It seems to me that the whole purpose of school is to graduate. You Know, "Finish what you started" and "Clean Up Your Plate" (Sorry for the food analogy but I was hungry when I wrote this). That's why I can't understand why only $30,000 from a grant is all I see listed in a line in the budget under "Dropout Prevention". LPS contributes $0 for the program.
Considering we have such miserable numbers all around throughout the district, one would think a little more attention would be paid to retention rates than just depending on the whims of federal grant money. I sat through a presentation last year about a credit recovery program authored by Sue Rowe and Dennis Thompson (I think) that seemed to have a lot of computer generated bells and whistles. It was nice but it only helped a small number of students.
I guess the strategy is if we keep our graduation rates and test scores low we'll get rescued by a big influx of money as a reward for our failures. I have to admit it worked for Harrington and Connery, at least until the money runs out.
Out of the mouths of disabled poets. What's that you say Stan? Harrington and Connery got paid to fail? No, can't be! No wonder why our drop out rate is high - the kids are learning from school that you get paid to fail.
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