Yesterday morning, I attended an educational forum organized by the NYU Metropolitan Center for Urban Education. It was a large event and took place in the Rosenthal Pavilion in the Kimmel Center from 9 to 11 in the morning. Because the forum was supposed to be focused on policy, a lot of the attendees were administrators, leaders of community-based education organizations, employees of the department of education and also some teachers.
After opening remarks from Pedro Noguera and Dean Mary Brabeck, there were two parts to the presentation. First, a doctoral student reported the statistical findings of a research study undertaken by Pedro Noguera and a team of others at the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education. This study analyzed the graduation rates of Black and Latino male students in the NYC public school system. There was a lot of data presented, but one result that surprised me was that the largest number of Black and Latino male students that dropped out of high school, dropped out after staying in high school for three years. I expected that the highest number of students who dropped out would happen after only one year.
The second portion of the presentation was a forum discussion. The panel included two principals of high schools in NYC, a corporate banker, the Deputy Chancellor of the NYC Department of Education and the Chancellor for the New York State Education Department Board of Regents. Again, a lot of topics and ideas were discussed during this time. One atrocious fact that I learned is that in Indianapolis, the Department of Education is giving individuals who have not fulfilled the requirements for a typical diploma, a different kind of diploma (somewhat similar to NYC's "Local Diploma") and statistically considering them high school graduates. The Department of Education can thus prove that the graduation rates of Black and Latino students are improving. These diplomas are not considered sufficient for entry into any Indiana state university! How is this happening? This should be illegal!
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Hey Hannah, you make an excellent point. Why would the dropout rates for Black and Latino men occur during their third year of high school? Since, Indianapolis takes place in an urban high school setting, urban schools have higher drop out rates to suburban schools. Boys of all races tend to graduate at lower rates than do girls, but I think may have more to do with poverty. Most jobs will not hire someone under the age of 16, which is about the age most students are, their junior year of high school; and money is probably an issue for most of these families. Your post reminds me how important it is that teachers raise awareness about the achievement gap between whites and other races. It is a tragedy that Indianapolis,’ Indiana’s economy destiny is not confronting this problem. Since some of these students may live a life of poverty and crime, as a result of this.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what Marie said about possible reasons for the dropout rate. After the movie we watched this past week in class about the school in LA with a large Latino population, this sort of makes sense to me. There are many reasons these men could have dropped out. In research, I do not think it is enough to just say X% of black and Latino men drop out of high school. It is important to go further into the statistic and find out WHY they dropped out. Was it due to a family problem/illness? Was it due to money problems which required the child to work instead of going to school? Was it a deportation issue? Or did these students drop out solely due to a lack of ambition or desire. I bet if the study went into detail about WHY these men dropped out so late in their high school career, we would find that a lot of them did not really have a choice; it was survival over education.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your experience!
I really wanted to attend this one but couldn't, and now I'm almost glad I didn't because it would have been a bit annoying to sit and listen to statistics with no solutions. Pedro Noguera. We had the opportunity to learn from him when he was a guest speaker at our Inquires class last year. I remember him giving an example of a student who was about to drop out because he had to work at the family's bodega. Noguera said (for that specific case)the young man should consider dropping out and getting a GED. A different suggestion for the many Latino kids who are forced to make the decision between work and school is- alternative school hours to accommodate the schedules of all kids and therefore diminish one reason for possible dropouts- I think that's reasonable. Noguera does research on how urban schools are influenced by socio economic conditions and talked about the challenges we face as teachers in providing equal education to all. Noguera is a total expert on diversity and the achievment gap (he's kinda hot too). That's all. Stela
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