High School Dropouts---No Laughing Matter

Today's New York Times ran an excellent op-ed (http://nyti.ms/zYtbJJ) on the issue of high school dropouts and the economic toll that dropping out of high school places on the economy and the individual.  Currently, there are 1.3 million students who drop out of high school each year.  Nationally, 80% of white students attain a high school diploma, while only 55% of African American and Hispanic students will graduate from high school.

Working in a diverse elementary school district serving mainly African American and Hispanic students, what is our role and responsibility to students and society?  Isn't the dropout issue strictly a matter for high schools?

The reality is that high school dropouts are created long before freshman orientation day of high school.  Elementary schools create high school dropouts.  To be sure, when high school students face irrelevant curricula or feel unconnected to their school or world, then they are simply pushed to the point of finally signing themselves out.

One of my district's greatest contributions towards reducing the high school dropout rate is our outstanding early childhood program.  Preschool programs have long been recognized as an effective foundation for future high school graduation.  Our early childhood programs serve hundreds of students each year and offer them untold future educational opportunities.  Every district should have an early childhood program like ours that prepares young children to be successful in school.

But one of the main ingredients in the high school dropout recipe? 

Retention.  Retaining a student today is a sure fire way to create a high school dropout a few years down the road.  As the calls coming into my office today demonstrate, the retention letters have signaled an appropriate alarm to many parents.  We need to work closely with parents to ensure that students will meet the promotion standards to advance to the next grade.   Our goal should be to reduce that retention list to zero!

Please read the full article!

FOCUS: The new "F Word!"

A little of this.

A little of that.

Dabbling.

Too often businesses, school districts, and other organizations are guilty of dabbling.  They try to accomplish a broad array of goals and objectives.

But excelling at none.

GE is focused.  With 300,000 employees worldwide, every employee is focused on one objective:  Driving Revenue.

As the Education Solutions Manager at GE Security, I knew what I had to do every day.  Drive revenue.  Every day.  Every hour.  Every minute.  And if I didn’t, I heard about it!

Even with business segments as diverse as healthcare, finance, infrastructure, media, energy, and others, every GE employee from CEO Jeff Immelt on down was focused on driving revenue.  This kind of focus requires great discipline---the kind of discipline that is rare in business, education, other professions, and even in our personal lives!  That kind of discipline is why GE has been so successful for over 100 years since the day that Thomas Edison founded the company.

Rory Vaden, http://roryvaden.com/, the immensely talented speaker, says that successful people and organizations are successful because they are willing to do what others will not do.  It requires discipline.  That’s what focused organizations so.  They are willing to say “no” to many tempting distractions, and they have the discipline to focus on what matters most to the organization.  Each organization will define its own focus, the priorities that matter the most and that will be responsible for its success.

Focus is not an obscenity, but we oftentimes treat it as if it was the “F word.”  Focus is not obscene.  But it is difficult, requires great discipline, and is a prerequisite to success.

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