Michael Swickard
There is a dark cloud over New Mexico public education because almost half of the public school students do not graduate from their free K-12 education. This problem has existed for years, but only now are we finding out.
The public education budget is almost $3 billion — half of the entire New Mexico budget — so the barrier to student completion is not money or access; rather, it is something far more fundamental. I will explain shortly and suggest what needs to be done.
First: Does anyone think students drop out because they are having too much fun or school is too interesting? No. Yet, something happens and each dropout at some point decides to not graduate. Why?
There is an Old West saying: “Only the cattle know why they stampede, and they ain’t talking.”
This is not so with people who fail in our education system. But we can only hear these people if we listen. Often society is not listening. Many say they dropped out because school was of no use, which is true if we look at it from their perspective.
People were unhappy when I recently wrote, “…dropping out may be the most rational thing they do…” One person wrote angrily, “You have done a great disservice by supporting students dropping out.”
No, I wrote it may be the most rational thing they do. Experts cannot imagine not graduating since they come from a “success to success to success” world where they always prosper. They cannot identify with students who experience such a world of failure that getting away from that world is the most logical thing they can do.
Becoming alienated from the system
The reason students have, do and will drop out from a free public education is that they become seriously alienated from that system. While alienation is caused by a number of factors, the most pernicious is lack of appropriate literacy.
If students cannot read at grade level, they will not keep up with peers. When other students read effectively and they do not, these students feel stupid and often are treated as such. It hurts and alienates them.
These students learn less and less in every subject until they flee the system. The vast majority of prisoners in our justice system are poor readers, so this academic handicap rules their lives. They live lesser lives because they did not get the appropriate literacy skills while in school.
To change the dropout numbers, educational leaders must see the world from the eyes of those who do not read well. The National Reading Panel of 2002 states that students must be prevented from or restored from five major reading problems: phonemic awareness, rules of phonics, vocabulary, comprehension and fluency. Trouble with any will result in students unable to read well who then become dropouts.
The most important literacy skill is silent reading. Almost every test in public school is first a test of silent reading ability and then a test of the subject matter.
New Mexico can change the dropout numbers if it discards some notions that have not worked in the past and will not work now — namely, taking every bit of fun out of going to school does not improve outcomes; it alienates students. Also, if a child does not learn to read, holding that student back and making him or her repeat a grade has no chance if he or she gets the same curriculum that did not work the first time. When it is obvious that students lack literacy skills they must be put in an intervention that works immediately.
How do I know this? I work in literacy development both from prevention to intervention. The published research shows what school districts must do to stop dropouts because of academic alienation. These interventions work if educational leaders listen. Some do; let us celebrate them. Some do not; we must get their attention before more students are lost.
Swickard is a weekly columnist for this site. You can reach him at michael@swickard.com.
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