Originally Aired November 17, 2011
Albany, N.Y. currently reports a high school graduation rate of only 47 percent, and some other communities in the region are also struggling to see many of their students through to graduation. Elaine Houston moderates a discussion with an esteemed panel of education experts from New York’s Capital Region to consider what’s behind this alarming trend and what can be done to reverse it.
Watch American Graduate Town Hall on PBS. See more from WMHT SPECIALS.
The Education Blog
By Katy Murphy
Originally posted Wednesday, November 16th, 2011
The news today out of the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office was not good for public education in California: The LAO has forecasted that state tax revenues will fall $3.7 billion short of the level on which the June budget deal was based.
About $1.4 billion in automatic, mid-year cuts to k-12 schools and community colleges will be triggered if the shortfall is $2 billion or greater. Steve Harmon, our Capitol reporter, lays it out here.
OAKLAND UPDATE: OUSD spokesman Troy Flint said the district could be forced to absorb midyear cuts of up to $5.5 million, or $190 per student, as a result of the trigger cuts. He said the 2011-12 budget accounts for this possibility. So for this year anyway, he said, “Any impact would be slight and we definitely would not make cuts to schools.” For more about this article go to The Education Blog.
First aired on November 9, 2011 from KPLU
For All Things Considered broadcast.
Last month, Tyra Banks and the national Get Schooled Foundation visited 400 students in the Bronx in New York City. Banks is one of several celebrities who record messages encouraging kids to go to school. Seattle is one of the latest cities to try it out — Mayor Mike McGinn’s office is spending nearly $50,000 to coordinate and implement the effort. To hear more about this story go to: Seattle Says Yes.
Invisible Men
Youth Radio’s Pendarvis Harshaw tries to keep black high school students from dropping out. To listen to this Perspectives audio file visit: Invisible Men.
Perspectives airs on KQED Public Radio every weekday at 6:06am, 7:35am and 11:30pm and weekends at 7:36am and 8:36am.
Report aired November 8, 2011
Over the next 18 months, the NewsHour is joining with other public media to examine consequences and solutions. The series is called the American Graduate Project.
More than 100 teachers were invited to a town hall at Nine Network, our PBS station in St. Louis, to talk about the challenges they face in the classroom. View this powerful segment.
Watch St. Louis Teachers Voices Struggles Over Dropouts on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.
KQED’s Bay Area news blog News Fix provided a report on the most current dropout data in Oakland.
About 18 percent of California high school students dropped out in 2010, according to new statewide data released by the state’s Department of Education
KQED and Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC) youth programs; BUMP Records and The Factory are collaborating to create local videos by youth that address the high school dropout rate in Oakland, CA.
Here is an example of what is to come in the following months.
This piece asks the question – What would you do with $260,000? – and shows how you can get it. Directed by Lauren Lindberg
Attendance Works is a national and state initiative that promotes awareness of the important role that school attendance plays in achieving academic success. It aims to ensure that every school in every state not only tracks chronic absence data for its individual students but also intervenes to help those children and schools. For more information please visit http://www.attendanceworks.org/
Watch this video about Chronic Absenteeism
http://youtu.be/o342iAzYiHc
“I really didn’t like school until I came to Promise Academy,” says Jamill Jackson, a student at the Roberts Vaux Promise Academy in Philadelphia. “I really didn’t wake up until high school.”
Watch this video of Jackson and his schoolmate Brandon Rose explaining why having teachers and school administrators who listen to them has made the difference in their education and in their lives.
Watch Brandon Rose and Jamill Jackson on PBS. See more from Tavis Smiley.
Across America, less than 50% of young Black males will graduate from high school.
Watch Tavis Smiley Reports: “Too Important to Fail” on PBS. See more from Tavis Smiley.