"See you in 10 years!"

Think back to when you were in middle school. With rare exception there was no expectation you would ever see your middle school teachers again unless you had the good fortune to be in a small community within which the teachers also lived. Middle school was something to “get through” and never look back.
Now, imagine you had worked on a letter during your middle school years documenting your life and plans for the future. You had then placed that letter into a vault bolted to the floor in your middle school lobby pending a class reunion 10 years off in the then-seeming distant future. When you said goodbye to your teachers as you left for high school some of them said “See you in 10 years.”
How would such a send off have changed your views of school?
Knowing of the planned 10 year reunion, and that you may be seeing your teachers again, is it possible your work in high school, and then maybe college, would have been affected?
Now, imagine you are a child with an 87% probability you are poor enough to be on the free school lunch program, your Mom and Dad, who probably do not live together, never graduated high school, and few people, if any, were even pushing you to graduate high school, much less college.
How would such a send off have changed your views of school and what you may achieve?
I value your thoughts,
Bill Betzenbbetzen@aol.com

This is another way to look at the same statistics and hopefully make them easier to understand. This chart is focused on those students who make it from 9th to 10th grade and how that percentage has improved in recent years at Pinkston and Sunset. Hopefully this is an easier to understand bar chart. It has been used to replace the other chart on the percentage of loss that was originally used.

The progress being made needs to be clearly understood.

Revolution in Progress!

This bar chart shows the amazing progress these past three years at the two high schools in Dallas which receive the large majority of Middle School Archive students. Pinkston and Sunset used to be listed among high schools with the worst dropout rate statistics for Dallas ISD. If the pattern established these past three years at Pinkston and Sunset continues for another year they will have moved to be among the top half of Dallas ISD high schools with the lowest dropout rates! Something good is happening at Sunset and Pinkston!

For the 11 years prior to 2007 the average percentage of enrollment loss between 9th and 10 grade was 36.9% for all of Dallas ISD high schools. In 2007 that average went down to 32.1% for all of Dallas ISD. Progress is being made everywhere! However at Pinkston and Sunset combined that average was even better, falling below 30%! These numbers can all be verified by studying the spreadsheet that can be downloaded from http://www.studentmotivation.org/DISDenrollmentbygrade1996-2008.xls to provide statistics for all of Dallas ISD. To see the enrollment statistics for Sunset and Pinkston go to http://www.studentmotivation.org/PinkstonSunset.html.

We are making progress in Dallas ISD! The only danger is the possibility that the 2008 Bond election on May 10th will not be approved by voters. That would set us back.