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Report: Nevada dropout rate grows to worst in the country
Published Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2010 | 10:43 a.m.
Updated Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2010 | 3:18 p.m.
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Nevada has lost ground when it comes to high school dropout rates and ranks last in the nation, according to a report released Tuesday.
The report by the America's Promise Alliance said the number of high schools in Nevada deemed "dropout factories" rose from eight in 2002 to 34 in 2008, with the increase representing nearly 54,000 students. During that time, the state's graduation rate fell from 72 percent to 51 percent.
The term dropout factory refers to schools where fewer than 60 percent of students who started as freshman remain enrolled four years later.
Nationally, the number of dropout-factory schools fell by 13 percent.
The report cited Nevada's rapid growth during those years, as well as a soaring percentage in the number of English language learners, a "stressed and undiversified economic system," and a strong labor market for unskilled workers for the decline.
Since then, Nevada's economy has tanked and people are leaving the state to find jobs elsewhere. But the state's narrow economic base and record joblessness, bankruptcies and foreclosures weigh heavily on recovery.
Education was a key issue in Nevada's gubernatorial race, and Republican Gov.-elect Brian Sandoval has he wants to reform the state's education system and tie it to efforts to diversity the state's economy.
America's Promise Alliance is an education advocacy organization started by former Secretary of State Colin Powell and his wife. The alliance joined with Johns Hopkins University education researcher Robert Balfanz and John Bridgeland, co-author of the report, to produce the study, a follow up to Balfanz's 2007 report that coined the term "dropout factories."
The study calculates graduation rates by a federally approved formula based on the percentage of students who graduate high school four years after they enter.
Discussion: 17 comments so far…
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Wonderful.
The question...WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT IT???!!! We have a new superintendent coming in, we'll have a new president of the school board, and we have a new governor. These guys all have an opportunity to make dramatic changes. Add to that the huge push (nationally) for education reform and (locally) for economic diversity, and we have absolutely NO EXCUSE for continuing to be a failure.
More funding for teacher training (strong focus on science and math), less money for extra programs (adult education, etc.), eliminate barriers to firing bad teachers quickly and getting them off the payroll, pay good teachers what they deserve. Focus on results (primarily national tests). Sorry teachers, I know you don't like tests, but we need an objective way to see how we compare nationally. We can't continue to get left behind.
Are we going to be all talk, or are we going to get off our butts and take action? I guess we'll see.
I'd be interested to see how they classify "drop outs" simply because, in many cases, not finishing even if you move will lead you to be classified as dropping out.
That being said, we could do a lot better at graduating our high school students.
As I've said, anyone thinking "recovery" better grasp reality. No companies are going to locate here knowing full well they will not find an educated population.
Step one. Change the mindset that you don't need an education for success...or for that matter, survival.
I see 6 of those miscreants that killed that poor teacher are back in court. Would love to see their attendance records...if they are not already dropouts.
@improv
It's a two way street. The parents of these kids better get them to school, on time, homework complete. No teacher, I don't care how good he is will win the dropout war unless parents get involved.
Tom, nobody can deny the importance of getting the parents involved, but I don't know how that's enforced. I've brainstormed on here before...property tax breaks if their kids perform? DMV discounts? Penalties if their kids perform poorly?
I think we start with the teachers, since they're gov't employees and it's their friggin job, and we look for ways to encourage parents to do what's right for their kids.
Unfortunately, and I'm oversimplifying here, but parents have a "right" to be crappy parents as long as they're not physically abusive or breaking any laws, but there's no legal right for crappy teachers to keep their jobs if we amend the union contracts. That job is a privilege (though it might not feel like that to them), not a right.
I sure hope the teachers don't resist reform because they don't feel that the parents are being held accountable. That's a weak game of chicken and the kids and community are the ones that suffer. Change has to start somewhere, and teachers can truly be heroes if they lead the charge without making too many demands that just stall the process.
I would audit to make sure that they aren't including kids that moved to another district or out of state because the parents had to move. I would be willing to bet the school district failed to screen for this.
But in reality, the real reason for dropout factories are uneducated, backward thinking baby factories. I know it goes against everyone's moral and religious codes, but we have to many illiterate welfare moms and their loser boyfriends squeezing out kids they can't afford and have no clue or interest in how to raise.
If the state is required to pay for their kids, then the state should require they go on birth control. And if you are a man convicted of a felony, a free vasectomy should come along with your sentencing.
This is great news! Now we can shut down some of these schools and save the money spent on these drop outs. The school system is flawed and the tax payer has been forced to fund it with or without kids in the system. As for parents they should just pay to educate the off spring they chose to have. No reason why the rest of us should pay for your kids to suck the system dry of funds. The whole system should be online and all these buildings and buses and property should be sold off. Make the baby makers pay for the babies and quit taking money from me.
Lost ground? Las Vegas was never intelligent to start with.
Did anyone see Las Vegas is the worst rated economy in the world?
Yet, the voters reelected the person who put them here?!? Thanks to Las Vegas Sun for pushing Democrat propaganda, they can now watch their city die.
Las Vegas is by far the most pathetic, uneducated, and most senseless place to live. This place is a drain on states around it and provides nothing of value to anyone.
And the kicker is, all this is only going to get worse.
How about getting back to basics, the three R's readin, riting and rithmetic. Seriously, If you graduate from high school and you can't read at at least 12th grade level, if you can't write or communicate orally and you don't have a grasp of mathematics-----at a minimum-----what is that high school diploma worth? There is too much emphasis on teaching to standardized tests rather than teaching how to think critically. I would also like to have the teaching profession opened up to those without teaching credentials obtained from a School of Education. Why shouldn't someone with a degree in Math and teaching ability be able to teach without being required to go through a long laborious process of getting teacher certification from some School of Education. This would be true of other disciplines as well----english, biology, physics, whatever. There are a lot of talented people that don't have education degrees that would be willing to teach, perhaps some that are unemployed or have taken early retirement from some other occupation, that have advanced degrees and would probably make good teachers. Also, pay higher salaries to those that can teach, those that meet acceptable standards keep, those that don't, get rid of them. Also, not only must the parents be involved, but more must be done to combat the notion that somehow if you are a good student then you're some kind of nerd, in other words make it more socially acceptable, cool, etc. to be a good student.
Our primary economic engine, gaming, places little value on education. When high school dropouts can easily make $60,000 - $70,000 a year parking cars, where is the incentive to get an education? In fact, education and significant, quantifiable accomplishments on your resume are negatives here in Las Vegas. I had to dumb down my resume just to get an interview and I know other transplants that had to do the same. My Chicago market value was $90,000. It took almost a year to find a job that paid $50,000 and it took 2 weeks of back-and-forth negotiation to get the salary up to that amount.
Until you get parents that care about their children you are not going to see any improvement in the Grad. rate in this town.
To many parents don't care and it shows in their kids.
The government can make it harder on parents to allow their children to drop out and not do their work but that will not happen. The public looks to blame everyone but the responsible parties for their own failures.
Let's see, if our schools are 40% Hispanic, and 50% of them speak mostly a foreign language, can't we see what a hopeless morass our schools are in? Many of these children are the product of parents who might have gone to the third grade in their native country, so how can we expect them to understand homework and attendance and discipline?
I feel bad for our teachers-it must be like herding cats trying to teach our students. I say give the teachers a break because they are not responsible for irresponsible behavior by students who have never had to act responsibly in front of their parents....
doogie, so we should just accept the fact that we're a failure and move on to the next issue? Las Vegas would become a third world country if we accepted failure. There's too much low hanging fruit to just ignore, give up, and accept the status quo.
And I completely disagree that parents that immigrated here, with little education themselves, don't place an emphasis on, or understand the importance of, a good education. I have friends that teach in low income neighborhoods, with mostly Hispanic students, and they say the parents are extremely involved and often look to the teachers for advice.
And to the geniuses that think they're all independent and libertarian, and think that they shouldn't contribute to the education system if they don't have kids...do you honestly NOT think that education is heavily correlated to crime rates, economic stability, and general quality of life (for all members of the community)? If not, then you're beyond convincing and not worth talking to.
Home schooling!
44 percent of Nevada's high schools are considered "Drop out factories" according to the John Hopkins report. These high schools alone constitute 71 percent of all dropouts in the state.
What to do? Throw the book at the system. We need system wide reform of every kind because there is NO silver bullet to improving education.
Thanks Gibbons. And now we have Sandoval about to take the reins and make more cuts, and of course his children do not attend public schools. The Governors Office, the Legislature and the School Boards need to be held accountable for this failure.
hey...how about those union teachers, huh? they're doing an awesome job.
What is Sandoval's solution? Is he just going to give up and close the schools altogether? That would allow him to keep taxes low. Of course, no business would ever move to Nevada again and we might as well just sell our water allotment to California, distribute the money to current residnets [like in Palin's Alaska] and all leave.
Only one way to go now..UP.. lets strap on the rockets..
approve a state lottery, with profits going to the schools. time to fly...
And quit kicking the teachers around...
their battered enough.
I know what the NSEA is doing about it. They are going to hire the rabid Socialist Gary Peck to come to the rescue. What is really needed is real competition to the public school system. Charter schools & vouchers. We need to empower parents to choose the schools that teach their children. Those parents need the state's backing to see it is the best possible, not the most "politically correct." Partrick_r is right. Judy: Do you think this horrible situation started just 4 years ago? If so, you're mistaken. It started more than 50 years ago and is not unique to Nevada. It began when the administrators became more concerned with indoctrination rather than education. They made actual learning irrelevant so they could make the kids "feel-good-about-themselves." That really helps kids in the "real" world when skills and knowledge are what's needed to get & keep a job. In all my years, I never had a boss who cared whether I "felt good" about myself. Every one of them cared whether or not I was good at my job and that, of course, included my having the knowledge to do my job unsupervised most of the time. So, I had to have the basic skills, as iamwinkler stated: the 3 R's. Today's public school system has grown outmoded and needs to be replaced. Except for the fact that some of my property taxes go to fund the public school system, I have no dog in this fight. My kids have kids of their own and do not live in Nevada. But it's just about the same for them in Florida & Oklahoma. Those public school systems suck, as well!
I have always liked the Idea of kids going to brick and mortar schools up until they finish the eighth grade and at that point then the student can enroll in a state network of some sort to finish the rest of there requirements, That way a student can utilize the Internet for research and work at their pace with out holding others back in certain subject that they may have trouble with but yet they can leap ahead as fast as they can comprehend.
If at any time that the student still can't get past an assignment perhaps they could schedule a class room session with others that also need a more personal instruction.
Lets face it schools as we know them are based on the rate of how fast is the slowest student and when these kids get bored they look for something else to occupy there time.
Of course this will cause educators to become more of a tutor but most of the subjects are the same thing from year to year.
Good... More future Democrats...
Blame BAD PARENTS that don't emphasize the importance of staying in school getting and education.
Education was not a key issue in Nevada's Gubernatorial race; NO NEW TAXES was the key issue. I voted for none of the above.
'Get the parents involved.' Forget it.
'Get better teachers.' Forget it.
'System-wide school reform.' Forget it.
The parents and teachers are outgunned and clinging to their jobs with both hands or held there by corporate chains and manacles.
System wide reform is like the Eagles, once said about "freedom."
'That's just some people talkin.'
Have a good day, every working and unemployed body.
Good job sheeple. News flash, this just in Nevadans are the DUMBEST people in the country I founded! Time to kick Nevada from the Union.
Nevada's dropout rate grows to worst in the country, while more Nevada voters are registered as Democrats...
Geeez! In Nevada, high school qualifies as higher education. Jethro Bodine would be a scholar there. After all, he done gradiated sixth grade!
Only Vegas!
ANOTHER SHINING EXAMPLE OF THE *PUTRID* ELECTED POLITICOS DOING ABSOLUTELY JACK YOU-KNOW-WHAT ABOUT THE MESS THEY HAD A HAND IN CREATING.
Keep letting in illegal aliens and their anchor baby offspring to get FREE education, healthcare, housing, welfare, food stamps, and social security.
Keep letting illegal methamphetamine factories in Mexico keep pumping billions of dollars worth of addiction-drugs into our system.
Keep believing that GAMBLING in smoked-up money-draining casinos are the path to a brighter future.
Gambling, booze, cigarettes, divorce, whores, and now....
drop-out mills.
Keep writing those tax checks baby.........
So they drop out of high school. It's not the end of the world. There are plenty of careers available to high school drop outs. In fact the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department doesn't have any problems arming high school drop-outs and charging them with the the task of protecting us all.
While many will argue that education doesn't guarantee good old fashioned common sense, studies have shown the the more educated an officer is, the less likely it is that he will use excessive force. And despite these officers respect for the rights of citizens, their arrest rates don't suffer one bit.
mwh710, if you were alluding to my comment, let me be perfectly clear, I did not state that just because someone could do math that they were qualified to teach it. I said that there are a lot of people who have command of a given subject matter, whether it be math or something else, they have degrees in said subjects and can teach it very well. They shouldn't be required to obtain certification at some Teacher's College or School of Education to be able to teach. The system we have now with the graduates of Teacher's College's/Schools of Education for the most part being in the bottom 20-30% of their college graduating class is not helping us.
another reason why the recovery in vegas is going to be a long time coming. add the fact that more people are finally cutting debt out of their lives, discretionary income isnt there to spend.
At least we can all be proud that Dippy did not drop out of high school.
Dippy is correct when he stated that people have figured out that they have to take care of themselves instead of letting someone else support them...
Personally, I believe these statistics dont show the entire picture. How many families do you think left the state due to losing their homes or jobs? Do they take into account these kids just leaving with their parents? I bet many families just up and left when they lost their homes and didnt notify the schools. How can they track whether or not the kid/kids enrolled in high school in another state?
no surprise. just look at the butchered grammar and spelling in some of these comments. clearly the majority of NV does not place much importance on education, they just pretend to.
"Your prison is walkin' through this world all alone" - The Eagles
As the architect was pointing out so vividly, the failures of our schools clearly reflect the failure of our local culture to address the real societal needs that develop into strong student investment interests.
Without personal and intrinsic motivation to engender success as each of us defines it, we are squandering our rays and and our chances of becoming a better and more humane society. Cookie-cutter curricula will never cut it, but humanity and personal enrichment always will.
We have abandoned our youth. CPS is not prepared to handle the thousands of neglected and abused kids out there, parented by TV and whatever is happnin in the hood.
Mr. Winkler,
your statements lack much support. How is someone who can handle DOING the math somehow endowed with the capability to inspire folks to wish to acquire skill?
What does the ability to read, write and understand written language have to do with the ability to empower others to wish to develop their skills, to discover their abilities and to produce meaningful compositions that reflect both an acculturation through literacy and an individuality through reflection ???
These are different things, amigo. One requires the other along with a considerable set of human-based understandings that come from studying how people can learn stuff, the kinds of things one gets from studying in a good school of Education.
"The system we have now with the graduates of Teacher's College's/Schools of Education for the most part being in the bottom 20-30% of their college graduating class is not helping us."
Would you mind, Mr. Winkler,
offering some kind of idea where this piece if factoid came from?
Are you suggesting that graduates of Teacher Colleges are somehow subordinate? (lower 20-30%) Of what?
Do you think lawyers who make $400 an hour actually benefit us ten times more than a teacher making a paltry $40? And building thirty fires an hour, liberating souls daily, and bringing tomorrow to its senses?
It never ceases to amaze me how the critics fail to include the real culprits in the deteriorating graduation rates.
Many students are not motivated to work hard, have too many distractions at home in the form of Facebook, My Space, AIM, and let's not forget 2 to 3 thousand text messages each month, to get serious about any form of homework, and parents who do not make earning good grades in school a priority in the home.
The best teacher in the world cannot overcome these obstacles.
Are there poor quality teachers. I'm sure there are more than enough to go around, but there are also plenty of dedicated ones as well.
52-55 minutes each weekday is not enough to be able to motivate every student, nor is it possible to compel students to complete homework. It takes all three (student, parent and teacher) to make it work, and until we are able to legislate good parenting, teachers are the scapegoats.
Bonanza HS class of 84 i be, looks like we were not that dumb after all..
Joe, sorry I'm late in getting back to you---busy, putting my 8 years of higher education, two degrees, technical school education and various certifications to use. You know how it is. Look, I'm in favor of all those warm and fuzzy things you mention----motivation, fostering ambition, creativity, a life long desire to learn and improve one's self and all those other things you mention. Kumbaya. But the point is 50% of the students are not graduating, they are dropping out, only 22% are graduating from college in Nevada. Don't you get it Joe, the system is failing. Our young people can not read, that can not adequately communicate orally or in writing, they can not do the most basic math. How in the world can they function in society and expect any hope that they are able to get a job. When I went to public school the teaching profession was honored and valued. I still to this day remember my 8th grade English teacher Mr. Widener, who happened to be a Harvard graduate and his requirement that we be able to diagram sentences. My points concerning the shortcomings of Education Schools are well known. The statement I made concerning graduates of Schools of Education came from a New York Times article I read in the last year, I happened to remember the 20-30% figure. The poor academic standing of graduates of Schools of Education as compared to their peers is well known, it's no secret. You might be interested in this quote, from a 2005 article, also in the Times, "Who Needs Education Schools?", citing a American Enterprise Institute report, "For at least a decade students who intend to major in education have had among the lowest SAT scores of all college bound seniors, in 2004 they ranked 19th of 22 intended majors, two points in verbal and math scores below those who planned to major in agriculture. Even "undecided" ranked higher." I agree the problem is complex, that there are many factors to blame in our failure to educate our young people, including outside distractions, etc., but we need to also rethink how to get better people to go into teaching and how to best give them the support/training that they need.