High dropout rates among students is one of the main social problems in Washington, D.C. Critics suggest that the school experiences of dropouts reflect an array of poor educational outcomes. By the tenth grade, youths who will later drop out of school are, on average, doing poorly in school, are more likely than graduates to report having discipline problems and lower attendance, and are more likely than graduates to have repeated grades previous to high school.
The lack of educational motivation and support that at-risk youths receive in school has as much of an influence on their educational outcomes as their educationally disadvantaged position at home. An interpretation is that a student’s propensity to leave school is influenced by family background, by cumulative and persistent school failure, and by the inattention and unresponsiveness of school systems to the complex array of problems faced by disadvantaged youths. Dropping out is most often portrayed as a cumulative process whereby persistent and escalating school failure leads to disengagement and to the decision to drop out.
There has been little empirical investigation of whether the path to dropping out takes the form of a slow and steady deterioration in academic performance or whether there are critical points during which the academic processes that lead to dropping out initiate or accelerate (The DC Children and Youth Investment Trust Corporation 2008). This perspective would portray the path to dropping out as an individualized phenomenon based on the progression and interplay of school failure, a youth’s individual circumstances, and a youth’s interaction with the school environment, the timing and nature of which will vary from youth to youth.
One student may drop out because of difficulty adjusting to the school system as an immigrant, often staying at home to translate for parents, and the greater rewards of an after school job. Another student may drop out because balancing the competing roles of student and parent in a school with no day care facility is difficult. a student’s poor school performance and whether a reaction to that poor school performance is to act out and decide to leave has very little to do with school policy or what happens in school.
If this portrayal accurately portrays the path to dropping out then we would expect that knowledge of that student’s family characteristics, ability, and motivation to complete school would tell us as much about his or her chances of dropping out, as would knowledge of how that poor school performance developed as she or he moved through the school system. On the other hand, if school experiences do matter, then whether students are recommended for retention or for participation in a remedial program, whether they are called when absent, or whether there is day care available in the school will play an important role in determining the chances of them staying in school (DC Sustainable Business Assessment 2008).
Orientation programs have long been the model used by colleges to facilitate this transition. The typical college model is a week or several days of an orientation period at the beginning of the first term. The purposes of orientation sessions are to provide information for students; to allow students extra time to become acquainted with the physical environment of the campus; and to enable students to form social attachments before they are faced with the beginning of classes and the arrival of upperclassmen.
Many middle schools, junior high schools, and high schools currently employ some form of orientation or introductory activities, including orientation periods; information or visiting sessions during the last year in elementary or middle level schools; and buddy, or mentoring, programs whereby an arriving student is paired with an upperclassman (A Profile of the Upward Bound Program 2004).
Orientation activities are a low cost intervention designed to reduce ecological stress by increasing a student’s knowledge of the new middle school or high school, dispelling myths and anxieties in the process. The college orientation model goes one step further than those currently being used in secondary schools by providing a transition period, as well as information. An enhanced version of an orientation period is a program that combines a transition period with academic enrichment.
Summer transition programs with academic contents are often used by exam and advanced placement high schools to prepare students for the greater academic demands of accelerated programs. The DC Youth Training Program provides an exemplary program model for improving the transition to middle school. In this program, entering middle grade students participated in a two-week, four hour per day, transition program (The DC Children and Youth Investment Trust Corporation 2008).
The program included orientation activities for students and their parents; life skills activities; and a curriculum designed to introduce students to the interdisciplinary, cooperative learning approach that was used in the middle school.
A second approach that has gained popularity at the college level is to provide targeted academic support during the first year of college for those students who may encounter academic difficulties meeting the new demands of college environments. At the middle school and high school level, targeted academic support programs may include placing students in an extra class period to help develop study skills; providing extra counseling and social support; and providing tutoring and supplemental academic support such as help with writing or basic math skills (A Profile of the Upward Bound Program 2004).
In sum, only cooperative actions and collaboration between schools, administration and students can help both parties to reduce dropout rates and improve education. These programs are developed primarily of concern that minority students are being placed in disadvantaged positions in college because of deficiencies in their prior academic training.
References
The DC Children and Youth Investment Trust Corporation. 2008. Web.
DC Sustainable Business Assessment. 2008. Web.
A Profile of the Upward Bound Program. 2004. Web.