PUHI — State Department of Education statistics show that one-third of the current members of the public schools’ Class of 2013 will drop out before graduation day. There are four factors that, when combined, virtually guarantee student failure, said Margaret
PUHI — State Department of Education statistics show that one-third of the current members of the public schools’ Class of 2013 will drop out before graduation day.
There are four factors that, when combined, virtually guarantee student failure, said Margaret “Maggie” Cox, state Board of Education member representing Kaua‘i and Ni‘ihau.
Discipline and attendance problems, coupled with failing grades in language arts and math, likely combine to make a recipe for student failure, she said.
While state Department of Education and BOE officials know what factors contribute to failure, they’d also like to know which factors present in students with those four dangerous attributes lead to their successful graduations, Cox said at a BOE public meeting in the Chiefess Kamakahelei Middle School cafeteria here recently.
The idea is to replicate the successes of at-risk students for the benefit of other at-risk students, she said.
Toward that end, the BOE has instituted a diploma of its own, named by students the Step-Up Diploma (formerly the BOE Recognition Diploma), available to students beginning with the Class of 2013 (this year’s freshmen).
It is a program of more rigorous math, science and writing studies, also requiring completion of a senior project, and is geared for college or career success, said Cox and Lesli Yogi.
“It’s not just for college-prep students,” said Yogi, the business and community outreach coordinator for Hawaii P-20.
Statistics on the Step-Up Hawai‘i Web site, stepuphawaii.org, indicate that not only do a third of all Hawai‘i public-school freshmen drop out or otherwise not graduate on time, but of the 68 of 100 who do graduate on time, only 40 enter college, 24 return for a second year of college, and just 12 earn a college degree on time.
To try to improve on those dismal numbers, in addition to the new BOE diploma school officials have also initiated the Hawai‘i P20 Partnerships, designed to get teachers, administrators, parents, students, community and business behind the plan to improve education in the state from preschool (P) to the year of school in which a student would earn an advanced (master’s, etc.) degree (20).
The idea, obviously, is to improve student outcomes, graduation rates and college-entrance rates, said Yogi.
There are post-high-school incentives built into the diploma, for those entering various Hawai‘i colleges and universities, she said. Similar incentives are being offered by trades for those not wishing to enter college after graduation, she said.
Currently, 19 states make the Step-Up diploma the one required for graduation, said Yogi.
Beginning this school year with current freshmen, parents and students are being asked to sign Step-Up commitments, after which the students will be tracked the remainder of their high-school years.
The target is to get 75 percent of all ninth graders in public schools in Hawai‘i to sign pledges before the Jan. 31 deadline.
An eighth-grade pledge drive runs Feb. 1 to May 31.
“The focus is on getting kids into more rigorous course (work),” Cox said.
