Never: High School High Essay

Dropping out of school is an issue faced by many teens today. I feel that there are many reasons why students want to and do dropout of school. Due to my research students use dropping out of school as a way to escape from their problems. Further in this paper I will provide you with the information telling you what I recollect the problems are. One of the greatest problems students have in countries such as the US is dropping out of school. I feel that the most average reason for students turning to dropping out is because of them being affected by their family problems. One way they could become affected is by their family, is having obsessive parents. Students might feel if they stop going to school it could be the only way to get back at parents that act in such manner. Another reason for students dropping out of schools is because of their family income. Everyone knows that young people these days have the thought that they need flashy and expensive clothing to go to school. Students could also have the thought because of misguidance. They could have a family that has been raised on relying on something other than school for a key into happiness. I think if students have some desire for school one will work their ups and downs out throughout the school years. See it is possible for family to be the problem that’s makes some drop out. If a student does not feel well, it is most likely that the student’s performance decreases. I feel if the student has no desire what so ever for school there no way the student will make it through school. School is another object that forces students to give up and dropout. Changes of the family environment might also affect the student’s progression, if a parent dies, another child is born, the student has a child, and the circumstances change significantly. And some teaching staff teaches to fast and with the teacher moving too fast could cause failure in grades and that also makes students give up. Anything that causes a student to feel unsafe could make them dropout. Additionally, teachers could be the reason as well. The student is the last reason I will tell you about but is not the last reason known. If you want a good future go through school and there’s a 90% percent better chance your life will turn out better. The other students gets the student to dropout to see what happens to them because they really is the one who wants to but isn’t sure what will happen. No matter what your problems are you shouldn’t drop out of school. Teachers could be teaching in a way that’s not making the course interesting, which also could make the student bored with the course and not getting any motivation from the teaching staff leads to less attendance of the course. It’s been known for years that young people who do not earn a high school diploma face many more problems later in life than people who graduate. Dropouts are more likely to be unemployed, have poor health, live in poverty, be on public assistance, and be single parents. National leaders have demanded that schools, communities, and families take major steps to retain students but the dropout rate remains high. Every 29 seconds, another student gives up on school, resulting in more than one million American dropouts a year – or 7,000 every day. What defines a dropout? Dropping out is defined as leaving school without a high school diploma or equivalent credential such as a General Educational Development (GED) certificate as defined by the National Center for Education Statistics. Characteristics of Students Who Drop Out Social economic Background. National data show that students from low-income families are 2. 4 times more likely to drop out of school than are children from middle-income families, and 10. 5 times more likely than students from high-income families. Disabilities. Students with disabilities are also more likely to drop out. The National Transition Study estimates that as many as 36. 4% of disabled youth drop out of school before completing a diploma or certificate. Race-ethnicity. Hispanics and African Americans are at greater risk of dropping out than whites. Hispanics are twice as likely as African Americans to drop out. White and Asian American students are least likely to drop out. Academic Factors. National research also indicates that academic factors are clearly related to dropping out. Students who receive poor grades, who repeat a grade, or who are over-age for their class are more likely to drop out. Absenteeism. Students who have poor attendance for reasons other than illness are also more likely to drop out. Clearly, students who miss school fall behind their peers in the classroom. This, in turn, leads to low self-esteem and increases the likelihood that at-risk students will drop out of school. Occupational Aspirations. Young people’s perceptions of the economic opportunities available to them also play a role in their decision to drop out or stay in school. Dropouts often have lower occupational aspirations than their peers. Predictive Factors. The following individual-level factors are all strongly predictive of dropping out of high school: Grade retention (being held back to repeat a grade) Poor academic performance Moves location during high school High absenteeism High absenteeism The student’s feeling that no adult in the school cares about his or her welfare Reasons young people give for dropping out: Didn’t like school in general or the school they were attending Were failing, getting poor grades, or couldn’t keep up with school work Didn’t get along with teachers and/or students Had disciplinary problems, were suspended, or expelled. Didn’t feel safe in school Got a job, had a family to support, or had trouble managing both school and work Got married, got pregnant, or became a parent Had a drug or alcohol problem Consequences of dropping out: In recent years, advances in technology have fueled the demand for a highly skilled labor force, transforming a high school education into a minimum requirement for entry into the labor market. Because high school completion has become a basic prerequisite for many entry-level jobs, as well as higher education, the economic consequences of leaving high school without a diploma are severe. Earnings Potential. On average, dropouts are more likely to be unemployed than high school graduates and to earn less money when they eventually secure work. Employed dropouts in a variety of studies reported working at unskilled jobs or at low-paying service occupations offering little opportunity for upward mobility. Dropping out, in turn, causes other secondary, indirect problems: Public Assistance. High school dropouts are also more likely to receive public assistance than high school graduates who do not go on to college. In fact, one national study noted  that dropouts comprise nearly half of the heads of households on welfare. Single Parents. This increased reliance on public assistance is likely due, at least in part, to the fact that young women who drop out of school are more likely to have children at younger ages and more likely to be single parents than high school graduates. Prisons. The individual stresses and frustrations associated with dropping out have social implications as well: dropouts make up a disproportionate percentage of the nation’s prisons and death row inmates. One research study pointed out that 82% of America’s prisoners are high school dropouts. Why do so many students drop out school? Why do students drop out? Today MPs expressed impatience with universities for failure to block the hemorrhage of students from their courses. In the five years since the public accounts committee’s (PAC) last report on university dropout rates, just over a fifth of students still quit their original course. According to the latest figures in today’s PAC report, around 28,000 full-time and 87,000 part-time students who started first-degree courses in 2004-05 were no longer in higher education a year later. This is despite ? 800m being paid to universities over the same period to help retain those students most likely to leave their courses early. Last summer’s National Audit Office (NAO) cited several, inter-related reasons, among them personal and financial reasons, homesickness, failing to bond, dissatisfaction with, or the wrong choice of, course – where working-class students in particular may lack the confidence to change course or institution. But the PAC report suggests widening participation – the government’s desire to see more students with no history of higher education going to university – is partly to blame. But is widening participation really responsible for high dropout rates? Certainly the committee concludes that universities need to do better at providing the kind of teaching and support services those students from under-represented groups need. And there is â€Å"great disparity† between universities in the rate at which students continue to a second year of study. According to the committee’s chairman, Edward Leigh, comprehensive and reliable information upon which decisions on how to improve retention can be based – including data on why students leave – is missing in many cases. â€Å"Personal tuition and pastoral  care should also be given a higher priority and appropriate resources, especially as many universities are large and can be impersonal,† he explained. His committee’s 2002 report recommended more funding to support students from low-income backgrounds, tackling skills gaps, supporting students with disabilities and providing more information for potential students. On top of better data collection, today’s report concludes that universities should provide additional remedial academic support for students and more access to tutors for pastoral and academic help, especially as the number of students entering institutions increases. But vice-chancellors argue their universities have coped admirably with among the best student completion rates for HE internationally, despite student numbers rising by 25% between 1999 and 2004. Universities UK (UUK) president Prof Rick Trainor said: â€Å"Universities are committed to supporting their students throughout their time in higher education and have introduced many initiatives and schemes designed specifically to help students complete their studies – for example, mentoring, study skills and support. † But he conceded there was â€Å"room for improvement in certain areas†. In particular, UUK is looking at whether students who decide to leave could fill in an â€Å"exit questionnaire† to give universities more information on their reasons for dropping out. Pam Tatlow, chief executive of the Million+ group of new universities, wants to see the government commission research to look at the costs to universities of recruiting and supporting different types of students. â€Å"Our research shows that different fee regimes for full-time and part-time students [who respectively pay at the end of their course or up front] is a disincentive for people who are struggling to stay on,† she said. Quite a few universities perform better than the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hence) benchmark sets for them, she explained: â€Å"Universities lose money if they don’t retain their students so it’s in their interest to improve retention rates. † But the money universities get for widening participation or part-time students – â€Å"premium† – does not cover costs, she warned. And universities that do more to widen participation are also likely to have more mature students who are more vulnerable to dropping out: 14% compared with 6. 8% of young entrants. Gamma Tumult, president of the National Union of Students, said: â€Å"It is vital that [widening participation] institutions are funded fairly to provide academic, pastoral and financial support – otherwise, we risk admitting students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds on a false promise. † â€Å"Markets in fees and bursaries will only exacerbate this situation and that must be taken into account in the 2009 review,† she added. Tumult also backed the idea of an exit survey and called for â€Å"more transparency† on how money is being spent. This would enable universities to reallocate funds where they are really needed, she said. Hence, which allocates universities’ widening participation funding, said it was positive drop out rates had stayed the same despite huge increases in student numbers. A spokesman said: â€Å"The funding is worthwhile because if students from non-traditional backgrounds do get through the first year in particular, they do stand a very good chance of succeeding. † Hefted is planning to hold a number of workshops with the NAO and HE representatives in March and April on how to improve performance and retention, which will inform its response to the report. As academics and administrators talk, thousands of students continue to drop out and experience the difficulties, financial and personal, this brings. The sector still seems no closer to a solution. Why Teens Drop Out of School Teens drop out of school for many reasons, and the decision to drop out is rarely spur of the moment. Kids usually drop out of school following a long process of disengagement and academic struggle. Many teens say they were bored and frustrated with classes that didn’t seem relevant to their life. Or they felt they had fallen so far behind they eventually gave up hope. Teen’s report that no one really cared about their school experience, or they felt subtly â€Å"pushed out† by school staff who perceived them as difficult or dangerous. What is absolutely predictable is that many kids who don’t finish high school do poorly in life. Without a high school diploma they will have a harder time finding a job, and they will earn much less when they do find one (about a million dollars less over a lifetime). They are more likely to have poor health, to live in poverty, and to have children at an early age, who in turn are also more likely to drop out of school. Nationally, seventy percent of inmates in prison didn’t graduate from high school. We often ask ourselves why some teens drop out of school. While some may have obvious reasons, other teens seem like a mystery and we have a hard time figuring out why some of them would drop out. Not all students are equal, some simply have special needs and school becomes too hard for them. This includes children with emotional issues, behavioral problems, learning disabilities and other teen problems that may interfere with their school work and the ability to learn. But these are not the only reasons; some kids from certain cultural background simply fail to blend into a school where another ethnicity is dominant. There are also teens that come from homes which are not supportive enough and they lack the motivation to finish school. Teens that drop out can be from both rich and poor families, but poor children with low economic standards and children of single parents have a higher risk of dropping out of high school. The rates of teens that drop out of schools depend on various factors. Teen boys are more likely to drop out of school than girls. Also Hispanic and African American teens are more likely to drop out than Asian American students and Caucasians. Students in large cities are also more likely to drop out than students from small towns and suburbs. As you can see dropping out of school can happen because of learning issues and development or even because of social factors like ethnicity and family heritage. Some of the most common reasons that influence a teen to drop out of school include: – History of poor academic achievements. – Older than classmates due to being left behind – Emotional issues – Behavioral problems – Learning disabilities – Influence by low achieving peers – Low attendance – Social issues – Family problems The reasons are plenty, and they can go from family issues and even history of abuse, drug related issues, mental problems to social issues, low standard, peer pressure, up to medical issues like poor health. Some teens get pregnant so they drop out of school, some teens simply lost interest. One of the factors is the teacher’s attitude and behavior towards students. Most students that dropped out of school reported that they were either ignored and not given enough attention by their teachers or that they were actually encouraged by their teachers to drop out of school. We all know that a teacher can sometimes go after a student; the pressure can very well be the cause of dropping out. Again, the reasons are plenty and as such it is hard to concentrate on prevention as various factors influence this outcome. While the reasons kids drop out vary, the following are six important risk factors: 1. Academic difficulty and failure. Struggling in school and failing classes is one of the main reasons teens drop out, and this pattern often shows up early. Students who fail eighth grade English or math, for example, are seventy-five percent more likely to drop out of high school. 2. Poor attendance. Teens who struggle in school are also absent a lot, and along with academic failure, absenteeism is an important future predictor for dropping out. As with the previous example, students who are absent for twenty percent of their eighth grade year (one day per week) are also highly likely to drop out in high school. 3. Being held back (retention). Linked to academic difficulty, students who are held back and who are older than the kids in their grade also tend to drop out. 4. Disengagement from school. Many kids who drop out say that school was boring and teachers did little to connect learning to real life. They didn’t feel invested in their school and they didn’t feel that adults seemed interested in them or their high school experience. 5. Transition to a new school. A poor transition from the smaller, more protected environment of middle school to the anonymity of a high school can cause a teen to have difficulty catching up-and some kids never do. 6. Other life factors. Pregnancy, family problems, and financial difficulties are all factors that distract a student from schoolwork and make keeping up more challenging. The good news is that dropping out is easily prevented. Most teens who drop out had at least passing grades, and these kids say that, with some help, they could have completed high school. Parents who are involved in their kids’ education often make the difference between academic success and failure. Kids do better when their parents care: when parents make sure their kids get to school and are progressing well and when parents communicate their expectations for success. If problems arise, involved parents have laid a solid foundation for dealing with them. Start early to prevent high school dropouts. Read the article â€Å"Seven Middle School Ideas to Stay Ahead for Parents† for tips.