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In last week’s State of the Union address, President Obama proposed something radical, that dropping out of high school no longer be allowed. But that might be complicated. Every school district has tried numerous solutions to the dropout dilemma without success. The problem prompted Russell Rumberger to write a book called Dropping Out: Why Students Drop Out of High School and What Can Be Done About It.

Rumberger is director of the California Dropout Research Project, and he currently serves as provost in the Office of the President at the University of California. He recently talked about his theory that high schools need to promote alternatives to college – and that some people might be better served not getting a higher education at all. KALW's Ben Trefny sat down with Youth Radio’s Robyn Gee to discuss this idea of education.

This story was produced by Youth Radio with support from the New Options Project and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

This piece was originally published on L.A. Youth.

A new program called the Diploma Project is trying to reduce dropout rates at Los Angeles Unified School District schools. The Diploma Project, which is funded by the federal government, has dropout prevention counselors in six middle schools and six high schools.

The high school counselors find students who have dropped out and work with them to get them back in school. They can either re-enroll at their high school or in a program where they can make up their credits, like adult school, continuation school or independent study.

We talked to students from Fremont and Gardena, two high schools that are part of the Diploma Project, about why they dropped out and what helped them return. They were all thankful for the Diploma Project for helping them get back on track to graduate.

Editor Mike Fricano: Why did you drop out?

Maycoll Arata, 20, Gardena Adult School graduate: I was too busy partying, clubbing, going out and having fun instead of studying and doing homework.

Cindy Ávalos, 18, Alternative Education Work Center (AEWC), an independent study program on the Gardena High campus: When I was in ninth grade I didn’t know it was that important to graduate. I didn’t go to class, I didn’t pay attention at all. In 11th grade I realized it was important and I noticed I wasn’t going to be able to graduate.

Mayra Frias, 19, Gardena HS: For me it was a personal problem … Me and my mom would fight every day. That’s when I decided to drop out, which I did when I was in 11th grade for two months. I started looking for a job and I never found one. Then I decided to come back.

Rosario Franco, 18, Gardena AEWC: Since ninth grade I started ditching and I guess it becomes a habit … Every year I would be like, “I’m going to do better next year” but then the next year I’ll go some days but then I’ll miss school other days and I’ll be like “When I miss out, it’s better.” So I started falling back. My senior year I went for three weeks. I was like, “I’m behind credits, I know I’m not going to graduate. Why go and waste my time?”

Curtis Hess, 19, Gardena Adult School: I dropped out of school because I was kicking it with the wrong crowd, gang bangers.

Abigael Perez-Rodriguez, 18, Gardena AEWC: When I entered ninth grade I started hanging out with the wrong people. I was getting high, drunk. I started ditching more and more. We used to hop on Metro and go to downtown, Hollywood, do whatever we want, drink a couple 40s, have fun. I stopped going to school my senior year.

Brigitte Olguin, 16, Fremont HS: In ninth grade my dad was sick. He was almost dying so all that depression got to me and I missed school. I went with friends to try to feel better. It stopped at 11th [grade] because I got caught. They told me, “Why are you missing school? You have a future to go to.” I don’t want to be a low-life. I want to have a good car, a home. If I do good in school I’ll be the first one to graduate in my family. That motivates me to go to school.

Robyn Gee, Turnstyle News

Russell Rumberger is an expert on high school dropouts. He recently published a book called, Dropping Out: Why Students Drop Out of High School and What Can be Done About It, and he currently serves as provost in the Office of the President at the University of California. Rumberger is also director of the California Dropout Research Project. According to Rumberger, roughly 25 percent of U.S. high school students do not graduate.  And he says that our country is only making the problem worse by trying to prepare everyone for college.

Turnstyle spoke with Rumberger about how to re-define success in high school by creating multiple pathways for students to find success inside and outside of school.

Turnstyle: In a nutshell, tell us about your argument that when academia focuses solely on getting kids to college, it can lead to more high school dropouts?

Rumberger: I do believe everybody who wants to go to college, has the inclination to go to college, should be able to. Even if they may not have the initial ability, they should still be encouraged and supported to go. It may be harder for them, it may take them longer to finish, but that’s okay. But for students who don’t want to [go to college], they should have an option as well; the opportunity to develop skills that are valued in the job market and take that pathway. What would serve students better in the long run is if we had a broader definition of success in high school to include more things that people can master that we know are important.  Some of those things can be best acquired in the classroom, but many can be acquired outside the classroom.

Underlying my assertion is that we want to try to make every kid successful in something. If we define success narrowly by saying how well can you do on an AP test, or a math test, or some other kind of academic test, and that’s the only way we judge success, then the students that have the ability to work with others, the ones that can design things, the ones that know how to cook or fix cars, none of those skills are valued. But if we say, everyone should have something that they can master, and demonstrate mastery of, then there’s this notion that students will develop a sense of competence.

Teenagers in 2011 are taking fewer risks than their parents did with regard to drugs and alcohol, reports the New York Times Magazine. In 2011, 6.6 percent of high school seniors--as opposed to 9 percent in 1980-- frequently used marijuana. In addition, 72 percent of high school seniors in 1980 had recently consumed alcohol, while only 40 percent responded they had done so in 2011.

The data comes from the Monitoring the Future survey funded by the National Institutes of Health, and conducted at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research. It surveyed 47,000 students.

The press release for the study states that in 2011, 50% of high school seniors reported trying an illicit drug at some time in their life. Among 10th graders, 38 % have tried an illicit drug, 31% did so in the past 12 months and 19 % in the prior 30 days.

According to the study, “synthetic marijuana” often called “spice” or “K2” was very popular among teenagers this past year, as well as easy to get. For a while, it was sold legally as herbal incense, until the Drug Enforcement Administration declared some of the chemicals in it dangerous and banned it for a year. One in nine high school seniors reported using it this past year.

Meanwhile, alcohol use among teenagers has fallen over the past ten years. “Over the past 20 years, from 1991 to 2011, the proportion of 8th graders reporting any use of alcohol in the prior 30 days has fallen by about half (from 25% to 13%), among 10th graders by more than one third (from 43% to 27%), and among 12th graders by about one fourth (from 54% to 40%)," reports the study.

Youth Radio took a look at how the legalization of marijuana impacts teen drug use back in 2010. Check out Sayre Quevedo's story on NPR.

The following originally aired on KCBS

By: Pendarvis Harshaw

The phrase "I don't give an F-Bomb" resonates throughout high school hallways every day, which begs the question: how do you get students to actually give a flying F-bomb?

Earlier this year I worked as an educator in the Oakland schools, in a pilot program designed to prevent young black men from dropping out. My students, all freshmen in high school, were in my class because of discipline issues, low attendance, or academic shortcomings.

Everyday there’d be a moment when one of my students would have a tiny breakthrough and I’d exclaim “hot damn.” It was a constant reminder that we were progressing. 

One day I asked my students to read aloud from Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. Student after student read with increasing excitement. They were into it, and pleaded with me to bring in additional chapters. It was as if Ellison was narrating their lives. “I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids — and I might even be said to possess a mind.”
  Read more...

The following originally aired on KQED-FM and published on Turnstyle News.

In 2009, more than half of the African-American males who started high school in Oakland, California never graduated. Pendarvis Harshaw joined Oakland Unified School District's African American Male Achievement Initiative to reverse that trend.

By: Pendarvis Harshaw

The phrase "I don't give an F-Bomb" resonates throughout high school hallways every day, especially in Oakland public schools. Which begs the question: how do you get students to actually give a flying F-bomb?

The numbers show that young black men drop out of school at higher rates, and are more likely to be incarcerated than other groups. Earlier this year I worked as an educator in the Oakland schools, in a pilot program designed to prevent young black men from dropping out. My students, all freshmen in high school, were in my class because of discipline issues, low attendance, or academic shortcomings. We called our class the Young Lion’s Lair.

To maintain focus, we did pushups. We did wall sits. We did sets of 20 jumping jacks. And everyone had to stop at the same time, or else we’d do it again.

At the start of class- we’d toss around a tennis ball and review the prior day’s lesson. And at the end of class- we’d toss around that same ball and review what we learned that day.

The following originally aired on KQED-FM.

By: Maya Cueva

This Sunday I am heading to Europe with four of my best friends. In order to make sure we see and do everything under the Tuscan sun, we have to carefully budget the whole trip. And while in school, my friends and I have taken language courses to prepare, I’ve been thinking that a lesson on how to handle our cash may have been more useful.

In high school, I took an Economics class for a semester and can now recite the concept of supply and demand, how to calculate GDP, and how to maximize opportunity cost. But in that class we spent only two days learning about matters of personal finance, like what counts as a liquid asset and how people often run into debt. The California State Frameworks didn’t leave much room for teaching about personal and household budgeting, which is why my teacher couldn’t go into much depth.

This commentary originally aired on WAMU, American University Radio in Washington, D.C.

By Calvin Jackson

In many D.C. Public Schools classrooms, teachers face a lot of disinterested or uncooperative students. But I can vouch that there's a wealth of hidden talent and intelligence waiting to be tapped -- if the teacher has the right skills. To define those skills, we have to look at professions way outside of education.

IT’S THE LAST COUPLE DAYS OF MY JUNIOR YEAR AND IVE BEEN REALLY THINKING ABOUT MY LAST YEAR PLAYING BASEBALL IN HIGH SCHOOL. Read more...

This commentary originally aired on WAMU, American University Radio in Washington, D.C.

By Roger Wood

America has long touted diversity as one of its strengths, and according to a Pew Research Center survey, six in 10 Americans say they’d prefer to live in racially-mixed communities. But diversity may be more of an ideal than a reality.