Should i drop out of high school

The ability to be able to study a wide range of areas helps you work out your likes, dislikes and the way you work. These are key aspects of schooling that lets you figure out who you are and what you want to do post-high school. This could be sport or music programs, or different clubs the school runs.

Give yourself space to breathe and permission to do the things you love to do; it could be the difference between dropping out and graduating high school. While completing high school does afford you many benefits, sometimes there are factors out of your control that can prevent you from doing that.

Just be sure to have a plan to do something if you drop out, like working or doing an apprenticeship. High school and the HSC can be difficult, but persevere and keep at it. Teens that become pregnant with no support from the father of the child or family may drop out.

I care about this major issue of high school dropouts because my generation is the future. I believe that our futures are bright and have a lot of potential but the only way to prove this to the world is for us to improve the dropout rate.

I was worried that I would be sent back to my neighborhood schools. My mother had to give up her dream for college and a successful career to take her four kids across town to get better education options for elementary, middle, and high school. All I could think about was how I was going to respond to the words. Her sacrifice motivates me to stay in school. You tend to ask yourself, what happened?

What happened to striving for excellence? What happened to the ongoing thirst for knowledge? Our teens and our children gave up. Dropping out of school and cigarette smoking are closely related. Smokers ages are twice as likely to drop out of school. It teaches you how to be a drone. Taking the career path less traveled takes you to some strange places , but its lessons are better than those taught in any classroom.

One thing I've noticed since starting this blog, Pink Slipped , earlier this year is how terrible most career advice is. It's not even so much the advice itself, although that's generally pretty terrible, too, but it's that it's not even interesting. Everyone wants to tell you the safe thing to do. What your best bet is. How you can grow up, sell out, fit in, sign up for a mortgage, and then die.

That's not the life I want. Is it the one you want? Years after I was supposed to graduate, I met a former high school classmate. He had become an astronaut. When I told him I had dropped out of school, he said something to the effect of, That's cool. He liked the idea.

I'm not an astronaut, and he is not a high school dropout, but maybe we had something in common. We didn't want to be like everyone else.

Read my Forbes blog. Findings in a March report, " The Silent Epidemic ," illustrate the importance of engaged parents throughout secondary school. Sixty-eight percent of the high school dropouts who participated in the study said their parents became involved in their education only after realizing their student was contemplating dropping out of school.

In Sacramento, California, high school staff members make appointments with parents for voluntary home visits, to keep parents engaged with their children's progress. This strategy -- which has so far been replicated nationally in eleven states, plus the District of Columbia -- includes placing as many visits as possible during summer and fall to parents of teens entering high school -- a critical transition point for many students -- to begin building a net of support and to connect parents to the new school.

Staffers also conduct summer, fall, and spring home visits between and during the sophomore and junior years to students who are at risk of not graduating because of deficiencies in course credits, the possibility of failing the state high school exit exam a condition of graduation , or poor grades.

Visits in the summer after junior year and fall of senior year are to ensure that students are on track for either career or college. Early evaluations of the program by Paul Tuss of Sacramento County Office of Education's Center for Student Assessment and Program Accountability found that students who received a home visit were considerably more likely to be successful in their exit exam intervention and academic-support classes and pass the English portion of the exit exam.

A follow-up evaluation of the initial cohort of students at Luther Burbank High School showed that the students both passed the exit exam and graduated high school at significantly higher rates. A concerned teacher or trusted adult can make the difference between a student staying in school or dropping out. That's why secondary schools around the country are implementing advisories -- small groups of students that come together with a faculty member to create an in-school family of sorts.

These advisories, which meet during the school day, provide a structured way of enabling those supporting relationships to grow and thrive.

The most effective advisories meet regularly, stay together for several years, and involve staff development that helps teachers support the academic, social, and emotional needs of their students. Download a PDF summary of the results of a survey about Austin's advisory program. Project U-Turn , a collaboration among foundations, parents, young people, and youth-serving organizations such as the school district and city agencies in Philadelphia, grew out of research that analyzed a variety of data sources in order to develop a clear picture of the nature of Philadelphia's dropout problem, get a deeper understanding of which students were most likely to drop out, and identify the early-warning signs that should alert teachers, school staff, and parents to the need for interventions.

After looking at data spanning some five years, researchers were able to see predictors of students who were most at risk of not graduating.

Key indicators among eighth graders were a failing final grade in English or math and being absent for more than 20 percent of school days. Armed with this information, staff members at the school district, city, and partner organizations have been developing strategies and practices that give both dropouts and at-risk students a web of increased support and services, including providing dropout-prevention specialists in several high schools, establishing accelerated-learning programs for older students who are behind on credits, and implementing reading programs for older students whose skills are well below grade level.

Boredom and disengagement are two key reasons students stop attending class and wind up dropping out of school. In "The Silent Epidemic," 47 percent of dropouts said a major reason for leaving school was that their classes were not interesting. Instruction that takes students into the broader community provides opportunities for all students -- especially experiential learners -- to connect to academics in a deeper, more powerful way.

For example, at Big Picture Learning schools throughout the country, internships in local businesses and nonprofit organizations are integrated into the regular school week. Students work with teacher advisers to find out more about what interests them and to research and locate internships; then on-the-job mentors work with students and school faculty to design programs that build connections between work life and academics. Nationwide, Big Picture schools have an on-time graduation rate of 90 percent.