High School Dropouts

High School Dropouts

Entering high school is the beginning of a whole new learning experience. Transitioning from middle school, high school presents more classes, students, and a bigger campus. It brings new expectations and responsibilities to each of us. High school also offers fresh chances to make new friends, try new sports and activities, and really explore who we are as individuals. The goal is to maintain good grades, score high on the SAT test, and keep a positive attitude so colleges and universities will accept you. Of course it's not as easy at sounds, but it's achievable. It requires a lot of work and dedication to every subject. Some students breeze their way through while others live in misery trying to pass their classes. Most of the high school population completes all the credits required and graduates from high school with a diploma. There is still a significant amount of students who drop out of school, some drop out by choice and some have to because they need to support themselves or their family financially. It doesn't take much for a student to drop out of school; a little misguidance can break the chain from achieving a high school diploma. There are many reasons linked to dropping out of school and many kids fall into them. The main causes of school dropouts are personal factors, home and school stability, school experiences, social behavior, and rebellion.

Students drop out for many reasons; some which may even seem like good ones at the time, for example, to help out their families or to start new ones, and their decisions may be supported by the people closest to them in the belief that they have no choice.

Personal problems affecting students seem to be the main cause for students to drop out of high school. Having children seem to be the main personal problem facing dropout students, especially in women. Close to half of the dropouts students, both male and female, have children or are expecting one (Schwartz). Marriage is another great personal factor to the dropout rate. Marriage is a very stressful factor to any student. This stress could and does send many students to the point where they have too much to deal with. School becomes a second priority and is often discarded to lighten the load married couples deal with.

Jobs also increase the percentage of students dropping out of school. Some students may and do have to take on a job to support themselves or their family. The job may interfere with school hours, school homework, and/or school activities. Almost all students crave for the newest clothes, shoes, cell phones, etc. and sometimes when the parents can't afford all these things for their children, they seek out ways to make money themselves, finding themselves in a job. Slowly increasing their hours week by week, they overlook education and live for the moment with their temporary possessions. Most of the dropouts who replace their school time with a job are often living under a low income family which includes many Hispanics. They take up 24 percent of all high school dropouts, placing them the highest ethnic rate according to Childs Trends DataBank (CTD).

Students in broken homes are more than twice as likely to drop out of school as those with families intact (Schwartz). This is so because of the fact that this is another stressful matter these young minds must also deal with. Home and school stability is another cause to students dropping out of high school. More than half of dropouts have moved within their four years of being in high school (Schwartz). If a student does not have a stable home or a stable school life, then they are more likely to drop out of school. Stableness allows the student to feel comfortable enough to try to work at school. If they have a stable home and school life, then that is one less worry for them. This allows them to concentrate on staying in school instead. The more stable a situation is, the more comfortable the student becomes with the surroundings, the better they get along with teachers and students, and the easier it is for the to fit in and work hard at school.

Studies have also found that dropping out is more likely to occur among students from single-parent families and students with an older sibling who has already dropped out than among counterparts without these characteristics. Other aspects of a student's home life such as level of parental involvement and support, parent's educational expectations, parent's attitudes about school, and stability of the family environment can also influence a youth's decision to stay in school. For example, results from the NCES study found that students whose parents were not actively involved in the student's school, whose parents infrequently talked to them about school-related matters, or whose parents held low expectations for their child's future educational achievement were more likely to drop out.

Another reason why a lot of students drop out of school is simply because they don't like it. High school, through its control over many decisions that are made for students, still seems to be restrictive. Many aspects of a student's life are pre-set and cannot be changed by the student to fit his needs. For example, a student's time schedule is set every year. Every student must go the same amount of hours every year. In most cases, school is from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. every day, whether he or she actually needs all the time or not. Students have to spend more time in some filler classes that they think they probably did not need to take but still had to take them to fill up the block of time. Another aspect of high school life that is restrictive is the mandatory attendance policy. In many high schools, a failure to be in class for one day would immediately constitute a demerit and detention referral, unless a student arrived with a signed doctor's excuse. This is where many students become rebellion and take school as a joke. Soon, these students stop coming to school so they have more freedom, and eventually dropping out.

An additional explanation for high school dropouts is absenteeism. It is very important for students to go to school everyday. Students who have poor attendance for reasons other than illness are also more likely to drop out. Clearly, students who miss school fall behind their peers in the classroom. This, in turn, leads to low self-esteem and increases the likelihood that at-risk students will drop out of school. Also, research has proven that truancy obstructs opportunities for future employment success and is also a major channel into drug use, daytime crime, and violence (U.S. Department of Education, 1996). The U.S. Department of Justice has reported statistics indicating that in some cities daily absentee rates have reached as high as