Right here:
"We can't afford another lost generation of people that don't complete high school. We are really trying to figure what is the next strategy with various systems that interact with children."
- Leslie Strnisha, senior program director of a foundation run by the Sisters of Charity that started a Promise Neighborhood in Cleveland, one of more than twenty programs modeled on the Harlem Children's Zone
~~~
Joe is one of those who didn't graduate high school.
ReplyDeletePart of the problem was poverty - he, as the oldest of 6 kids of a single mother, decided he wasn't learning anything worthwhile in school, he was a burden on his mother, his time was better spent working, so he dropped out, got his GED, and enlisted in the Army.
And ya know, sometimes people do better in life if they do drop out - sometimes the school system is the very thing that kills their initiative and problem-solving skills and creativity and whatnot. NPR ran some articles about this earlier this year, and a lot of people left comments indicating they dropped out and did just fine in life. So maybe the way our public school system isn't right for every kid.
Good for Joe that he got his GED. In that case, he DID complete high school.
ReplyDeleteIt's tragic, really, that school systems as they are so often crush the initiative and creativity of our young people. We can do better as a society; we really can.