Dropping Out of One’s Future Essay Example for Free

Dropping Out of One’s Future Essay We need another series of milk cartons: one that shows the faces of students who drop out of school. After all, isn’t a kid who has dropped out of school a bit like a kid who has been kidnapped? The circumstances have more in common than one might imagine: there is a moment that finally comes during which one’s life is inexorably altered, and if that moment comes and no one is around to help, the consequences are life-long and most likely devastating. Whether one is taken by force and tossed into a van or one is removed by a force from the basic educational system of society, the result is still a kid whose life will never be the same. There are as many reasons for a student’s dropping out of school as there are for a criminal’s behavior, but ultimately, the reason a kid drops out comes down to one of three things: a lack of support, a lack of success, or a lack of money (â€Å"Youth Who Drop Out†). Educational success or failure is often a result of a support system or lack thereof, and no race, gender, or socio-economic group is immune; however, there is a common factor when it comes to evaluating the reasons behind students’ dropping out: â€Å"No one at home, at school or in the community had established relationships with [those who dropped out], set high academic expectations [or] given them the tools to achieve them† (â€Å"Youth Who Drop Out,† Sacchetti). It appears that those who lack a reliable support system are unable to stick with the rigors of school—rigors that are complicated by the mere act of growing from child to adolescent to adult. Trying and failing is no fun for anyone, and the constant pressure on students to perform based not a personal scale but a fixed one can be overwhelming. â€Å"Recent research suggests that, even for students who have difficult home lives, dropping out has much to do with [both] how schools operate and the educational experiences students have within them (Jerald 3). The relationship between a student’s success and his willingness to continue seems profound, and while there is no doubt that school is supposed to be challenging, the challenge is too great for some. This is a cyclical event: the student who does not understand something on Monday does not wake up on Tuesday understanding it; however, Tuesday comes, and so does more information built upon the prior day’s lesson. Now, the student who was behind one lesson is behind two (Jerald 5). There is a reason most students have a favorite subject along with one or more that they hate, and the reason is generally success-based. Money is perhaps the greatest threat to the continuation of an education, but ironically, it is also the biggest burden over the long-haul. Consider the student who lives at home, pays no rent, is responsible for no bills, and who suddenly gets a job. Even a minimum wage salary creates a false sense of financial security for that individual, and there are plenty of high school students who find work that pays a better wage. Suddenly, the new wage-earner considers just how much more he’d make working full time instead of part time, and because he has not had to budget realistically, it seems clear that the time he sits in a classroom is time wasted as he could be earning more money. Education professor Russell Rumberger of UC Santa Barbara found that, â€Å"A dropout earns an average of $18,826 a year, far less than the $27,280 a high-school graduate makes [. . . and] dropouts pay less in taxes and are more at risk of going on welfare, experiencing health problems or getting into trouble† (qtd. in Sacchetti). Students who lack a support system and who are not successful in school can easily become enthralled by the potential to make an amount of money that seems substantial at the age of sixteen. These students are not likely to consider the dead end they face later when the earning potential they have acquired isn’t sufficient, and lacking a support system, they are certainly unlikely to receive alternate advice. No one blames a kidnapping victim for behavior that might have resulted in the accosting; however, society is quick to judge those who drop out without taking the time necessary to evaluate whether or not the drop out simply didn’t get what she needed in terms of the life education—a type of learning that can’t always be taught in school. Works Cited Jerald, Craig D. â€Å"Identifying Potential Dropouts: Key Lessons for Building an Early Warning Data System: A Dual Agenda of High Standards and High Graduation Rates.† Achieve, Inc. June 2006. Carnegie Corporation of New York. 30 Sept. 2006. http://www. achieve. org/files/dropouts. pdf. Sacchetti, Maria. â€Å"Why Do Students Drop Out of School? † The Orange County Register. 31 Oct. 2004. 29 Sept. 2006. http://www. ocregister. com/ocr/2004/10/31/sections/news/ news/article_294717. php. â€Å"Youth Who Drop Out. † Focus Adolescent Services. 2000. 29 Sept. 2006. http://www. focusas. com/Dropouts. html.