Putting a Face On High School Drop Outs
By Robert Waddell, February 5, 2009
Julio Ramos was a senior at Morris High School in the Bronx and he felt the pull between school and the streets where he could earn “fast, easy money” selling drugs. At 17, Ramos was told, he said, by his guidance counselor that Ramos was getting too old for school and would have to move onto a GED program. The next day Ramos dropped out of school.
 He found street life fast and free where he could earn fast bucks. Ramos would see friends die or go to jail, but it wasn’t until his sister gave birth but the baby died. The next day his sister died of a heart failure leaving behind two small children. This all lead Ramos to assess the kind of life he was leading.
“I saw myself as a bum resisting reality,” said Ramos. “Going back to school was a new beginning for me.”
He saw through his mother’s eyes the pain of loosing her daughter and he too did not want to die, go to jail or be long gone and forgotten. One day he bumped into two of his cousins, also drop outs, who were attending a college prep class at Boricua College. He enrolled in the class, passed an entrance exam and will graduate in June of 2009. He is interested in pursing a career as a physical therapist or registered nurse.
“After I graduate,” said Ramos, “the sky’s the limit. It depends on what field I choose from there.”
Ramos is one of scores of Latino high school students who don’t graduate on time, must earn a GED or disappear from the system altogether. He is one Latino male who had to fend through a system that seemed to push him out of the school because they said he was too old, unprepared and when he disappeared, no school official or teacher ever wondered what had happened to him. Ramos was invisible and to his school he remained that way.
The New York City Department of Education reports that 40% of all students do not graduate on time including students who drop out of school or opt for a GED diploma, that’s 4 in 10 students. Some critics say the system under Mayoral control continues to fail children.
When asked what letter grade he would assign the Department of Education’s effort to deal with the drop out problem, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein responded essentially ---we don’t grade ourselves-- then he sited an 11% rise in the graduation rate.
United Federation of Teachers Vice-President Leo Casey said, “That’s such a cop out from the folks who run the system.”
 “We have to engage a school system that meets the needs of students and not the other way around,” Klein said.
United Federation of Teachers Vice-President Leo Casey said, “That’s such a cop out from the folks who run the system.”
Casey said that the way the DOE tabulates the drop out rate looks good for the state and the public with increased graduation statistics and decreased drop out rates, however when the DOE grades school performance, there’s a different set of statistical tabulations, which punishes schools. Casey called it shameful that only “one in 3 English language learners graduate.”
According to a DOE spokesperson, drop out rates went down across the board from 2005 to 2007. The drop out rates for Latino students are down to 19% from 22.9%. African American students went from 18.5% to 14.2%; White students also went down from 12.3% to 10.7% in two years. And Asian student’s numbers lowered to 9.2% from 10.7%, which is significant for two years.
Percentage rates lowering or rising does not put a human face onto drop outs. These young people want to succeed but are pulled in other directions, which leads them away from their educations.
For example, Alex Sostre moved to New York City from Puerto Rico when he was 15-years-old to be with his family in the Bronx, learn English, graduate from high school and prepare himself for college. His dream was every immigrant’s dream of a better life.
However, when he entered Evander Childs High School, Sostre was placed into a grade lower than he had been in Puerto Rico and was older than the students in his classes. Soon, he would have to start working in restaurants to earn a living. He found he had little time for sleep or to study then his grades started slipping. Sostre had trouble catching up.
By the time he was 19 and in the 11th grade, he said, his guidance counselor urged him to leave high school and go into a GED program They were “kicking students out,” said Sostre. Now at 22, Sostre joined a college prep program over the summer and he began attending college this September hoping to graduate very soon.
 In an Advocates for Children study, students drop out because they, either cut class, don’t have enough credits, don’t have good grades, are truant or needed a GED program.
“…a student can be pushed out of school not only by an explicit action of a school official, such as telling the student he or she has to go to a GED program,” said the report, “but push out can also occur through inaction of school officials.
In City Limits magazine, Helen Zelon wrote in “Who Counts and Who’s Counting? New York City’s Struggle to Graduate,” that “…in some parts of the city, the dropout rate is rising, even as graduation rates stay static or decline. In many communities, more than half the boys don’t graduate from high school.
“…Here in New York, 140,000 young adults aged 16 to 21 are at risk of not finishing high school; about half, 68,000, have already dropped out,” wrote Zelon.
Besides GED programs given by local community groups and colleges combating the drop out problem, the Department of Education has established Young Adult Borough Centers to help at-risk students who might not graduate on time or need to earn their GED. (For full disclosure, this reporter has taught some of the students interviewed here at Boricua College.)
This second chance came for Samantha Garcia, who had dropped out of Stevenson High School when she was 18-years-old. She wanted independence and economic freedom so she began working as a security guard. Still living at home with her mother in the Bronx, Garcia began to see her future in a dead end job. Realizing she could only go so far without a high school diploma, unable to pay rent or buy a care, Garcia decided to drop-back-into high school.
 Garcia returned to a Satellite school, Bronx Regional High School, created by DOE to help students earn their GEDs, where she received support and guidance, something she didn’t get at Stevenson.
“It was a small school,” said Garcia. “One floor, they really helped you and didn’t kick you out.”
In January 2008, Garcia earned her diploma and enrolled into college. Her wish is to one day work in law enforcement.
“I’m going to put my degree to good use,” said Garcia. “You want to get the things you want, not just the things you need. If you’re going to have a routine, you should have a fun, rewarding routine.”
Like Garcia, Melaine Caban dropped out of high school for personal reasons.
At 19, Caban left Flags High School in the Bronx when she became pregnant in the 10th grade. In June of 2008, Caban took and passed the GED and she will graduate this year.
“I’m a good example,” said Caban, “of all of my mistakes but making them all turn out better. I’m the opposite of what people say about teen mothers, I’m graduating soon.
This story was developed through the Education Beat Writing Fellowship at the New York Community Alliance. |
