It’s not news to us, but the popular press is running an Associated Press (AP) article about the fact that high school dropouts can often be spotted by the fourth grade as though this is a stunning new revelation (this article also ran in many other news sources such as Education Week [subscription]).
This will be a revelation to others here. We heard a lot from the KERA Amen Chorus in the recent past about how we have to focus on our high schools in order to improve graduation rates.
In contrast, the Chorus told us that things were much better in the lower level schools.
However, after looking at other research, the Bluegrass Institute has always felt the dropout problem starts in elementary schools. Our now defunct CATS assessments simply were not telling us the truth about what was happening even though they apparently did fool the KERA Amen Chorus.
Now, the AP and a bunch of newspapers around the country apparently get it, too. So, yet another education fad belief – that the dropout problems were mostly in our high schools – now is headed for the trash bin.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Future High School Dropouts Can Be Spotted By the Fourth Grade
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2 comments:
It has been common knowledge among researchers for the past twenty years that if a child cannot read proficiently by fourth grade he or she (mostly males) will 75% more likely to drop out of high school than a child reading on grad level.
Further, here is another 75% for you. 75% of inmates have a learning disability- meaning that most couldn't read at grade level when they were in the fourth grade.
See a pattern here?? This was part of what the no child left behind act was attempting to accomplish; identifying reading stratigies that help all children read by fourth grade.
Instead, a lot of the no child left behind grant money was used in frauds, ie Feltner.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to teach children to read. It take's lots of hard work, and phonics, phonics, phonics, and more phonics reinforced through not only K, but 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade.
What we had thanks to CATS, was forget the phonics after K, and push to teach the test.
I agree with Anonymous and this really isn't news to us, either.
There has been plenty of evidence for years that the dropout problem starts a lot sooner than the high school years.
Still, Americans are amazingly adept at self-denial, and it takes a ton of evidence to overcome their poorly founded faith-belief opinions. As a consequence, we still have too many focusing on high schools when the problem of not reading is centered in much lower grades.
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