All Posts Tagged With: "high school drop out rates"
Raising the dropout age won’t work
Forcing Alberta high school students to stay an extra year won’t teach them the value of education
It wasn’t that long ago that I was a high school student, so I can still remember how much my 17-year old self loathed high school. While dropping out seemed unfathomable to me, I’ll admit, I used to ditch class frequently. The classes my friends and I chose to be “absent” from were always the classes where we didn’t feel like we were learning anything, and if we weren’t there, it wasn’t as if anyone was going to call us out on it later.
The classes we always went to were the classes where we felt engaged with what we were learning. We didn’t want to fall behind in the course work, and if we ran into our teacher in the hallway after being absent the day before, we knew we were in for an earful. Its not that my school didn’t have a policy against absenteeism, but if no one was looking and we thought we could get away with it, we would. Maybe not every student was as delinquent as I was, but I think that generally sums up many students’ mode of operation.
Students need to see concrete consequences for their actions, and they need to see them fast. That’s why I don’t see how Alberta Education Minister Dave Hancock thinks that bumping the compulsory school age to 17 in Alberta will boost the province’s high school graduation rate without additional enforcement strategies in place to back it up. Despite a country-wide boost in high school graduation rates over the past 20 years, the dropout rate in Alberta remains the third highest in the country at 10.4 per cent, ahead of Manitoba at 11.4 per cent and Quebec at 11.7 per cent.
Hancock proposed the change as part of the province’s new Education Act that is likely to be introduced to the legislature this spring. “If the focus of society is to have an educated population, I think it’s worth saying most people don’t finish at the level we want them to by age 16,” He told the Herald.
There are not many people who would agree that at 16, you are finished your formal education.What is confusing, however, is how Hancock believes that young people will stay in school a year longer just because a law is telling them to, without any enforcement tools in place: “By the time people get to age 15 and 16, enforcement is not the biggest tool. It’s societal attitudes,” he said. “People comply to a great extent because it’s the law.”
Enforcing such a law would be difficult, as it could be a challenge to keep track of students if they don’t live at home and their parents don’t have much control over them. However, Hancock’s assumption that people will comply to a law because it’s the law, is setting the law up for failure.
That’s not to say raising the compulsory school age couldn’t be part of an effective strategy in curbing the dropout rate in Alberta. After Ontario raised its compulsory school age to 18 in 2005, the province saw its high school graduation rate climb from 68 per cent in 2003 to 77 per cent in 2009. However, this could probably be credited with the introduction of approved out-of-school programs such as trade apprenticeships and co-op programs for students who want to get out of the classroom, and enforcement measures tied to students’ driver’s licenses, which were coupled with the rising drop out age.
Like Ontario and most provinces across the country, Alberta has also expanded their work experience programs to try and keep high school students interested in working in manufacturing or trades from dropping out. Recognizing that education isn’t one-size-fits all is definitely a step in the right direction towards getting students to value their education. However, thinking that requiring students by law will simply make everything fall into place when it comes to raising the high school graduation rate is simply foolish.
As spokeswoman for Alberta Education, Carolyn Stuparyk, told the Globe and Mail, a large part of the challenge in keeping Alberta students in school is combating the notion that taking a high paying physical labour job in a still relatively strong economy is more exciting than sitting in a classroom.
With that in mind, even if raising the dropout age to 17 does lower the dropout rate in the 16 to 17 age group, its not much of an accomplishment if you’ve raised those statistics by simply forcing students to stay an extra year. I doubt that students will be convinced that taking that $25 an hour job on the oil sands instead of gaining a high school education may not be the best decision another year down the line because someone legislated they should.
Aboriginal grad rate lags in B.C.
Only 49 per cent of aboriginals complete high school in B.C., compared to 79 per cent for the rest of the population
The B.C. government is promoting a record high school completion rate of 49 per cent for aboriginal students in the Class of 2009, but a First Nations group says that’s nothing to be proud of.
Provincial statistics released Thursday show two per cent more aboriginal students finished high school last spring, compared with 47 per cent in the 2007/08 school year. The figures compared with an overall completion rate in the province of 79 per cent for the 2008/09 school year.
The statistics are well below the province’s target of a 55 per cent completion rate by 2011/12. That compares with an overall target of 82 per cent. “We are pleased with the results and the gains that aboriginal students have made,” Education Minister Moira Stilwell said in a news release.
Stilwell said the increase is due in part to so-called “aboriginal education enhancement agreements,” which integrate aboriginal culture into schools. That includes special First Nations courses. Stilwell also cited work among school boards to “empower” aboriginal students to graduate.
Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, said the province shouldn’t be happy with the results, especially given the huge gap between the overall student completion rate and aboriginals. “It really upsets me,” Philip said. “I am pleased that they are moving in the right direction but we are a long way from home.”
Of those aboriginal students who do graduate, he said some aren’t able to attend post-secondary school due to cuts to student-aid programs. Phillip said there are many obstacles for aboriginal students, all of which trace back to one issue: “crushing poverty.”
“At the community level it really makes it extremely difficult for our students to reach their full potential,” Philip said. “The vast majority of our people live far below the poverty line. Those conditions aren’t improving, they are getting worse.”
He cited a recent report showing British Columbia has had the highest child poverty rate in Canada for six years in a row and said aboriginal children make up a big portion of that group. “I don’t really believe the province has a lot to be proud of in terms of the aboriginal file,” Phillip said.
Completion rates are determined by tracking the number of students entering Grade 8 who graduate within six years. Over the last six years, the overall student completion rate was 79 per cent, except for 2006/07 when it was 80 per cent.
The completion rate for aboriginal students has swung back and forth between 47 and 48 per cent from the 2003/04 school year to 2007/08. In its service plan update released in September, the province noted the “achievement levels of aboriginal and non-aboriginal students continue to differ significantly.”
In June 2009, the province said there were 2,159 aboriginal students in the Vancouver school district, representing 3.6 per cent of the district’s total enrolment.
It also said it was investing an estimated $52.6 million a year—$1,014 per student—for aboriginal education in 2009/10, based on district-estimated enrolments. It said the money is used to support aboriginal language and culture, education and support service programs.
The Canadian Press
Dropping out for oil
Only two-thirds of Alberta high-school students graduate—lowest in Canada
The lure of a booming oil industry has caused a small exodus of high-school students to drop out before graduating, the Globe and Mail reported above the fold today.
Using Statcan data on public-education enrolment released yesterday, the Globe found that 67.9 per cent of young Albertans graduate high school, lower than any other jurisdiction aside from Canada’s territories. That number is four per cent higher than in 1999.
Alberta education spokesperson Kathy Telfer told the paper that a more accurate graduation rate looks at dropouts who return to school several years down the road. That number included, the total graduation rate is closer to 80 per cent, she said.
The Globe’s Michael Valpy juxtaposes the Alberta experience with that of the Maritimes. When the formerly booming fishing industry was at its peak, more kids left school. The boom has since shifted out west. Meanwhile, in Atlantic Canada, participation rates in university and college remain among the highest in Canada, and the region also graduates the highest proportion of high-school students in the country (along with Saskatchewan). Newfoundland, however, experienced a 20-per-cent drop in enrolment between 1999 and 2006.
