Posted on 01/15/2012 7:00:11 AM PST by reaganaut1
More than a third of the students in Boston public high schools were chronically absent last year, even as the city undertook additional efforts to lure students to school, according to a Globe analysis.
At East Boston High School, half of the students missed at least 19 days, more than 10 percent of the school year. The rates of chronic absenteeism were even higher at Brighton High, Charlestown High, and Dorchester Academy. Across the city, 7,400 high school students were chronically absent.
The figures illustrate the enormous challenges most local high schools face in keeping students in class, and more significantly, preventing them from quitting altogether. Boston high schools plagued by absenteeism tended to have among the highest dropout rates, the analysis of attendance data showed.
“I think it is absolutely a crisis,’’ said Ranny Bledsoe, headmaster at Charlestown High School, where she has revamped a number of programs to make school more meaningful to students, but also has been hampered by budget cuts. “Are we doing enough to address it? Absolutely not.’’
Students miss school for a variety of reasons: They may be sick, homeless, working, or taking care of a sibling or their own child. Other times, they skip to avoid being bullied, or because they are bored with classes, struggling academically, or frustrated that they are so far behind that they think they will never graduate.
Carynn Donald, a ninth-grader at Jeremiah Burke High School in Dorchester, estimates that she has missed a dozen days this year, often because she woke up tired and went back to sleep. Donald said her interest in school waned in the fourth or fifth grade when the homework became more difficult and she had to repeat two grades in middle school.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
ping
May be of interest.
The great irony is that the more resources that are thrown at public education, the less people value it.
If people don’t value something, then they don’t respect it.
A Boston classroom is comparable to one of the outer rings of Hades.
Why bother? The checks will keep coming in.
Well, at least now we know why they need food stamps in addition to free school lunches.
I think it’s better for the teachers and the students if any students who don’t value high school don’t go.
In fact, I favor ending mandatory education after 8th grade. This would produce an immediate, huge improvement in high school all over the nation - one which we couldn’t get any other way.
What you said. Karl Marx had it all planned out.
When I worked nights, at a convenience store, I’d see these kids all the time at 1am or 2 am and I’d think, “How can they be up when they have school in the morning.”
Now I know, they don’t have school in the morning.
“often because she woke up tired and went back to sleep.”
funny how I don’t remember that being an option for me when I was in school. My ass would still be hurting from the kicking it would have received if I’d have tried it.
Welcome!
:) Reform school would be my choice, as well, but today’s educational approach babies kids.
Oh, I agree with you, but try selling that in today’s world, where many view the poor little things as victims when they are victimizing the good kids.
Reduce the number of distractions to a minimum and maintain a strict bedtime.
***
That is what I did with my own children, as well. But there are far too many parents who refuse to be parents with their kids. The kids are not taught to show any respect for their parents or any adults, and that is at the center of much of the disruption in the schools.
The lesson we learn is that Boston has gone to hell and the Governor of the state is winning the nomination for President.
His left wing policies failed
The worst thing one can say about Mitt Romney is that he was governor of Massachusetts.
PS: God bless you for stepping up for the granddaughter. How old is she?
I am getting an image of your school, and it sure does relate to the world of the troublemakers. Wouldn’t want to be the teacher there, though.
She’s seven now we have been raising her since birth.
As far as distractions go, I think the worse are actually their peers. When your community no longer has shared and common values then the kids are being hit from many directions and are internally confused about their place in the community.
One set of rules for home, another for school, still another on the streets. It’s no wonder kids today are so confused and do poorly until they find their place in the world.
You sound like a very wise man. Prayers for your continued success.
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Given what high schools offer their students, I don’t fault them for not wanting to go. Maybe on the outside, they may learn something useful, which they won’t learn in school. The real lessons of high school are derision, dependency, petty competition, and learned helplessness.
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