FSCA NEWS

Those who have studied the dropout issue in South Carolina have seldom posed one critical question: Why should students who are unmotivated or have a record of poor academic experience want to stay in school? For students at the margins of academic performance or social acceptance, the pain of their current school experiences often trumps their concerns about the future. Neither state law, nor the admonitions of their families, nor the prospect of long-term minimum wage employment is powerful enough to overcome these students' decision to withdraw from school. There have to be reasons students want to attend school, writes Hayes Mizell, and for most the educational, social and legal imperatives are adequate if not always compelling. But students on the dropout trajectory are not just reluctant to attend school. Over time, they become so disengaged from the educational and social dimensions of school that dropping out is merely the final act in a long process of alienation that probably began in the middle grades. One or more factors are usually in play: few friends, academic failure, truancy, conflicts with other students, emotional problems, substance abuse, lack of family support or just plain boredom. Like adults, students are ultimately responsible for the bad decisions they make, and they make more such decisions because of their immaturity and limited life experience. However, in many cases schools themselves share the responsibility. Most educators can identify by name the students most likely to quit school. Some do what they can to prevent it. Others take little notice when the students fade away. Yet too often, schools fail to organize themselves either to reach out to these students systematically or provide structures that help them develop satisfying academic and social attachments to the school community. Read more >>>
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