Roosevelt High in Oregon has a dropout rate of 13 percent. Perhaps this is because these students are required to take courses which are of little interest to them. Bored with academics, they choose to dropout and to hold dead-end, low-paying jobs. Seeing as many students at the school ended up in these jobs anyway, why not dropout and skip the snipe hunt? This high dropout rate is evidence that students need some sort of incentive and motivation to stay in school and pursue a better life.
One possible solution for this situation is a school-to-work program. Once the decision has been made to implement a school-to-work program, the logistics can be worked out by examining the success of various programs. The director of the National School-to-Work Office, recommends beginning these programs in the middle school so as to tackle the problem proactively. Career exploration is very valuable at this young age because they will make choices that affect them for the rest of their lives.
Students in the incubation room at the Woodbine Ag...
Students at Mililani Middle School
From Poverty to Prosperity: Engaging the Next Gene...By introducing children at an early age to the multitude of careers they can aspire to, the problem may be solved before it has begun and due to the varied nature of a school-to-work program, it doesnÃÂt have to be routine and uninteresting. Possible paths a student may choose in a school-to-work program include: shadowing, a student follows an employee to learn about the job; internship, working for an employee and getting valuable hands on experience; cooperative education, combining academic and vocational studies and apprenticeships, which may be paid work. By mixing traditional academic studies with job training, apathy may give way to a sincere interest in school.
Bibliography:Again, this is from an old NYS english regents question. The sources used were included with the regents packet so I have no clue what they...