Let students set the standards

(The following email was sent 12-28-08 to the Interact web site for Jacksonville Florida in response to the article at http://www.jacksonville.com/interact/blog/2008-12-28/lowering_standards regarding the need for higher standards for passing in high school.)

Yes, I said let the students set the standards. This is a long term process.

I teach middle school and helped start a 10-year time-capsule and class-reunion project targeted at student retention and motivation. When students return 10-years after 8th grade they are invited to speak with then current 8th grade students about their recommendations for success. That is when they are able to set the standards. They speak about what it takes to best succeed in the world after 8th grade. Who better can set the standards than those who have lived life after school and know what it takes to succeed?

This project started 4 years ago in an inner-city Dallas public school as a focus on the future to lower dropout rates. Since starting the 9th to 10th grade attrition rate has gone down 40%. Not bad for a $2 per student investment for supplies and a photo given to each student. It is a photo of their Language Arts class posing in front of the 350-pound vault bolted to the lobby floor in the middle school lobby to function as the time-capsule. In this pose they each hold the self addressed letters they have written to themselves, that are then placed by them into the vault after the photo is taken. The letters stay there for the next decade. On the back of the photo is a label with details about the Archive Project and the planned class 10-year reunion, and their planned presentation to decade younger students at that reunion.

Who would better know the standards current students should meet than young adults who were in those same students places 10-years earlier, and therefore know what it takes to best survive the next decade?

9th to 10th grade attrition rate down 40%!

In the September posting below I wrote that "the 9th to 10th grade dropout rates at Pinkston and Sunset have actually gone down over 25% over the past 3 years!" Since then the 2008-2009 enrollment numbers have come in. They indicate that in this, the fourth year, the 10th grade enrollments show that 76.5% of last years 9th grade number is represented in this years 10th grade number, up from the 71.5% for last years 10th grade. Thus in 4 years we have had a 40% improvement in the percentage of 9th graders making it to the 10th grade at Pinkston and Sunset combined.

Sunset is now planning its own School Archive Project, as are several other schools.

Dallas Mayor Leppert working on dropout rates!

The work of Mayor Leppert is increasingly impressive.

I was at a meeting recently when Mayor Leppert very accurately spoke of the dropout crisis Dallas is facing. He described the dropout rate as "56% to 61% depending on the source of the statistics." He was speaking of the percentage of the 9th grade enrollment who do not make it to graduation. It was the first time I had ever seen a Dallas leader give such accurate numbers for our dropout crisis!

The graduation classes for Dallas ISD for the past 8 years, 2001 through 2008, had an average of 14,816 classmates enrolled in their 9th grade classes. Yet the average number of diplomas given out at the end of 4 years of high school, after that 14,816 enrollment in the 9th grade, was only 6,433 during these 8 years. This means the average graduation rate for the past 8 years has been only 43.4%. That also means that 56.6% of our 9th grade students were missing at graduation. (www.studentmotivation.org/dallasisd.htm)

It is very painful and hard on our city to admit how bad the dropout problem is. Fortunately it appears we finally have a leader who is facing this truth. Now change is finally possible! Our children, and our city, will be the ultimate winners!

Mayor Leppert sees that vision. He is willing to admit the hard truth of current dropout numbers. That is the only way to begin to work to change them so our children ultimately win!

Other positive news is that the 9th to 10th grade dropout rates at Pinkston and Sunset have actually gone down over 25% over the past 3 years! The power of the School Archive Project is slowly being manifested. In 2008-2009 it is planned to have 6 more Dallas ISD schools start School Archive Projects.

There is very good reason to believe that the two schools who receive the majority of students who have been involved in the Archive Project will achieve a 50% graduation rate with the class of 2010.

The percentage of students making it from 9th to 10th grade has improved over 10% since the Archive Project started. That improvement should provide for those increases to continue through graduation. The class of 2009 may be close to the 50% graduation rate and possibly even make it.

Only from 35% to 45% of the students at these two schools are Archive Project students. If we can get Archive Projects going at the two other middle schools feeding into Sunset and Pinkston we may see graduation rates well above 50%.

"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.