How good a student are you?

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What makes a good student?

1. Why do students typically drop out of school?2. What is our school doing to keep students engaged in school?3. Generally, what career options do high school dropouts have available to them?

Why do you think minorities are the ones that drop out of school the most? What can be causing this

situation?

Which of the following could make you think of leaving school?

a. economyb. healthc. personal matterd. living abroade. lack of interestf. bullyingg. job oportunity

a. economyb. healthc. living abroadd. lack of intereste. bullyingf. job oportunity

Causes and Consequences

…an increasing number of researchers are saying that nearly 1 out of 3 public high school students won't graduate, not just in Shelbyville but around the nation…

…for Latinos and African Americans, the rate approaches an alarming 50%. Virtually no community, small or large, rural or urban, has escaped the problem…

It's lunchtime at Shelbyville High School, 30 miles southeast of Indianapolis, Ind., and more than 100 teenagers are buzzing over trays in the cafeteria. Like high-schoolers everywhere, they have arranged themselves by type: jocks, preps, cheerleaders, dorks, punks and gamers, all with tables of their own.

But when they are finished chugging the milk and throwing Tater Tots at one another, they will drift out to their classes and slouch together through lessons on Edgar Allan Poe and Pythagoras. It's the promise of American public education: no matter who you are or where you come from, you will be tugged gently along the path of learning, toward graduation and an open but hopeful future.

Shelbyville, a town of almost 18,000 located in Indianapolis, seems an unlikely battleground in the war on dropouts...

The capital is just a short drive away, but miles of rust-colored farmland, mainly cornfields waiting for seed, give the area a rural tinge. Most people live in single-family houses with yards and fences. Not many of them are very well off, but there's little acute poverty, as a gaggle of automotive and other factories has given the town a steady supply of well-paying jobs. Violent crime is rare, and the town is pervaded by a conservative decency. People wave at one another from their cars on Budd Street. They chitchat in the aisles of Mickey's T-Mart grocery store…

Is there anything that can be done to prevent teenagers from dropping out school?

Before During AfterWhat kind of things could be done with teens to help them start high school in the best form?

What actions can a school take so as to help students prevent or solve problems that could make them quit school?

If there are kids who drop school, how can they be helped to come back and finish their studies?

Almost 60% of black and Latino students at four-year colleges and universities fail to earn diplomas.  For black men, the figure is even worse–about 70% don’t graduate.  But if it doesn’t have to be this way and a number of universities are proving it.

At the State University of New York at Stony Brook, a diverse institution with 16,000 undergraduates, 70% of black students and 65% of Latino students earn diplomas.

Stony Brook uses a carefully thought out approach to help low-income, mostly minority students reach the finish line and it could be a model for the rest of the nation.

Find out what is happening in our country. Statistics about dropuots and the actions

taken by the government to fight this educational problem. Then compare your findings with the cases of Stony Brook and

Shelbyville