With studies proving that nearly one in five Suffolk students will end up dropping out of high school, the city’s public school administration has high hopes for the steps it has taken this year to increase Suffolk’s graduation rate. School board member, Enoch Copeland said, “I can’t believe we’re this high, we’re only a little bit better than Portsmouth.” Since when did Portsmouth become our measuring stick? According to Assistant Superintendent Kevin Alston, Suffolk had an 18.6 percent overall dropout rate for the class of 2008. Male students in the school system had a 21.6 percent dropout rate, and black students had a 20.8 percent rate. He also said the school system is working to bring this trend to a halt. I wouldn’t call it a trend, more of a fixture, not much has changed in the last several years.
The old school try now is creating a committee to address the dropout rate. The committee will include Superintendent Milton R. Liverman, two assistant superintendents, high school principals, middle and high school coordinators, middle- and high-school parents, representatives from the Suffolk Police Department and Department of Social Services and Judge Robert Brewbaker from the juvenile court system. I can visualize the kids trembling. What is needed is a way to scare hell out of the parents, the real guilty party. Send Police and Social Service representatives to the homes of “bubbles,” the kids showing obvious signs of failure. Worth a try?
11 comments:
With jobs scarce and jails full you'd think the malcontents would be fearful of their future. The army is still looking for boys to shape up into men and a career there is just what they need. Make it a law that welfare checks come after a drug search and that includes their blood. Help those who can't make school mentally and get tough with the rest.
If you don't fix the system where the parents have some ability to be parents, you will get no where. The parents should be able to send little Johnie to boot-camp for some direct when necessary as a real investment in correcting his behavior and stopping him from being a gang-thug rather than a productive citizen. Then there is the issue of how the system protects little Johnie from his parents from even getting a spanking, so how is that the parents deal with him? Time-out? That just does not work when little Johnie turns to the gang members for suport! We need to get the social do-gooders out of the family and give the families a chance to work. Kids succeed in families that set limits and have mom or dad set boundries and punishmnets to modify little Johnie's behavior. It really is just that simple and has worked for hundreds of years. all the talking of anything else just is social-worker babble that will never solve this growing problem!
The size of the Suffolk Dropout Committee is huge and having Dr. Liverman participation means little will be done without demanding more and more funding from us. I favor trade schools, having recruiters from the military services make visits, encourage co-op participation with businessmen from the PRIVATE sector, bigger prisons and roadside chain gangs.
Teenage pregnancy is another cause of student loss that can be directly linked to the lack of family structure and the prevailing Thug-Rapper mentality.
That thinking isn't going to change anytime soon. The kids have been overly self-esteemed into believing they are somebody they're not while woefully lacking skills and discipline necessary to enter the job market.
Undermining this issue is obvious. As long as Obama, his administration and congress are willing to give away our money for their vote, nothing will ever change. Still there is always hope like winning the lottery or becoming the next American Idol.
If you want to make boys to men and girls to women mandate military service for three years. In that time they'll shape and smart up, provided government pansies don't interfere. If HS dropouts Jamal and Jarinda Doorstop don't get the message from their teachers and parents the imprint of the Master Sargent's boot on their backside will.
All of this has been talked about every year. Yet, when you say it is not the school system's fault, those who are constantly on the school boards back are quick to say it is. Maybe a study should be done to determine what kind of family the dropout comes from. Come up with 10 very objective questions and I believe you will find a pattern that should help determine cause. Then let the community begin finding ways to resolve the issues that are finally brought out in the open for all to see.
rethingThe Black Educators Association in a letter to Zero and Plugs, is pushing an agenda where African studies in public schools becomes a main forcal point. Slavery and anti slavery education. Police in Schools: To enact a mandate from the US Dept. of Education that immediately removes the presence and authority of the local police department-directly or indirectly-as security agents in public school buildings. Fully fund and coordinate a national program to assist students, educators and parents in creating local school safety policies and practices that more humanely address the social/emotional and safety issues that arise in schools.
Military Presence in Our Schools: To remove all military presence on school grounds and eliminate the solicitation of new recruits on school grounds. Military recruiters target poor communities creating an economic draft.
Whats next the teachings of 3 Penquins. Pushing of gay community's agenda in our schools. It is now being taught in California against the wishes of the parents. Another example of big brother knowing whats best for the citizens. How long will it be before we see this agenda becoming Livermans and the union. Based on the performance of Liverman, our students and the system they surely are having a problem with success.
If we don't hold Dr. Liverman accountable for his lack of success in producing good students, which is his job who do we hold accountable? To say we will hold the parents accountable is not the answer it must be those who spend our money and demand ever higher resources year after year. If we are to contiually see this kind of outcomes, why are we spending more and more every year?
Ask for the money and we hold you responsible for the outcome! It is time that Dr. Liverman be ousted for lack of performance and it i just that easy!
There have been dropouts as long as there have been schools. Families have had problems and children have been pressured by peers to do anything but stay in school. So what's changed? Since LBJ's Great Society our government has given away billions with nothing to show but a conditioned society totaly dependent upon a monthly check from their Uncle Sam. We can only look at New Orleans following Katrina. A direct hit by a Category 5 hurricane a population waiting for their check in the mail and someone to take them out of harm's way. No motivation, no sence of urgency, no remorse.
To the writer on June 20 at 1:42pm I ask you this. What would you have Dr Liverman do? If 80% of the student population is doing just fine, is there a cause for the other 20% failing? What is the differences in the life of those 20%? Yes, there could be some changes made by school administration that may move the percentage a little higher, but the big jump will be when the family makes the changes necessary to improve their children's motivation. So quit your whining about Dr Liverman. If you got an idea, let's hear how you can improve the graduations rate. For every kid who drops out, I will show you a parent or parents who don't care or can't cope. Let's work with them. Are you willing to provide funding for family coaching? The school is able to identify those that need it. Get on with it.
We have seen how the Great Society of LBJ, has turned this country into a nanny state with welfare and second class educational programs.The likes of liberals such as Kennedy, Rangle, Dood, Frank, Murtha,Sharpton, Jackson, Reid Pelosi and Zero have made over the last 40 years more people dependent on the government. Four generations later and its just gotten worse. It's a parental thing from one generation to the next.They think they are entitled. School adminstrators and the union are not producing pupils with knowledge, they are prodcuing numbers as to satisfy the govt to gain more and more funding.Standards are being lowered and lowered to make those "benchmarks". The agenda of the NEA and liberals are what the problem is and Liverman is a problem.Congress calls for prayer but schools cant..Liberals and repugs put their kids into private schools and then tell us that the public systems work. They have denied both single parent and two parent familes vochers. Could it be that by controlling schools and the educational system more and more that they are developing another generation of dependents? Surely its not class warfare...
Junk the SOLs. The kids in the lower grades need to master reading, writing, and basic math more than they need to know the history of Mali or China. Instead they waste time preparing for tests which don't effect their grades, and don't teach them anything but soundbites. If they master the basic in grades 1-5, then they'll perform better in Middle School, where most of the drop-outs occur. Having kids in High School who can't read and write well is a recipe for failure.
Post a Comment