particularly noteworthy.

The first is that African-American, American Indian and Hispanic youth from low-income families frequently lead stressful lives. Their families are struggling financially, and students may need to hold jobs. They move often. The adults in their lives are likely to experience frustration and anger, and the youth experience these feelings in turn. Their neighborhoods are beset with drugs, alcohol and crime. The television is nearly always on. The household that is structured to support quiet concentration on homework and planning for the future is exceptional.

Second, youth from low-income families report that they have a hard time feeling connected to school. They know that high school graduation is important to their future, but they feel that most of their teachers don't care about them. They want real knowledge, but much of their schoolwork seems pointless and test-driven and unconnected to their daily lives.

Nearly all their teachers are white and live in more affluent neighborhoods and seem to have life experiences that are very different from theirs. At worst, some of their teachers seem more concerned about controlling them than helping them succeed, learn and take positive control of their own lives.

Finally, the immediate concern of nearly all high school students is to be accepted and respected by their peers, and the peers of low-income students for the most part aren't focused on schoolwork. Student life is often dominated by cliques that actively devalue academic success and at the same time apply intense pressure around dress, sexual attractiveness and group loyalty. In low-income neighborhoods, these pressures are more intense and are compounded by gang affiliations.

What success looks like

The successful high school is one that creates its own school culture that is sufficiently coherent, inclusive and intense that it can compete successfully with anti-academic peer pressures.

It is a personal school, a school where it is apparent that teachers care a lot about both the students they are teaching and the subjects they are teaching.

It is a school where high expectations are conveyed through teachers' honest and heartfelt insistence that students will learn, where teachers know each student and their subject well enough to tailor their explanations and examples to what is required from moment to moment.

It is a school where planning for college and professional success are made real through regular contacts with community role models, businesses and institutions of higher education.

One reason that few urban schools fit this description is that they require extraordinary adults to run them — educators who are smart, energetic, culturally with-it, and willing to work very, very hard.

Education has always been a calling for such individuals, despite low pay, but today the low public esteem for public schools and the teaching profession, and efforts to micromanage teachers' time and instruction, drive many talented individuals away.

Gifted young African-Americans who aspire to become teachers are like diamonds — wondrous to behold, in great demand and in very short supply. We need to increase the rewards for being a good educator in an urban school.

Another reason that truly good urban schools are rare is that they are beset with inflexible rules and bureaucratic mandates that limit their flexibility and their ability to reinvent themselves. When policymakers sense that things are not going well, their instinct is to ratchet down.

Don't ratchet down

Good parents know that to guide youth into responsible adulthood requires a mix of structure, thoughtful conversation about the future and behaviors necessary to get there, and freedom to make some mistakes and then try again. Ratcheting down through policy prescriptions without flexibility and care works against the efforts of educators to reach out to students, and fuels resistance.

Dropping out remains a real option for the student (and the teacher) when school feels like incarceration. The recent report of the Colorado Commission for High School Improvement wisely called for increased flexibility for schools and increased choice for parents, and the recent report of the Denver Commission on Secondary School Reform called for more authority for principals. These are good recommendations.

Finally, we need to make sure that our schools are places where students can explore, express, analyze and critique the things that matter most to them. When North High put on the musical Zoot Suit to packed audiences last year, the intensity that Hispanic students brought to their participation was noted by educators and reporters. Urban schools have to connect directly with the lives, histories, art, music and economic realities of urban students, or students feel that their subject matter pertains to someone else, not to them. We need more opportunities for art, music, drama, expressive writing and discussion of life issues at the very time that CSAP pressures are driving these topics out of the curriculum.

I haven't seen evidence that students drop out of Denver high schools because the academic demands on them are too great. The students I have interviewed support high academic expectations and believe they should have to work hard to earn a diploma. But to sustain that high level of effort, they need schools that are dedicated to providing strong emotional and social support along with skillful academic guidance and instruction.

About the expert

Alan Davis is an associate professor of research and evaluation methodology in the School of Education at the University of Colorado at Denver. He worked with the Rocky Mountain News on the analysis of the data for this series, and the News offered him the opportunity to share his thoughts.