The first step is dropout rate transparency. Every school district should have a multi-year enrollment by grade spreadsheet online for each school, with graduation numbers for each year.
High dropout rates seen with such transparency will initially make people angry, but it gives a place to start. Progress can then be tracked from data that is already being collected, but is simply data not visible in this format online for US public schools. Dropout rate patterns and progress will now be more clearly exposed.
The second step is to understand that our students must want to stay in school for the right reasons, not because the classroom is an effective detention facility! Students must be focused on their own futures in as concrete and physical a way as is possible. They will better envision the value of education.
To achieve the future focus a Dallas middle school started the School Archive Project in 2005. It is a 10-year time capsule and class reunion project. It involves a 350-pound vault bolted to the floor in the school lobby to function as the 10-year time-capsule. The School Archive holds letters 8th grade students write to themselves about their history and plans for the future. Students can place several letters into their envelope for the vault. In addition to the letter to themselves, they can include letters from their parents, or a teacher, about their dreams for the student.
At the end of the year, before students go on to high school, there is a small ceremony wherein students pose in front of the School Archive, with their Language Arts Class, holding their sealed letters for a photo. They then place their letters inside the vault.
Students receive a copy of this photo with information on the back about their 10-year class reunion. They are reminded that they will be invited at that 10-year reunion to speak with then current 8th grade classes about their recommendations for success. They are warned to prepare for questions such as; “Would you do anything differently if you were 13 again?”
Thinking of answering such a question in 10 years helps students realize the value of current school work. They must build their own futures. Nobody is going to do it for them.
The first students to write letters for the School Archive graduated in 2009 as members of the largest 12th grade class in over a decade! The Class of 2010 then significantly improved the graduation rate of the Class of 2009!
This project has now spread to 6 schools within Dallas ISD. It is a simple project helping teachers do what teachers have always done, focus students onto their own futures.
At a cost that is about a dollar per child per year, this is a project all schools should have. It only requires one dedicated teacher as project manager who is also interested in motivating students to write more, to better understand the flow of time and history, and to graduate.
Bill Betzen
The School Archive Project
www.studentmotivation.org
It is requested that you share any improvements to the School Archive Project you may develop.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Sunset High School in Dallas ISD is leader in dropout prevention progress in Texas!
The great news is that Sunset High School in Dallas gave 483 diplomas to their Class of 2010. That is 76 more graduates than were in the Class of 2009, and the largest graduation class ever! The "raw" graduation rate, based on total 9th grade enrollment four years earlier, went from 49.4% last year to 60.8% for the Class of 2010 based on the 483 number. It is wonderful progress!! (This 483 number was taken from the 483 names that were listed on the Sunset graduation program. It will probably not exactly match the number that will ultimately be the official number of graduates, but it will be close.)
Due to the decreasing number of 9th grade failures and the growing upper grade class enrollments, it is almost certain Sunset will achieve a 70% graduation within the next few years. It is now possible to see an 80% graduation rate is even being within sight!
The reason these achievements are so significant is that during the 8 year period, from the Class of 2000 to the Class of 2007, the average graduation rate (calculated as the percentage of the 9th grade enrollment four years earlier who received a diploma) was 34% for Sunset High School. The graduation rate for the Class of 2010 is now 60%! That is over 25 percentage points higher!
Does anyone know of another Texas public high school who has made this much progress?
The reasons for the progress are multiple. A dynamic principal and staff are the central reason. They are future focused. They have emphasized that focus on the future by starting their own School Archive Project in 2009, but their future focus was present long before that happened. As of 2009 all the feeder middle schools sending students into Sunset now also have School Archive Projects. Once Sunset achieves the 70% raw graduation rate they will have doubled what had been their average graduation rate for the eight years up to and including the Class of 2007. That is amazing!!! (See http://www.studentmotivation.org/DallasISD/#sunset for the enrollment by grade history for Sunset. It is not yet updated with the most recent 2010 numbers.)
Due to the decreasing number of 9th grade failures and the growing upper grade class enrollments, it is almost certain Sunset will achieve a 70% graduation within the next few years. It is now possible to see an 80% graduation rate is even being within sight!
The reason these achievements are so significant is that during the 8 year period, from the Class of 2000 to the Class of 2007, the average graduation rate (calculated as the percentage of the 9th grade enrollment four years earlier who received a diploma) was 34% for Sunset High School. The graduation rate for the Class of 2010 is now 60%! That is over 25 percentage points higher!
Does anyone know of another Texas public high school who has made this much progress?
The reasons for the progress are multiple. A dynamic principal and staff are the central reason. They are future focused. They have emphasized that focus on the future by starting their own School Archive Project in 2009, but their future focus was present long before that happened. As of 2009 all the feeder middle schools sending students into Sunset now also have School Archive Projects. Once Sunset achieves the 70% raw graduation rate they will have doubled what had been their average graduation rate for the eight years up to and including the Class of 2007. That is amazing!!! (See http://www.studentmotivation.org/DallasISD/#sunset for the enrollment by grade history for Sunset. It is not yet updated with the most recent 2010 numbers.)
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Article by Mercedes Olivera on Archiving Day at Quintanilla Middle School
An article was published this morning in the Dallas Morning News titled "In school, putting plans for life on paper." It was written by Mercedes Olivera, Dallas Morning News and published on page 4 of the Metro section for Saturday, 5-15-10:
"It was a ritual unlike any other at most public schools.
This week, eighth-graders each lined up at Quintanilla Middle School in northern Oak Cliff and placed a white envelope inside a 500-pound vault bolted to the floor in the lobby.
Inside the envelope was a letter, written over the course of one hour to three days, containing the students' past, present and – they hope – future.
Alejandra Calderón said she cried when she wrote hers. She wants to be an obstetrician when she grows up and wrote that in her letter.
The simple act of writing down her goal may have sparked an image of her father, who also wrote down what he wanted for his daughter the day she was born.
"Either a lawyer or a doctor," Julio Calderón said, recalling what he wrote that day.
He said he wants more for his children than he did for himself. "There were a lot of things I could've done and didn't," he said.
Natalia Hernández also cried thinking about ..."
The article goes on to speak of more Archive Project details. It was a very positive article that hopefully will encourage more schools to start their own School Archive Projects. Until then, we can celebrate with the students we are honored to serve. This year at Sunset High School the raw graduation rate for the class of 2010 will represent more than 55% of their 9th grade enrollment from 2006/2007. That is a 6% increase from the previous graduation rate record last year of 49%, and almost 20% higher than the average 9th grade graduation rate for the past 10 years at Sunset of only 36.3%!
We have come a long way and still have a long way to go. Let's celebrate breaking the 50% barrier and work to get well past the 60% barrier ASAP at Sunset High School! (The Sunset enrollment history to date is at http://www.studentmotivation.org/DallasISD/#sunset.)
"It was a ritual unlike any other at most public schools.
This week, eighth-graders each lined up at Quintanilla Middle School in northern Oak Cliff and placed a white envelope inside a 500-pound vault bolted to the floor in the lobby.
Inside the envelope was a letter, written over the course of one hour to three days, containing the students' past, present and – they hope – future.
Alejandra Calderón said she cried when she wrote hers. She wants to be an obstetrician when she grows up and wrote that in her letter.
The simple act of writing down her goal may have sparked an image of her father, who also wrote down what he wanted for his daughter the day she was born.
"Either a lawyer or a doctor," Julio Calderón said, recalling what he wrote that day.
He said he wants more for his children than he did for himself. "There were a lot of things I could've done and didn't," he said.
Natalia Hernández also cried thinking about ..."
The article goes on to speak of more Archive Project details. It was a very positive article that hopefully will encourage more schools to start their own School Archive Projects. Until then, we can celebrate with the students we are honored to serve. This year at Sunset High School the raw graduation rate for the class of 2010 will represent more than 55% of their 9th grade enrollment from 2006/2007. That is a 6% increase from the previous graduation rate record last year of 49%, and almost 20% higher than the average 9th grade graduation rate for the past 10 years at Sunset of only 36.3%!
We have come a long way and still have a long way to go. Let's celebrate breaking the 50% barrier and work to get well past the 60% barrier ASAP at Sunset High School! (The Sunset enrollment history to date is at http://www.studentmotivation.org/DallasISD/#sunset.)
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Dallas ISD Wins Broad Award by 2014!
This morning a Dallas Morning News Columnist, Mr. Ragland, wrote an opinion piece on the facts surrounding the failure of Dallas ISD to win the Broad Award in 2010. He made a bet that DISD will also not win the Broad Award in 2011. I venture that there is about an 80% chance he is correct. However, by 2014 at the latest, Dallas ISD will win the Broad Award! DISD is heading in the right direction to win the Broad Award!
In his article Mr. Ragland quoted DISD leaders speaking about significant academic progress made within the past 4 years by DISD students. Dropout rate progress was not mentioned.
Other school districts on the "road to Broad" have pushed academic progress forward causing many struggling student to drop out under the pressure, thereby raising dropout rates. The greatest achievement within DISD is that record academic progress is NOT being made at the cost of a rising dropout rate. Instead, as DISD grades rise the graduation rates are also going up! Dropout rates are going down!
Three of the four most important positive measurements pointing toward rising graduation rates are now at the highest recorded levels in DISD for over a generation! The fourth measurement is also heading up, and will achieve the same "highest in over a generation" level within two years!
Study the graph at http://www.studentmotivation.org/DallasISD.htm#graph to see the documentation for this progress to date.
It shows that the 9th to 10th grade promotion rate has gone up to 75% this year, the Cumulative Promotion Index is now up to 54%, and the 9th to 12th grade promotion rate has now gone up to over 54%. These are all the best measurements in over a generation!
Finally, if you look higher on this same web site you will find the enrollment by grade spreadsheet that generated this graph. It shows that 9th grade enrollment has gone down from an average of over 14,000 students every year prior to 2007/2008, to just 12,300 this year. That reflects that fewer 9th graders are failing and repeating 9th grade, another significant achievement in the past 4 years!
In spite of the fact that total DISD enrollment has gone down over 2% since 2005/2006, the current 10th grade enrollment is one of the largest in a decade. The current 11th and 12th grade enrollments are the largest in DISD history!
While DISD still has a long way to go, there are many very good things happening! DISD students are to be congratulated! As this progress continues, within the next four years DISD students will win the Broad Award!
In his article Mr. Ragland quoted DISD leaders speaking about significant academic progress made within the past 4 years by DISD students. Dropout rate progress was not mentioned.
Other school districts on the "road to Broad" have pushed academic progress forward causing many struggling student to drop out under the pressure, thereby raising dropout rates. The greatest achievement within DISD is that record academic progress is NOT being made at the cost of a rising dropout rate. Instead, as DISD grades rise the graduation rates are also going up! Dropout rates are going down!
Three of the four most important positive measurements pointing toward rising graduation rates are now at the highest recorded levels in DISD for over a generation! The fourth measurement is also heading up, and will achieve the same "highest in over a generation" level within two years!
Study the graph at http://www.studentmotivation.org/DallasISD.htm#graph to see the documentation for this progress to date.
It shows that the 9th to 10th grade promotion rate has gone up to 75% this year, the Cumulative Promotion Index is now up to 54%, and the 9th to 12th grade promotion rate has now gone up to over 54%. These are all the best measurements in over a generation!
Finally, if you look higher on this same web site you will find the enrollment by grade spreadsheet that generated this graph. It shows that 9th grade enrollment has gone down from an average of over 14,000 students every year prior to 2007/2008, to just 12,300 this year. That reflects that fewer 9th graders are failing and repeating 9th grade, another significant achievement in the past 4 years!
In spite of the fact that total DISD enrollment has gone down over 2% since 2005/2006, the current 10th grade enrollment is one of the largest in a decade. The current 11th and 12th grade enrollments are the largest in DISD history!
While DISD still has a long way to go, there are many very good things happening! DISD students are to be congratulated! As this progress continues, within the next four years DISD students will win the Broad Award!
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Family History and Emotional Stability
The power of story was reinforced again by research published February, 23, 2010 in the Journal of Family Life, and online at http://www.journaloffamilylife.org/doyouknow. It shows one of the major reasons that the School Archive Project is so successful, by reinforcing the focus on family history and the recording of family stories, in ultimately helping students stay in school. Here is the abstract:
Family stories are theorized to be a critical part of adolescents' emerging identity and well-being, yet to date we know very little about adolescents' knowledge of their family history and intergenerational family stories. In this study, we expand our previous findings that pre-adolescent children who know more about their family history display higher levels of emotional well-being. Sixty-six broadly middle-class, mixed race, 14- to 16-year old adolescents from two-parent families were asked to complete a measure of family history, the "Do You Know..." scale (DYK), as well as multiple standardized measures of family functioning, identity development and well-being. Adolescents who report knowing more stories about their familial past show higher levels of emotional well-being, and also higher levels of identity achievement, even when controlling for general level of family functioning. Theoretical and clinical implications of these findings are discussed.
Abstract
Family stories are theorized to be a critical part of adolescents' emerging identity and well-being, yet to date we know very little about adolescents' knowledge of their family history and intergenerational family stories. In this study, we expand our previous findings that pre-adolescent children who know more about their family history display higher levels of emotional well-being. Sixty-six broadly middle-class, mixed race, 14- to 16-year old adolescents from two-parent families were asked to complete a measure of family history, the "Do You Know..." scale (DYK), as well as multiple standardized measures of family functioning, identity development and well-being. Adolescents who report knowing more stories about their familial past show higher levels of emotional well-being, and also higher levels of identity achievement, even when controlling for general level of family functioning. Theoretical and clinical implications of these findings are discussed.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Dr. Diane Ravitch and the "Not Test?" critique
There have been columnists who have criticized Dr. Ravitch by writing: "....what are they supposed to do? Not test?"
The answer to this issue is somewhere in the middle of current practice. We must test! Such feedback is critical. But should we give that feedback the undeserved power we are now giving testing? It is as if people outside the school system needed to think they understood everything happening inside schools, and now think testing does that.
Should the results of testing literally run our schools? Are the tests that accurate?
It appears people think these tests accurately represent everything our children need to know to succeed in the real world.
We must sober up! That is not how the world is!
The answer to this issue is somewhere in the middle of current practice. We must test! Such feedback is critical. But should we give that feedback the undeserved power we are now giving testing? It is as if people outside the school system needed to think they understood everything happening inside schools, and now think testing does that.
Should the results of testing literally run our schools? Are the tests that accurate?
It appears people think these tests accurately represent everything our children need to know to succeed in the real world.
We must sober up! That is not how the world is!
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Dr. Diane Ravitch changing the view of U.S. Education
The wisdom of Dr. Diane Ravitch has been rapidly exposed in news articles and on blogs over the past few weeks as her new book has been released. Here are her words, followed by the title of her new book I am in the process of reading. This publication may do more to help the public school children of the United States than any other book published in our life times. Dr. Ravitch writes in an article published 3-9-2010 in the Wall Street Journal:
Ms. Ravitch is author of "The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education," published last week by Basic Books.
That editorial was a perfect illustration of the dangers Dr. Ravitch is addressing. Anyone who claims they support the Dallas Morning News editorial must be able to address the issues Dr. Ravitch addresses. One of the most basic is to ask where it is proven that closing schools, or other plans being presented, helps children?
The Dallas ISD track record only indicates that closing a school and forcing the transfer of hundreds of students, as was done at Spruce High School, increases the potential for a higher dropout rate. The constantly raising promotion rate for the 6 Southeast Dallas high schools suddenly dropped 5 percentage points in 2008-2009 when Spruce was closed and reopened only for freshmen and sophomores. Allegedly the seniors and juniors were transferred to other Southeast Dallas high schools. Many students never made that transition. Who did that move help? See the graph at http://www.studentmotivation.org/dallasisd/#graph .
Yes, something must be done. Credibly connecting students with their own futures, and acknowledging that they themselves are in charge of that future, may be a first step.
Given the weight of studies, evaluations and federal test data, I concluded that deregulation and privately managed charter schools were not the answer to the deep-seated problems of American education. If anything, they represent tinkering around the edges of the system. They affect the lives of tiny numbers of students but do nothing to improve the system that enrolls the other 97%.
The current emphasis on accountability has created a punitive atmosphere in the schools. The Obama administration seems to think that schools will improve if we fire teachers and close schools. They do not recognize that schools are often the anchor of their communities, representing values, traditions and ideals that have persevered across decades. They also fail to recognize that the best predictor of low academic performance is poverty—not bad teachers.
What we need is not a marketplace, but a coherent curriculum that prepares all students. And our government should commit to providing a good school in every neighborhood in the nation, just as we strive to provide a good fire company in every community.
On our present course, we are disrupting communities, dumbing down our schools, giving students false reports of their progress, and creating a private sector that will undermine public education without improving it. Most significantly, we are not producing a generation of students who are more knowledgable, and better prepared for the responsibilities of citizenship. That is why I changed my mind about the current direction of school reform.
Ms. Ravitch is author of "The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education," published last week by Basic Books.
On the same day that the above comments were published in the Wall Street Journal the Dallas Morning News published an editorial titled "DISD must act now to fix or close failing high schools." That editorial went on to list 10 high schools, some on that list due to out of date information.
That editorial was a perfect illustration of the dangers Dr. Ravitch is addressing. Anyone who claims they support the Dallas Morning News editorial must be able to address the issues Dr. Ravitch addresses. One of the most basic is to ask where it is proven that closing schools, or other plans being presented, helps children?
The Dallas ISD track record only indicates that closing a school and forcing the transfer of hundreds of students, as was done at Spruce High School, increases the potential for a higher dropout rate. The constantly raising promotion rate for the 6 Southeast Dallas high schools suddenly dropped 5 percentage points in 2008-2009 when Spruce was closed and reopened only for freshmen and sophomores. Allegedly the seniors and juniors were transferred to other Southeast Dallas high schools. Many students never made that transition. Who did that move help? See the graph at http://www.studentmotivation.org/dallasisd/#graph .
Yes, something must be done. Credibly connecting students with their own futures, and acknowledging that they themselves are in charge of that future, may be a first step.
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