I’ve scoffed at the president’s proposal for improving on-time high school graduation rates and I’m not the only one. I think it’s only fair that I present at least one proposal that I think has a better chance of improving graduation rates in the most troubled areas. I won’t deny that I’m skeptical that paying teachers more will improve on-time high school graduation rates. Teachers’ pay rates have increased enormously over the last thirty years and we’ve got precious little to show for it (although we might have something as this study, recently brought to my attention, points out). Here’s my proposal: pay high school kids to go to school and to make progress.
The program would need to be carefully constructed. Only the most troubled schools. You’d need to have the kids clock in and out and get paid only at the end of the day. Cut class and they’re ineligible. Over 18 and they’re ineligible. Not making progress towards graduation and they’re ineligible.
Not a perfect system and I can see any number of flaws but at least it’s an incentive approach rather than a punitive one.
Browsing through the study, a set of figures about hispanics stands out. Status Completion Rates:
Whites 94.2%
Blacks 86.9%
Hispanics 75.5%
Foreign Born Hispanics 59.8%
First Generation Hispanics 85.1%
[Foreign Born Non-Hispanics 93.7%]
The graduation rates across the country reflect these disparties (Nevada 51.3%; Missouri 82.4%)
So you can improve graduation rates by reducing Hispanic migration which might already be happening or trying to get higher proportion of educated Hispanics; emphasizing learning English in school; and trying to do something about kids whose parents are moving a lot.
That highlights one of the problems I had with the study. If you read between the lines, I think it says that the way to improve graduation rates is to move people out of the cities. Inner city school systems have had low graduation rates long before they had a substantial proportion of Mexican immigrants. One of the things that the 2010 census revealed was black migration out of the cities.
As I responded to Steve (who posted the link to the study), I’m concerned about the kids in inner city schools, too, and the on-time graduation rates there are much, much lower.
Talk about something ripe for fraud…..
But. Interesting topic. I’ve been bitching and moaning about Dodd-Frank recently. We are out fundraising. But it’s like a ticking stopwatch. They make DF more complicated and we might fold. Or carried interest .
That would be a shame, because I think what we do is worthwhile. And I really, really would like to see our loyal junior people get a chance to make their money and their mark on the business world. And with that preamble…..
So people say to me, what would you do with your time, drew? Well, I’d drive my golf handicap back down to zero, but I’d need to do something else as well. And here are my two pet projects.
I graduated from the Illinois institute of technology with my masters. They have an excellent entrepreneurship program. I could help a lot of well intentioned but naive people with business planning, capital raising etc. Engineers are notoriously bad at understanding how a capital provider thinks and evaluates.
Second, and this brings me to Dave’s essay, I think our education system is a godawful mess. I spent the first 7 years of my career working in a steel mill in NW Indiana. I commuted through some of the worst areas on Chicago’s south side. Dave, you know the area. You probably do also, PD. I also befriended a widower fellow who lived in maywood and had put himself through school. Although I was only in my 20’s ( he in his 40’s) I thought it was really cool how he had bootstrapped his way up. And I always thought if I made it big time financially I’d like to set up a scholarship program for poor and minority students who needed a hand. Really just to pluck the high achievers out of these neighborhoods, surrounded on all sides by the low graduation types you refer to Dave, and give them a chance and hope they could be the catalysts by example in their communities.
I don’t know about paying people to go to school, Dave, although i understand the contra punitive notion. I think it has to burn in their belly. My view is that these kids are no different than anyone else (eg New Trier, Benet etc) they just don’t have the role models. I’d like to be able to do something about it. But bribery gives me pause.
You’re right about the possibilities for fraud but I don’t see it as bribery but, rather, paying young adults to work and providing an alternative to how they’re likely to pick up a little cash otherwise. Only a couple of generations ago these kids would have been considered adults and expected to work. The biology hasn’t changed; only the economy. Now we’re expecting them to stay in school. None of my grandparents had educations beyond 6th grade. All of them were working by the time they were 15 or 16.
BTW, a substantial proportion of my high school classmates worked part time. Those opportunities just don’t exist any more. Adults are trying to earn full time living, support a family, and, in some cases, send a little money back to the old country doing what teenagers used to do part time.
It probably would have worked for me. I might have stayed in for money. When I quit I got a job at Toys R Us making 1.60 an hour. Probably could have bought me for junior and senior year for 7 or 8 bucks a day. Or a girlfriend, that might have worked, too.
I could see trialing this, but have my doubts. I think that the early intervention people, think guys like Heckman, are on to something. I think that more of our intellectual and emotional development occur earlier than we realize. It is difficult to catch up. Good parents may not be replaceable.
Steve
You want to improve graduation rates? Just shoot all the little bastards that drop out. Very shortly you will start getting better results, one way or the other.