24 hours on the front page and not a single comment about TWENTY THREE percent of kids failing to graduate from Flathead and Glacier?

Astounded that at the non-reaction to this, much less the appearance of a “maybe we should intervene sometime” reaction from SD5 and from the state office.

Simple not unacceptable.

Just think of how much time & money our school systems could save if the parents of those kids actually did their job instead of expecting the teachers & administrators to do it for them.

Watch for the numbers to improve significantly in SD5 over the next couple of years.  They are doing it by changing the rules.  Glacier strongly discourages teachers from giving failing grades and the students that do fail only need to redo the parts of the course that they failed to pass.  Zorn’s comment that they want to improve the drop out problem without compromising the standards sounds good but they have already changed the standards. 

Drop outs will continue to be a problem until we change the public’s view of education.  The number one criteria for the success or failure of a student is the parent.  The teacher is second and the community is third.  Administrators are irrelevant in the equation and usually do more harm than good.

Perhaps kids should stop having kids, then maybe the children would get raised properly. Also, maybe if the text books weren’t over a decade old, your children wouldn’t be so sad. Maybe all the medical marijuana shops could donate a small percentage to help get the schools back up to snuff. Oh wait, the city banned them, nevermind.

ignorance breeds ignorance- and there’s a lot of bad breeding going on in the flathead.  I agree with the post above- kids should stop having kids, literally and figuratively speaking. A lot of adults around here should stop acting like kids, and take some parenting courses. The number 1 reason for kids dropping out of school is lack of parental support. Of course, some kids aren’t into school, but that doesn’t mean they are not smart- a lot of kids have interests that aren’t taught in school, but the PARENTS should recognize this and find an alternative outlet for their child to learn, not just give up on them. Quit blaming administrators, and teachers- if a child fails in school, drops out, starts their own business, becomes successful, it’s the parent who played the most important role in the outcome.

Unless we talk with and understand those who have dropped out, we can’t really say that we understand the problem. 

“In addition, some dropouts can result from clerical errors. If a student moves and fails to send a record request, their former school must record the student as a dropout. Meanwhile, students who leave and enter home schooling without registering with the county superintendent are also considered dropouts. And students who take more than four years to earn a diploma or who leave school but earn a GED are also counted as dropouts. “

Knowing what the percentages are for each of the above circumstances would be helpful.  It would also be helpful to understand why students leave (exclude physical relocation) for the reasons listed above.

Finally, this statement, “It’s a little unfortunate because the purpose of education is to try to get a student to a place where they are able to get to the next level of education or seek a job” seems to lack a respect for the necessity of nurturing a complete person beyond their value economically.

Mark you are right this should be a big issue in our community. We need as several readers have suggested to look at the facts behind the statistics. We need to interview students to find out what failed. In my opinion we need to look at how we are delivering education today. The ninetieth century model no longer works for today’s student. Mandatory seat time may no longer be the appropriate method of delivering education. I have wondered for years why we have not gone to a college style system for high school students. instead we expect them to attend class daily like they did in grade school. The 10 year old text book issue is horrifying in todays information world. Distance learning could bring the best information available to todays student. Perhaps it is time for electronic text books that can be updated as new information becomes available. Parents do play a big role in a students performance, but what do you do when your bright child is bored to death in classes that do not challenge their abilities. The Running Start program is a good indicator of how changing the education delivery format might help engage these students. It also takes the will and action of teachers to accomplish change with the support of administrators, the school board and the community.

Maybe schools and teachers need to step up and recognize that students are in their care for say, 8am to 4 pm, counting average bus rides etc.  That’s 8 hours.  Add a couple of hours of homework that many teachers don’t even bother to grade, and the kids have no time left in the day.  And add weekend homework…  As a parent who managed to get my kids through this broken system, I have no respect for most teachers.  They whine about kids, hate kids, refuse to teach kids, but boy do they want raises.  The lottery money goes to education all right…teacher’s retirement pay.  I know of a 4.0 student who received absolutely no help with scholarship application.  Many teachers scare students away from college by telling horror stories of how hard college is.