A young high school graduate wonders where the other 800 students who started high school with her, but didn't finish, went.
I looked around at my fellow graduates, and my only thought was “Holy crap! That’s a lot of kids”. My principal goes on to congratulate the 400 plus students graduating. 400?! West Mesa is happy that they’re graduating 400 students?! What is there to be happy about?
When I became a freshman, we were told that we had one of the biggest classes in several years. There were about 1,200 freshmen! How did 1,200 turn into 400? I can guarantee that the other 800 students were not moving from school to school. My logical conclusion would be that these 800 students were dropouts. That’s more than 50%! See a problem anyone? Does anyone care to try and fix it?
Our education system has yet to fail, so now what? Where does a young 19-year-old high school graduate go with a problem like this? I have too many questions with few answers. How can a situation so corrupt drive me with a frustration that I feel so helpless? I feel this frustration turning into passion that will soon turn to change.
By: Lucia Fraire
Friday, June 19, 2009
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The first document on this webpage: http://www.nmpha.org/Social_Determinants.html
will show you a map and a table that chart dropouts at APS High Schools over the last 5 years.
You will need to scroll about 2/3rds thru the presentation.
West Mesa indeed has the highest, at about 27% of students.
That would be only about 300 of the missing 800. The rest? Still in school or confirmed transferred.
Lots of methods for calculatin dropouts are questionable but I think the 'cohort' method APS uses is sound. They have been using it since the mid-80s.
You can read the full report from APS here" http://www.rda.aps.edu/RDA/Documents/Publications/08_09/FinalCohortReport2007-2008.pdf
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