[Senate Hearing 107-780]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 107-780
NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND: THE NEED TO ADDRESS THE DROPOUT CRISIS
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HEARING
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION,
LABOR, AND PENSIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
ON
EXAMINING THE NEED TO ADDRESS THE DROPOUT CRISIS
__________
NOVEMBER 1, 2002 (LAS CRUCES, NM)
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and
Pensions
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WASHINGTON : 2003
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COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS
EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut JUDD GREGG, New Hampshire
TOM HARKIN, Iowa BILL FRIST, Tennessee
BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming
JAMES M. JEFFORDS (I), Vermont TIM HUTCHINSON, Arkansas
JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia
PAUL D. WELLSTONE, Minnesota CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri
PATTY MURRAY, Washington PAT ROBERTS, Kansas
JACK REED, Rhode Island SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
JOHN EDWARDS, North Carolina JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, New York MIKE DeWINE, Ohio
J. Michael Myers, Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Townsend Lange McNitt, Minority Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
__________
STATEMENTS
Friday, November 1, 2002
Page
Bingaman, Hon. Jeff, a U.S. Senator from the State of New Mexico. 1
Meuer, Kristine, Ph.D., Director, School Health Unit, New Mexico
Department of Education; Karen Sanchez-Griego, State
Coordinator ENLACE Program; McClellan Hall, Executive Director
of the National Indian Youth Leadership Project in Gallup...... 3
Rounds, Stan, Superintendent for Hobbs Schools; Ron Haugen,
Superintendent, Gadsden Independent Schools; Everette Hill,
Youth Development Inc., Albuquerque; Beverly Averitt, Espanola
High School Principal.......................................... 23
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
Statements, articles, publications, letters, etc.:
Ms. Muerer................................................... 43
Ms. Sanchez-Griego........................................... 45
Mr. Hall..................................................... 47
Mr. Rounds................................................... 50
Mr. Haugen................................................... 52
Mr. Hill..................................................... 53
Ms. Averitt.................................................. 57
(iii)
NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND: THE NEED TO ADDRESS THE DROPOUT CRISIS
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FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2002
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:00 a.m., in the
School Board Hearing Room, Las Cruces Public Schools, 505 S.
Main, Las Cruces, NM, the Senator Bingaman presiding.
Present: Senator Bingaman.
Opening Statement of Senator Bingaman
Senator Bingaman. I would like to begin by thanking the
Chairman of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP)
Committee, Senator Kennedy, for agreeing to convene this field
hearing to discuss an extremely important topic--dropout
prevention.
Education has always been a top issue of debate in
Washington. Recently, the debate has focused on crucial issues
such as achievement gaps between disadvantaged students and
their peers, teacher quality, and parental choice. I support
putting these issues on the top of the agenda--on the Federal
as well as State and local levels--but not enough attention is
being given to the issue of dropout prevention.
The Problem is dropout statistics. The most recent data
shows that more than 10 percent of the young adult population
dropped out of school from 1999-2000. Among Hispanics, the
percentage was over 27 percent.
In October, 2000, approximately 3.8 million young adults
were not enrolled in a high school program and had not
completed high school. Over 3,000 young people drop out of our
high schools and middle schools each school day. Nearly half a
million students in grades 10 through 12 drop out of school
each year.
Although we have shown some progress in recent years, New
Mexico remains at the bottom of the list nationally in terms of
dropout rates, 46th in the Nation in 1998-99. During the 1999-
2000 school year, almost 6,000 students dropped out of school
in New Mexico.
As is the case nationally, the problem is magnified for
certain groups of students in our State. The Hispanic dropout
rate is twice that of whites and the Native American dropout
rate is one and one half times that of whites. 7.8 percent of
Hispanics; 5.8 percent of Native Americans; 3.9 percent of
whites. Despite the distressing dropout problems in our State,
there has been little concerted effort to provide or coordinate
effective and proven dropout prevention programs for at-risk
children.
Federal Efforts to Address the Problem:
On the Federal level, I have worked to secure attention and
resources to address this issue for many years. At my request,
in 1996 and 1997 a group of nationally recognized experts
assembled to help find solutions to the particularly high
dropout rate among Hispanic students. The Hispanic Dropout
Project found widespread misunderstandings about the underlying
causes of high dropout rates, and a lack of familiarity about
effective dropout prevention programs has prevented schools
from implementing programs to decrease dropout rates.
In the fiscal year 2001 budget, we were able to secure a
small pot of Federal funds to create the Dropout Prevention
Demonstration Program, modeled on the recommendations of this
panel of experts. Under this program, 10 to 15 awards of
$200,000 to $500,000 were given to State Educational Agencies
and Local Educational Agencies to strengthen and expand
effective dropout prevention programs. Gadsden Public Schools
was one of the recipients of those awards. We look forward to
hearing about their progress later this morning.
The large education bill signed into law earlier this year,
The Leave No Child Left Behind Act, included legislation
authorizing an expansion of this program. This program
authorizes $125 million in Federal funding for districts to
implement proven dropout prevention strategies. The bill also
provides for the creation of a national clearinghouse to
disseminate information on research, best practices, and
available resources to help schools implement effective school
dropout prevention programs, and establishes a national
recognition program to spotlight schools that do successfully
reduce their dropout rates.
We also were able to secure authorization to expand the
Smaller Learning Communities Program. Using funds from this
program, at least half of the high schools in Albuquerque have
implemented Smaller Learning Community or schools-within-
schools programs. These programs help large high schools to
create more individualized learning environments for students.
There are many benefits to these programs, one of which is
reduced dropout rates. For example, Cibola High School, in
Albuquerque, used just such a focused effort and a small
Federal grant to reduce its dropout rate from nine percent to
less than two percent in just 4 years.
We also secured authority to create an Advanced Placement
program that for the first time will provide Federal funds on
the local level to expand access to Advanced Placement
Programs. This program is not directed toward dropout
prevention per se, but rather focuses on raising standards at
the high school level so that students are better prepared for
a postsecondary education. Nevertheless, as the witness from
the Hobbs School District, Superintendent Rounds will testify,
when integrated into the curriculum, even in the early grades,
this program can have a positive impact on dropout rates.
As many of you know, the No Child Left Behind Act also
included new expanded accountability for student performance.
The primary focus of this new accountability system is improves
student performance on statewide assessments.
The increased focus on assessments has led many to fear
that dropout rates will increase as States strive to meet their
academic performance goals. There is a real danger that kids
that aren't doing well on the tests will be the ones most
likely to drop out. To respond to these real concerns, we added
dropout reduction as a factor that must be considered when
judging school performance. But we must do more. We must also
provide schools with the resources that they need to implement
effective programs.
Need for Additional Resources:
So far we have secured some funding for each of the Federal
programs that I have outlined and last year were able to secure
major increases for the core Federal programs impacting poor
students, including the Title I program and the Teacher Quality
programs, but the President's budget provided virtually no
increase in education funding and zero funded the Dropout
Prevention and Smaller Learning Communities Programs. This is
extremely short-sighted.
The economic impact of the dropout problem is real. A
recent study found that graduating from high school can
increase a person's earning by $1.60 per hour while each year
of work experience only increases earning by 7 cents per hour.
But education can also bring other less tangible benefits to
those pursuing it and the nonmonetary losses flowing from
dropping out can be real and devastating to the individual and
to society at large. We must work together to address this
issue.
It is my pleasure to introduce the many distinguished
witnesses who have traveled here today to share their wisdom on
this topic. All of the witnesses have dedicated themselves to
helping children succeed. I thank them for their willingness to
come today and for all of their good work. Many of the
witnesses will present testimony about successful efforts on
the State and local level directed at dropout prevention. All
of the witnesses will share their perspectives on how we can
work together to more adequately address this pressing problem.
STATEMENT OF KRISTINE MEURER, Ph.D., DIRECTOR, SCHOOL HEALTH
UNIT, NEW MEXICO DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION; KAREN SANCHEZ-GRIEGO,
STATE COORDINATOR ENLACE PROGRAM; McCLELLAN HALL, EXECUTIVE
DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL INDIAN YOUTH LEADERSHIP PROJECT IN
GALLUP
Senator Bingaman. Dr. Meurer.
Ms. Meurer. Good morning, I am Dr. Kristine Meurer,
Director of the School Health Unit of the State Department of
Education. It is a privilege for me to be here representing the
State Department and State Board of Education at the invitation
of Senator Jeff Bingaman. We look forward to providing
testimony on this important topic of dropout prevention and the
Senate's Health, Education and Pension Committee.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Michael Davis,
sends his greeting and an apology for being unable to attend
this hearing. The State Board of Education is also meeting
today in Santa Fe.
We truly appreciate the work that Senator Bingaman does on
behalf of New Mexicans. In particular, he has become a champion
of many programs to improve public education and the
educational outcomes of our children.
A specific area of his attention and concern has been
students who drop out of school before earning a diploma. He
has been diligent in calling this concern to the attention of
educators and the public, and has been a leader in seeking and
securing resources to address the needs of students at risk of
dropping out.
The State Department of Education wishes to go on record in
support of Senator Bingaman's efforts to continue to fund the
Federal dropout program that he has been so instrumental in
establishing. We hope that our testimony today will reinforce
the fact that the concerted efforts of policymakers and
educators can have a tremendous positive impact on school
completion.
The primary focus of my remarks will be to provide an
overview of the status of the dropout problem in New Mexico.
Those of you who are familiar with the topic are aware that
there has historically been a good deal of confusion and
frustration in understanding and interpreting dropout
statistics due to the wide variety of methods that were used to
collect, compute and report this data. To remedy this problem,
the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has
attempted during the past two decades to establish and get all
states to agree to adopt a standard methodology to report
dropout data. New Mexico adopted the NCES standards and
definitions in 1992-93, and is one of 37 states currently using
this methodology to report results. This standardization
ensures the reliability and consistency of New Mexico dropout
data for the past decade.
The method used by New Mexico to report statistics is
called an ``event'' rate. This statistic represents the
students who drop out of school during a specific school year
and don't re-enroll without completing a high school program.
This measure provides important information on an annual basis
of how effective we have been in keeping students in school.
So how has New Mexico fared in the past decade using NCES
dropout standards? As you can see from our table, our dropout
rate in 1992-93 was 8 percent. Over the next 2 years it climbed
to 8.7 percent. Senator Bingaman and State policymakers
expressed great concern about this increasing trend and
challenged educators to better address the needs of students at
risk of leaving school prematurely.
As a result of this public attention and their own concerns
about increasing dropout rates, educators began to focus more
intently on solutions to this problem. Many schools and
districts developed and implemented strategies to identify and
intervene with students at risk of dropping out, and to attract
dropouts back into their programs. At the same time, the State
Board of Education and the State Legislature collaborated on a
proposal to add an ``at risk'' factor to the public school
funding formula to increase district resources to support
intervention programs.
State law established the at-risk factor in 1997-98, and
schools used this resource to expand existing programs and
establish new programs. The increased attention, focus and
resources are working. New Mexico's dropout rate has been
steadily declining since 1994-95. The reductions have been
significant, as you can see from this table today. It is my
privilege to release for the first time the statewide dropout
rate for the 2000-2001 school year. The dropout rate is 5.3
percent. This is the lowest dropout rate since New Mexico began
reporting dropout rates in 1977-1978. The 2000-2001 complete
dropout report with data on the performance of all schools and
districts in the State will be released in December 2002.
As significant as the percentage reduction has been since
1994-95 the actual numbers have even more impact. The 1994-95
rate of 8.7 percent represents 7,792 students who dropped out
that year. The 5.3 percent rate for 2000-2001 represents 5,095
students. In other words, New Mexico educators have been
successful in developing strategies and programs to keep 2,697
students in school that would have been dropouts just 7 years
ago.
The NCES also uses US census data to report ``status''
dropout rates, which measure young adults ages 18-24 who are
not currently enrolled in school and who have not received a
high school diploma or GED. This statistic has also improved
significantly in New Mexico since 1994-1996, 78.8 percent,
compared to 83 percent in 1998-2000. While this is still
slightly below the national completion rate of 85.7 percent,
New Mexico now out performs our neighboring states of Colorado,
81.6 percent, Texas, 79.4 percent, and Arizona, 73.5 percent,
in high school completion rates.
Schools have also made considerable progress in reducing
the dropout rates for ethnic populations with historically high
dropout rates. The dropout rate for Native Americans in 2000-
2001 is 5.9 percent, a reduction from 8.6 percent in 1994-95.
Schools have also had success in impacting the area where
dropout rates have always been the highest in New Mexico,
Hispanic students. The rate for these students has fallen from
10.9 percent in 1994-95 to 6.7 percent in 2000-2001.
This is extremely good news and cause for congratulations
to the New Mexico educators who have been instrumental in this
turnaround. But there is still a great deal of work to be done
to ensure that all students complete a high school program and
have the opportunity to pursue a career or further education
options of their choice.
I hope you will have the opportunity today to hear directly
from some of the practitioners responsible for these positive
statistical trends. While policymakers and State and district
administrators can help create the climate for successful
dropout prevention programs, it is the dedication of those who
work in the ``trenches'' that keep kids in school. Credit
should also be given to those thousands of ``at-risk'' students
who have overcome challenges and persevered to complete their
high school education.
Before concluding my remarks, I would like to spend a few
minutes reviewing the current priorities of the State Board and
the State Department of Education in addressing the needs of
high-risk students.
The State Board continues to place great emphasis on early
literacy as a primary strategy in ensuring success in any
student's mid-school and high school years. The Board is
committed to the goal of having all students reading at grade
level by grade three.
Funds made available to the State under the ``Reading
First'' program of ``No Child Left Behind'' (the Federal
reauthorization of ESEA) will provide our State with over $8
million this year to support literacy in grades K-3. We are
proud that we are among the first ten States to be approved by
the U.S. Department of Education for this program due to the
quality of our application, and we are confident that research-
based approaches to literacy will help us reach our grade three
goal.
The State Board has also placed a priority on student
completion by including recommendations for high school reform
in its 2003 legislative package. The Board is highly supportive
of changes in law, regulation and practice that will give
greater flexibility to schools in designing programs to meet
the diverse needs of their students. This will allow schools to
better align coursework and graduation requirements to post
high school pathways selected by students.
The Board is also proposing programs that will provide more
stability and consistency when students wish to get concurrent
high school and college credit by taking a course at a local
post secondary school. In addition the Board is proposing a
``middle college'' pilot that will allow students to work on
both a high school diploma and an associates 2-year degree in a
compressed period of time.
The Board is also looking for opportunities for students to
earn credit through high quality virtual schooling options.
I would also like to briefly mention a dropout prevention
program that is currently being piloted through a partnership
between the State Department of Education and the Department of
Health. Senators Bingaman and Domenici have been instrumental
in providing Federal funding for this pilot. I have been
personally involved in both the development and implementation
of this program, and am highly optimistic that this will prove
successful.
The dropout prevention pilot project's name is PASS-
Positive Assistance for Student Success. For the next 2 years
three high schools in New Mexico, Cuba, Belen and Espanola
Valley High Schools, are each receiving $183,000 to participate
in the pilot project.
The pilot project is providing direct support to 9th grade
students who are struggling with grades, attendance or personal
issues, which make them more likely to drop out of school. The
goal of the program is to provide support to students and their
families early in their high school education so that they are
less likely to see dropping out of school as their only option.
Struggling students are referred to case managers who work with
the student, their family and the school community to identify
problems and create positive solutions to help the student
succeed. The case managers also help students and families find
other in-school and community services that will support them.
The funds are also being used to develop support services in
each pilot school such as tutoring, mentoring, and mental
health counseling for at-risk students.
The coordinator of the PASS program, Nissa Patterson, is
here today. She provides ongoing technical assistance and
training to the pilot schools and the case managers.
In summary, we have accomplished a great deal, but there is
still much work to be done to ensure that all students complete
high school. I will be glad to respond to questions or to
obtain any additional information requested by the committee.
Thank you again for the opportunity to present this testimony
on behalf of the State Board and State Department of Education.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Meurer may be found in
additional material.]
Senator Bingaman. Ms. Griego.
Ms. Sanchez-Griego. ENLACE ``ENgaging LAtino Communities
for Education'' is a regional and statewide collaborative for
the purpose of leveraging educational impacts for success among
Hispanic youth. ENLACE in New Mexico is a movement embraced by
the community to strengthen a collaborative effort to affect
our educational pipeline. 45 percent of Hispanic students in
the State of New Mexico do not graduate from high school,
therefore, not affording them the opportunity to obtain a
higher education. Fifty percent of Hispanic students on New
Mexico higher education campuses do not receive their degrees.
New Mexico received W.K. Kellogg Foundation funding in the
amount of $49 million for 4 years to address Hispanic higher
education.
125 institutions applied for the initial planning grant,
with 30 of the 125 received planning funds based on this
proposal. New Mexico was one of the 30 to receive $100,000 for
the planning phase.
The planning moneys were to be used to determine barriers
to educational success, create and establish well-designed
programs that would assist Hispanic students in the State of
New Mexico to graduate from high school and go on to college.
All programs system address the K-16 pipeline.
Programs were developed with the partners in our community:
Parents, families, business, nonprofit organizations, community
grass-roots groups, students, professors, teachers, educational
institutions, administrators, and New Mexico charity groups.
This recognizes that education is everyone's business.
Out of the 30 States which received a planning grant, only
seven States were given implementation grants. New Mexico was
chosen as one of the seven States.
There are four grants in New Mexico, one in the southern
part of the State, Las Cruces; northern part, Santa Fe,
Espanola, etc; and central New Mexico, Albuquerque; as well as
an overall State grant, which encompasses all of New Mexico.
Our goals are to make systemic changes in our educational
systems that are positive and productive for Hispanic students.
We are also looking at national policy changes in reference
to Hispanic students and the future of their education.
In the creation of this statewide collaborative model, our
goal was to have a strong impact statewide, and this is
currently being done. We have seen significant potential for
the future in terms of making history in statewide educational
development with others. It took several leaders from across
our State with higher education leading the charge to have a
dialogue to work toward programs that are best for Hispanics in
our State kindergarten through college, and do this with
limited funding.
Together we are sharing limited resources, which would
maximize our efforts to impact our youth. Our collaborative
efforts have already began the process in creating change not
only locally and regionally in New Mexico, but at State and
national levels as well. We, through ENLACE, are caring for the
``WHOLE CHILD'' in walking the talk of Hispanic cultural ways,
values and including families as part of the educational
structure of institutions.
Our focus deals with K-16 education, policy analysis
revision and reform;
Leadership development at student, family, community, and
institutional levels;
Enhance the statewide effectiveness of communication and
dissemination throughout the K-16 pipeline focused on sharing
and refining ``best practices'' and;
Close coordination of process and outcome evaluation on
three levels, cluster, statewide, local projects, and to
improve educational outcomes for all New Mexico Hispanics.
New Mexico is the only statewide collaboration nationwide
and was chosen due to our state's vision and thinking outside
the box. Many Hispanic children and families would not have
access to ENLACE, via funding without great people in our State
who had a vision.
Statewide, all projects have three distinct yet
interlocking programs to reach our goals and fall in line with
President Bush's Executive Order 13230, in the development of
an advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanic
Americans, to address such concerns. The development of ENLACE
came before the President's Executive Order.
Programs to reach our goals and assist in a positive effect
on Hispanic dropouts in our State are being accomplished via
the following components.
Education Access Rooms (EAR's) are being utilized as
extensions to our local schools in local community centers,
where students receive much needed credits. Education Access
Rooms use distance-learning resources, tutors, and parent
involvement. We target 9th and 10th grade students at risk of
dropping out. These centers work closely with these students'
families.
Family centers are currently located at three high schools
and we are in the process of development of these centers at
each high school across the State. These centers were the
brainchild of grass-roots community activists Maria Hines and
Christina Chavez-Apodaca. They provide a multitude of services.
But mostly, they empower families in the school's surrounding
community to have a voice in the education of their children,
at the same time as providing a unique place where families can
come and share their concerns about our schools, one-on-one,
with other parents. The Family Centers also have a strong
relationship with bringing students who have dropped out back
to school. Parents receive lists of students who are considered
dropouts from the principal and/or are not attending classes.
These parents then go door to door, within the community,
speaking to students and parents on these lists, asking them
why their students are not in school and how they can assist in
getting the students back in school. Our parents call these
``knock and talks.'' A significant number of students who have
dropped out have returned back to school because of these
efforts. Parent Universities are helping parents become strong
advocates and coaches for their children.
ENLACE has a variety of retention components within the
grant, and the retention efforts stem from K-16. Our students
have mentors at all levels, support on campuses through course
development such as: Chicano Studies classes, outside course
work at the neighboring community centers, one-on-one support
to assist with professors, financial aid, and leadership to
assist in tackling the bureaucratic systems.
In order to address the needs of Hispanic students
throughout our educational pipeline, we have targeted key
points of the educational systems to intervene and assist
students. Beginning in the middle schools, mentors are provided
for at-risk students. In the high schools, Family Centers/
Parent Universities will assist the schools and families to
connect to better serve students. Chicano Studies courses and
Latino literature at all ENLACE target high schools will
provide culturally relevant teaching and empower Hispanic
students to excel in their studies. AVIDS courses have also
been added. At out institutions of higher education throughout
the State Early Warning Intervention systems are in place to
assist incoming freshmen maneuver through the educational
system and succeed.
A very unique component in which university students
participate in mentoring ``at risk'' middle school students
provides one-on-one relationship building, provides a
supportive environment for students to obtain academic success,
make a unique connection, encourage leadership, and provides
support for these students to stay in school.
Over 1500 students from across New Mexico have received
support from ENLACE.
As we know, the success of student retention greatly
depends on good teaching and teachers. Therefore, we have
developed the Hispanic Teacher Pipeline to increase the teacher
pool in New Mexico and provide opportunities within the
pipeline for Hispanics young and old to obtain a higher degree
in the field of teaching.
In an effort to ensure that our teacher population reflects
the cultural wealth and diversity of New Mexico, Hispanic
students will be exposed to teaching as a career as early as
elementary school and on through college. The Pathways to
Teaching program will encourage local Hispanic students to
pursue teaching by providing them with shadowing experiences,
workshops, and scholarship assistance. Additionally,
educational assistants are encouraged to finish their degrees
to return to work in New Mexico.
As we know, in order to make systematic changes for
Hispanics in the State of New Mexico, we need to have data both
qualitative and quantitative that show how the effects of the
ENLACE movement are in creating better more productive citizens
in the State of New Mexico. This is a strong component, and
these results will be shared with the main stakeholders in New
Mexico as we progress to fight for legislative and national
policy issues for Hispanics in our State as well as in the
Nation.
Given the mission of promoting greater access to higher
education, retention, and graduation from higher educational
institutions for Latino/Hispanic youth, ENLACE is organized to
address policy at the institutional, local, State and Federal
levels. To achieve this, the ENLACE initiative identifies the
institutional practices of barriers that interfere with student
recruitment achievement, retention and graduation. In addition,
we are addressing local school district policies that can
facilitate the goals of the ENLACE initiative. We are working
with local partnerships as catalysts for surfacing and
informing State policymakers as they grapple with budget and
policy priorities. We are informing State policymakers at the
State level, where much of the education policies are
generated. The collective lessons learned from the 13 ENLACE
sites nationwide will be instrumental as the initiative
collaborates with other national entities to inform both the
reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, as it relates to
unique and specific needs of Latino/Hispanic students, and the
implementation of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act
(ESEA). We are providing services and support to students
within the K-16 educational system. ENLACE is the first
initiative with a national impact and will have documented
results about how to support the educational success of Latino/
Hispanic students nationwide.
This Nation is in a crisis in reference to Hispanic/Latino
education, and it has a direct impact on our future economic
health. Therefore, financial and legislative support nationally
is greatly needed to sustain the efforts ENLACE has made in
retaining dropout students and moving them on to higher
education. We applaud the Kellogg Foundation for their
initiative to address dropout's retention and access to higher
education for Latino youth. We look forward to work with the
Federal Government to increase educational access for Latinos.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Sanchez-Griego may be found
in additional material.]
Senator Bingaman. Mr. Hall, go right ahead.
Mr. Hall. Thank you for this opportunity. My name is
McClellan Hall. I am the founder and executive director of the
National Indian Youth Leadership Project.
Senator Bingaman. You might pull that microphone a little
closer so everyone in the audience can hear you. Mr. Hall. My
name is McClellan Hall. I am the founder and executive director
of the National Indian Youth Leadership Project. It is a
national nonprofit. It is based in Gallup. I've been an
educator for over 25 years now. And----
Senator Bingaman. Let me ask you, do we have a copy of your
testimony?
Mr. Hall. Yes. I had some difficulties yesterday, but I
have a copy here. I am going to try to summarize.
Senator Bingaman. Go ahead, please.
Mr. Hall. OK. The National Indian Youth Leadership Project
is a nonprofit youth development organization that's been
working with young people for over 20 years. Our work is based
on a coherent set of principles, devised to help young people
develop skills and competencies to become capable individuals.
Although we have been funded by various Federal and State
agencies to do ``prevention,'' whether it is specifically
targeted toward alcohol and tobacco and other drugs, dropout
and other perceived deficits, our programs all include the same
basic components of outdoor adventure, service and service
learning combined with a strong cultural awareness component.
Our approaches, although they are primarily targeted to
Native American youth, have been used with mixed populations in
various venues have been successful in building resiliency,
self-confidence and self-efficacy.
In 2002, we are recognized by the Center for Substance
Abuse, with the Exemplary Program Award for Project Venture
approach. This program is typical of all NIYLP programs. In our
approach to prevention, we never call our programs ``prevention
programs'' and we don't directly talk about the topic that we
are working to prevent. Project Venture focuses on positive
alternative activities, which engage young people in many roles
in the community, encourage participants to stretch beyond
their self-imposed limitations, and develop skills and foster
resiliency.
Our evaluation data places us among the top four or five
programs in a recent national cross-segment evaluation study
conducted by CSAP. In addition, we were found to be the most
effective program, of all those studied, that were serving
Native populations. As a result of our national recognition, we
now have nearly 20 replication sites across the United States,
and eight of those are here in New Mexico.
One of our most powerful outcomes in our evaluation data is
school bonding, so the relevance here should be clear. We work
closely with the schools to recruit young people and work in
the schools, and we have had a seven-year partnership with the
Gallup McKinley schools, which has been challenging, to say the
least. Our alternative school programs, public, tribal and BIA
schools, as well as other programs, also offer accessibility to
a number of young people to our programs. However, we recognize
that large numbers of disaffected young people leave school
before graduation for many of the same reasons that are cited,
for involvement in alcohol, tobacco and drug abuse.
In our experience, going back nearly 20 years, a number of
factors influenced the relationships that young people from so-
called minority groups have at those schools. I am going to
skip around here a little bit. In Native communities, which
have the highest dropout rates in New Mexico, as well as
nationally, when I was the director of the Alternative School
Program for the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma, our dropout rate
was 70 percent of the public schools in Northeastern Oklahoma.
And when I came out to the Navajo reservation about 20 years
ago, I found that it is not a lot different. And it is really
difficult to document and get actual data on this, because the
Gallup Mckinley schools cannot even provide what their dropout
rate is for Native kids.
Anyway, we have noticed some trends and can offer some
recommendations and strategies that will increase the
probability that young people will complete high school. I have
included some things here that schools could do immediately to
affect the dropout rate. And the first one I suggested was
service-learning programs. Student-driven projects where
communities needs are researched, assessed and projects applied
with extensive student input are a proven effective way of
engaging young people in issues that are meaningful to them,
and get them to invest themselves in the community. Youth voice
should not be seen as optional or irrelevant. Quality service-
learning opportunities have strong connections to the academic
curriculum and support the culture and the community.
Intergenerational projects which link youth and elders have
great potential for authentic learning opportunities, as well
as building connections to the culture and the community.
Conversely, alienation is seen as a major factor in youth
violence, vandalism and general apathy in our communities.
I wanted to comment that Senator Wellstone recently
introduced a request to Congress for supplemental funding for
teacher training around service-learning, and I don't know what
the status of that is, but I wrote a support letter for that.
Another suggestion that I included was quality after-school
programs. One trend that some people in our communities have
observed is schools have increasingly become more like the
prison industry, even adopting some of the same vocabulary,
attitudes and architecture. Pressures to raise standardized
test scores have eliminated many of the little things that
schools could do, and have done, to make young people feel
comfortable. Economic realities have eliminated many of the
courses, arts, music and other, that young people used to enjoy
as electives. Other extracurricular activities have been
limited or curtailed due to budget constraints. Budget cuts
often limit the transportation options, which affect after-
school possibilities. In many rural areas, communities simply
cannot afford to run extra buses.
Many teachers are overworked and underappreciated, and
often cannot take on one more program. However, after-school
programs are the only time that teachers and students in need
of help can find the time to try the alternative approaches and
have more one-on-one opportunities. The daily routine, for most
teachers, does not allow individual attention. A quality after-
school program could make the difference between success and
failure. In many cases, the perception is that students are
blamed for the failures of the school system. And the teachers
assume a punitive attitude toward so-called minority group
students, Especially where Native youth who come to school
speaking a language other than English are perceived to be
holding the school back in terms of test scores, reading
levels, etc.
Another component of our programs, Adventure Programs,
Reconnecting with the Natural World. Among other things, our
programs have been very successful in what evaluators call
``school bonding,'' which includes improved attendance, reduced
disciplinary incidents, improved grades and increased
involvement in school-related activities. In our experience,
young people have a different perception of school when they
have shared experiences with teachers outside the classroom
walls. The natural world provides contacts, for activities that
challenge young people to stretch beyond self-imposed
limitations.
So I have a couple others here that I have listed that were
not in the original document. Partnerships between schools and
community-based organizations can be an effective way to
approach the dropout problem; alternative school programs,
obviously, we need more of those, and special programs, such as
the one described in the first presentation, where a one-on-one
case management approach is taken. But if it is only going to
be a one- or two-year grant to do such a program, then I
question how we can sustain that. It's raising expectations
that may not be able to continue.
The Conceptional Foundations of our approach is what I have
listed here. Our programs are holistic, incorporating physical,
cognitive, physiological and spiritual development. They are
experiential, they involve learning by doing. They are
structured risk and challenge connected to the natural world;
student and youth centered; developmentally appropriate;
culturally relevant; focus on building life skills and
relationships. There is high coherence and intensity of
interventions.
I am going to skip over a couple of the sections here, but
the summary of major findings from the cross-site evaluation
study and prevention programs I think is really interesting.
This was done by Dr. Fred Springer of EMT Associates. As youth
age, levels of risk and protection shift considerably. The
findings on risk, protection and substance abuse and the age of
youth reveals a consistent pattern. As young people move
through the adolescent years, there is a steady movement away
from the protective factors toward the risk conditions in most
of the factors. The movement is greater in family bonding,
school bonding, and peer attitudes of those factors that refer
to the social environments to which young people build
attachments as they mature. In my assessment, this means that
as young people move through the adolescent years, family and
school become less influential, and the peer group becomes
stronger.
This presents a challenge to schools to be aware that they
need to do more to attract and bond with young people. However,
the trend with schools, in our experience, seems to be to
toughen policies and become less flexible at this critical
juncture. Gender also plays an important role in risk
protection and substance use. Generally, the summary here is
that young men need to be bonding with positive influences at
this critical age, yet most of the accessible role models seem
to be fairly negative, according to the media, music, etc.
Connectiveness, again, is the major protective factor
against substance abuse. Positive behavioral outcomes among
young people reflect a tight interweaving of external and
internal protective factors. Connectiveness to family and
schools forms the core of this protection. Meaningful
involvement is the key to connectiveness. Schools cannot--the
school environment can serve as a powerful protective factor
against substance abuse, and will increase the likelihood of
staying in school, if the school is providing a positive
environment.
The schools have to welcome young people and provide a
nurturing environment. In reality, youth perceives schools to
be increasingly rigid and inflexible. In our conversations with
Dr. Fred Springer, the most important factor that he found, in
extensive analysis of prevention programs across the country,
was the concept of connectiveness. And this seems to be the
single factor that comes through in reading through the study.
The efforts that were successful in preventing alcohol,
substance abuse, dropout, etc, had the concept of
connectiveness in common.
I would just summarize by suggesting that we have a
perfectly designed system that is currently giving us the
results that we are currently getting. The only way we can
really improve schools is to make education a true priority,
and the President's budget and his logic doesn't necessarily
reflect that, in my opinion. I really feel that we have to make
education a priority and put our money where our mouth is. And
I appreciate your efforts to do that. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hall may be found in
additional material.]
Senator Bingaman. Thanks to all of you for your excellent
testimony. Let me ask a few questions that occur to me here as
we start the discussion. It strikes me that there is a lot of
disagreement and misunderstanding, when we start citing
statistics, about the extent of the dropout problem. And let me
give you my simplistic view of it, then, Dr. Meurer, maybe you
can explain your more sophisticated view.
There are sort of three ways you can look at these
statistics. One is the question of how many students drop out
each year. A second statistic, of course, or a second way to
look at it is, how many students drop out during the period
between the 9th and the 12th grade. During those 4 years, a
percent of those students leave school. And then a third, maybe
even more inclusive, in the sense that it is, of all the
students begin school, how many of them finish. And I gather
when McClellan Hall talks about 70 percent of Native Americans
are dropping out, he's talking about that last category. He is
saying that 70 percent of the kids who start school, 70 percent
of the Native American kids who start school do not complete
high school.
The statistics you have given us, I believe those are on an
annual basis, is that correct, Dr. Meurer? You said 5.3
percent. Maybe you can clarify that. Could you hand that
microphone over to her so she could be heard by everyone in the
back of the room, too?
Ms. Meurer. Senator Bingaman, the way that New Mexico now
looks at dropout is to follow the National Center for
Educational Statistics. And now there are 37 States that are
looking at it that way. There has been a lot of confusion, as
you said, in the past, about how dropout statistics are
calculated. And the definition and methodology that NCES uses
has to do with looking at students that not only have dropped
out during that year, but it is waiting till the next year and
have not re-enrolled. And that is where the dropout comes in.
So we are waiting until October before we actually collect the
data from the year before to see who has not re-enrolled.
There is also another kind of catch that is done, and there
are two data systems that are used in New Mexico. One is our Ag
system, and to look at whether or not, because sometimes
schools don't know, that student actually moved to another
district and re-enrolled. And if they did, then they would not
be considered a dropout statistic. Sometimes school districts
are not aware that students have moved and re-enrolled in
another school district, so we do a catch.
The other thing NCES does is look at the U.S. census data,
which is another form of looking at dropout prevention. And
that is actually done on a two-year basis. And they look at
census data and they ask, basically, of adults 18 to 24 who are
not currently enrolled in school, have they received either
high school diploma or a GED. And if they say no to those, then
they are considered part of that national dropout statistic of
looking at it that way. And when you look at those statistics,
they are really looking for retention, and the statistics are
improving in New Mexico for that, too.
They look at a two-year timeframe. In 1994 through 1996 we
had 78.8 percent of those individuals saying they had completed
school or received a GED. In 1998-2000 it went up to 83
percent. So our numbers are improving, regardless of how you
define those. But that is a confusion. They are defined
differently. Right now only 37 States are using the NCES
definition, so it does make comparisons, nationally, a bit
confusing. Because if they use a different methodology or
definition, then they are not necessarily comparable data. But
we have adopted that. In 1992, New Mexico went to that. So from
1992 to present, we have very consistent data with a very
consistent methodology at how we look at dropouts in New
Mexico.
Senator Bingaman. Let me just try to be sure I understand
what is meant when we say our dropout rate in the years 2000
and 2001 was 5.3 percent. What we are saying is that, that at
that rate, if we are able to keep it at that rate, then over a
four-year high school, we would have over 21 percent of the
students leave that high school? So you would multiply that by
four? Is that right or----
Ms. Meurer. No. That is looking at the graphs that I gave
you, the charts actually do break it down between 9th and 12th
grade, and then the dropout rates for 7th and 8th grade. So
they are looked at two different ways. When you look at that,
you are talking about the school year. When it says 2000-2001,
it is the school year of 2000-2001.
Senator Bingaman. So we lost over 5 percent of the students
in that school year?
Ms. Meurer. That is correct.
Senator Bingaman. So in trying to figure out how many
students to get--trying to get back to what McClellan was
referring to, we don't have a good way of determining how many
students had dropped out the previous year and stayed out, so
we are not able to sort of look and say how many students
overall that are supposed to be moving through the school
system and toward a graduation date, are not doing so?
Ms. Meurer. Well, we can begin to look at reenrollment data
for that, to see if they come back into the system. But that is
what we are looking at from the previous school year. But we
can look at reenrollment data. And I can give you an example of
what those percentages represent. In 1994-1995, we are at the
rate of 8.7 percent. That represents 7,792 students in New
Mexico. In the 2000-2001 school year, it represents 5,095
students. So we basically kept 2,697 students in school, that
would have dropped out 7 years ago. So those are real numbers
of kids. Percentages are kind of confusing because it is not
real numbers. That is what we are looking at. 2,697 is not
okay, but it is better than it was 7 years ago. We can begin to
look at re-enrollment data, and that is taken into
consideration. But what you're looking at, in terms of the data
that we give, is really reflective of that prior school year.
Senator Bingaman. OK. It is my understanding there are
several school districts that have been denied eligibility for
Federal funding because they did not have recent dropout data.
Am I right about that? Is there anything that can be done at
the State level to ensure that the districts and the public
have this dropout data on a more timely basis?
Ms. Meurer. The Department of Education is working on a new
system to try to get the reports out in a more timely manner.
Also, individual school districts do have the capability of
determining their own individual dropout rate before the
Department publishes the State rates. They have the same
methodology and can use that data to determine their own
districts. What they would not be able to do is do a comparison
of other districts until the State report is ready.
We are working very diligently right now to increase that.
One of the problems is that we don't collect the data until
October of the next school year because of the definition of
the NCES, and that, basically, is students that have not re-
enrolled at that time, so it gives, actually, a more lenient
definition of dropout. But we are going to be moving quicker to
get those reports out. We are hoping--at this point, I said we
would have the previous year's dropout rate. By December, the
report will be out, and then we are hoping this spring we will
have the report from last school year, instead of waiting till
the fall of the next year. So we are hoping to move that up.
Senator Bingaman. Is this information that I have got here
right, though, that some school districts in our State have
been denied eligibility for Federal funds because they didn't
have recent dropout data?
Ms. Meurer. I am not sure that is true or not.
Senator Bingaman. You do not know?
Ms. Meurer. I do not have information on that.
Senator Bingaman. OK. Do we have anything at the State
level that has been adopted not just as an initiative to try to
get better data, but actually an initiative to reduce the
dropout rate, where certain policies have been implemented or
urged or adopted, that would apply to groups of school
districts or schools?
Ms. Meurer. As I mentioned in my testimony, the State Board
of Education is looking at more flexibility for schools so they
can address this. The at-risk factor was one avenue the State
Board went to try to provide more resources for schools. And
they are also looking at several programs--there is a program
where students can take courses, at high school, in the
universities, and actually work toward their associate degree
before they even graduate from high school. And the virtual
schooling project is another project that is looking at that.
In addition, we have the pilot project that we are working
on. The State Board of Education is constantly looking for ways
to provide more flexibility to schools, to allow for more
resources, if they can. And they are looking at regulations
that they need to be readjusted or changed, or new regulations
in place, in order to allow schools more flexibility. That is
on the radar right now, and they are talking about it even
during this session that they are doing right now.
Senator Bingaman. But the main focus at the State Board
level is trying to be sure that local districts have the
flexibility to deal with the problem?
Ms. Meurer. That is correct.
Senator Bingaman. It is not mandating a certain set of
actions by the local districts?
Ms. Meurer. No. The State Board truly believes in local
autonomy, and feels that each individual school district and
their community can determine the best programs to attack the
issues within their communities. So they are looking to allow
for flexibility for that to happen in the local communities and
schools.
Senator Bingaman. Karen, let me ask you, you have been
doing this, now, for a year, as I understand; is that right?
Ms. Sanchez-Griego. That is correct. Just for me, 1 year.
Senator Bingaman. Yeah. And it may be too early to be
expecting this, but you mentioned there are several strategies
that you are working on to implement in the various schools
that you are wanting to mention. One is the mentoring at the
middle school level?
Ms. Sanchez-Griego. That is correct.
Senator Bingaman. Could you describe a little more what
that involves and how many students and how you accomplish it
and who does it?
Ms. Sanchez-Griego. Well, currently, because there is a
strong research component that follows, we have got mentoring
going on in the southern part of the State and the northern
part of the State and central, which is Albuquerque, and we are
targeting just three middle schools and three local high
schools in kind of like the feeder cluster area. And at those
schools, just in particular in Albuquerque, they saw 60
students last year. And they probably added at least 30 more
this year. And what they are doing is, they meet with the
students one-on-one----
Senator Bingaman. Who's ``they''?
Ms. Sanchez-Griego. Students from the University of New
Mexico, students at New Mexico State University, High Glen and
Santa Fe Community College.
Senator Bingaman. So they are paid?
Ms. Sanchez-Griego. They are paid.
Senator Bingaman. These are college students who are paid
to meet with kids at what grade levels?
Ms. Sanchez-Griego. They started with 6th grade, last year.
They are staying with the 6th graders and following them all
the way up the pipeline. We are trying to keep the kids--once
we get them in our pipeline in ENLACE, regardless of whether
they are in the Family Center, the mentoring, Chicano Studies,
wherever, but in the mentoring component, per se, they picked
them up in the 6th grade last year. They are continuing on with
them as 7th graders. This year they picked up some additional
6th graders from this year and they are just beginning to come
into the pipeline.
Senator Bingaman. How often would a college student meet
with this 6th or 7th grader?
Ms. Sanchez-Griego. They meet with them twice a week, and
then they do like an all-out program. They work with the school
system to make sure that they are not getting out of academic-
type programs. They are working with them. And in the
afternoons they run a program called ``Compas,'' where they do
tutoring. And they are there after school, available----
Senator Bingaman. What is the program called?
Ms. Sanchez-Griego. The whole program is Los Companeros.
And then Compas is--probably was prior to that. It would be a
full amount that you cut and increase one-on-one to try to get
to know the kids, talk to them about staying in school. A lot
of them are having family problems, so they refer back to the
family. It is just a whole link of programs that the kids get
service from. And then, afterwards, in the afternoons, they
encourage the kids to come to this tutoring program where they
bring their homework, and they actually meet with the teachers
and things, and what are the things you need for us to work
with this student on academically.
Senator Bingaman. So how long have you been doing this
mentoring activity?
Ms. Sanchez-Griego. We started probably in October of last
year, so it is relatively been a year. The Institute for Social
Research at the University of New Mexico and we have researched
components at all levels. In fact, one of our researchers,
Victoria, is here today. And they are studying the effects of
this. They go out and they observe, they check their test
scores in the Terra Nova, and whether they have increased or
not increased, they check their attendance to see if their
attendance has increased since they have been provided a
mentor, they check discipline referrals to see if the referrals
are less.
So we are following a whole number of things. We want to
make sure the money that was given by Kellogg, and things, and
the same thing that I do at Cibola. We are trying to follow the
effects of what we are doing to be able to go to the State
Department and say, These are the effects of what we have seen
in a year in the State of New Mexico for Latinos. And it can be
used really, relatively, for all students. Because we have such
a high dropout operate, almost half the students in our State
are not graduating high school. They are not even going on to
college. That is our target population. But we are seeing
various students along our pipeline
Senator Bingaman. Let me just say I think that your figures
as to how many kids are dropping out are very different from
the ones Dr. Meurer has.
Ms. Sanchez-Griego. Absolutely.
Senator Bingaman. How do you explain that?
Ms. Sanchez-Griego. You know what is so funny is the
University of New Mexico got these figures from the State
Department of Education when they wrote the grant almost 2
years ago, so it was interesting to hear that the figures were
different on our end.
Senator Bingaman. You need to go back and check and see
what the real figures are, because clearly there is a
disagreement.
Ms. Sanchez-Griego. Absolutely. I work as a teacher and
principal, and that has always been a discrepancy in how we
look at these kids. They might--no disrespect to the doctor,
but part of what we see is kids coming to school, they might
re-enroll. But what happens is, they might re-enroll and
continue to re-enroll, but they are not really attending class.
So sometimes----
Senator Bingaman. So they re-enroll in October or September
and dropout again?
Ms. Sanchez-Griego. Correct. And then they might come back
and re-enroll again. That is a lot of what we were seeing. I
know a lot of school districts are trying to keep the kids in
programmatically with other things that we are doing. They are
trying to provide programs in reference to that. Again, I am
not trying to speak against her. I am just saying, those are
the figures that the State Department gave us when we wrote the
grant. Actually, that went through the University of New
Mexico's Foundation and researchers.
Senator Bingaman. Mr. Hall, let me ask you, you have an
interesting point in your testimony where you talk about how
you try not to focus on the problem, but try to focus on the
positive?
Mr. Hall. Right.
Senator Bingaman. Which is a good idea, generally. I have
read some of these motivation books which say that is the right
way to approach it. And I remember a conversation I had with
one of our superintendents here in the State several years ago,
and I said, What are you doing about the dropout problem? And
he said, We encourage attendance in our schools. Which I
thought was a very interesting response. And he said, We just
encourage the kids to come to school, and we emphasize it from
the day they begin in kindergarten. And we emphasize it to
their parents, and we never let up. If they are not in school,
we will find them and bring them to school.
I don't know if that is the kind of thing you are talking
about when you are basically focusing on the positive, but I
wondered, many times, if we have fallen into a trap by labeling
this ``dropout problem,'' and concentrating on that instead of
looking more on the positive side and saying, How do we
increase attendance in our schools?
Mr. Hall. I would agree with that. I think our approach of
focusing on the positive is based on traditional wisdom from a
lot of elders that I have talked to over the last 30 years.
Some of them never went to school at all, but that is their
philosophy. They focus on the positive in every case. In the
case of the dropout situations, what I tried to focus on were
things that would encourage kids to continue to come to school.
And I think that is a powerful approach.
Senator Bingaman. Let me also just comment, your reference
to ``connectiveness'' as the key element, I mean, the student
feeling connected to the school, and the parents of the student
feeling connected to the school, you know, ``school bonding''
is another phrase you use here, seems to me that that is a
major idea that I think has prompted me and others to support
this notion of smaller schools.
Mr. Hall. Yes.
Senator Bingaman. Because it is a lot easier to be
connected to a school where you really know the people there,
and you feel you have some familiarity with the physical
surrounding, the people there, and you know what to expect when
you show up in the morning, than it is to show up at a 2500-
person high school and feel like you are going to get mowed
down if you get out in the hallway during the changing of
classes or something.
Mr. Hall. The schools are way too big. My wife works at
Gallup High School, and my son goes there. And she will never
see him during the week.
Senator Bingaman. How big is Gallup High School?
Mr. Hall. There is close to 2000--16, 17, 1800. I don't
know. And it only has 10th through 12th grade. It is a big
school. That is, obviously, one of the big problems.
Senator Bingaman. Let me ask Dr. Meurer this. Do we have
any statistics as to where the dropout problem is concentrated?
My impression has been that it is most severe in our largest
schools. Is that accurate, or do we know, or is this just a
guess?
Ms. Meurer. I would have to look at the dropout study
report. And I gave you the 1999-2000 one, but it does break it
down by school district in here. And I think that you are
accurate. There are some smaller school districts--when we
identified the pilot that I had mentioned, we looked at dropout
rate as one of the indicators for determining which schools
would be chosen. And it is not always the largest school
districts that have----
Senator Bingaman. I am not talking about the size of the
school district. I am talking about the size of the school.
Ms. Sanchez-Griego. The size of the school does seem to
have an impact. Smaller schools tend to have more
connectiveness. I know that is showing in studies. And one-on-
one with the teachers is a lot easier than in the larger
schools. And kids feel that they belong there. So we do see
that school size does have some impact on dropout.
Senator Bingaman. Let me also ask if there is any--Dr.
Meurer, in your testimony, you refer to the Early Reading
Program, which I think is also a priority of the State Board. I
believe I am right about that?
Ms. Sanchez-Griego. Yeah, reading first.
Senator Bingaman. I have always assumed, and I guess
everyone assumes that if a kid learns to read in the first two
or 3 years of school, that that dramatically reduces the
likelihood that that student will fail and drop out of school
later on. Do we really know that? I mean, do we know that the
problem of kids leaving school is correlated pretty directly to
kids who haven't mastered basic reading skills, or is that just
guessing?
Ms. Sanchez-Griego. There are some studies that do show
some correlations between reading and dropout, but I would put
a causal on it. There are many, many reasons why students drop
out of school. And not feeling that they can keep up is one
reason, and reading has a strong impact on that. There are
several reasons why kids drop out of school. Some are social
reasons. And that is what that one pilot that I talked about is
really kind of looking at with the case management. It is a
very expensive model, but it really does take each individual
student that is at risk of dropping out and figuring out what
are the risk factors and addressing those specifically. It may
be reading, it may be that they have to be the breadwinner for
the family. It may be poverty. It could be a number of things
and combinations of those. I don't think we can say there is
one reason why students drop out of school. And so the Reading
First is just one initiative to try to address one thing that
we do know, through research, is connected to dropout.
Senator Bingaman. I am sure you are right. There are a
whole range of causes. But I think what is useful, at least it
seems to me, what is useful to our State, and for us
nationally, is to identify those kinds of structural changes
that we can make in our school system that will, by and large,
increase the likelihood that kids will stay in school and
graduate and do well. And some of those are being sure that
there is a very strong effort at teaching reading in the early
grades; trying to ensure that the schools are not too large,
that there are smaller schools. Those are two fairly obvious
things that I think would reduce the likelihood of kids leaving
school. There are probably four or five others, and if you have
ideas, I would be interested in hearing them.
Ms. Meurer. Just to throw one out, I think it has to do
with the size of the school, but it also has to do with the
size the classroom. The more students a teacher has each
period, that they are addressing, the less they have one-on-one
attention with students. And I think my colleague at the end of
the table could probably concur that connectiveness to school,
some of the studies show that has to do with a significant
adult in their life, and that school, the mentoring program,
the success of the mentoring program in providing those mentors
for kids. So class sizes and----
Senator Bingaman. School size and class size both?
Ms. Meurer. Can help, I think. Connectiveness is a real key
factor. And things that can be changed within the school and
community environment to provide that are critical issues.
Senator Bingaman. Anybody have a third or fourth or fifth?
Ms. Sanchez-Griego. The Family Centers that are being
developed by ENLACE, these are centers that are now--in younger
ages, you have PTA and parents that are active in the schools.
As students get older, parents become less active. And one of
the things that Maria Hines, who is in the audience, one of our
parents who is kind of the founder of these Family Centers in
New Mexico, they are developing centers at the high schools.
These centers are run by parents. They are not people that are
hired by the school district. They are run by parents who
actually live in the community. They are out there.
This center is a place where kids can feel connected. They
can come to these centers which provide just an open
environment, a one-on-one connection. One is in Albuquerque,
and they are going to be placed in Las Cruces, shortly. In
working with the director, Lisa Sanchez, is bringing together
-- they keep food in their facility, constantly, that ENLACE
has paid for. Kids can come in and just grab a snack, talk to
them about what is going on. A lot of times they intervene with
the teacher. And it is a parent to a parent. They talk with
other parents.
And, again, I think the success that we have seen in a
year's amount of time is--and they have been very instrumental
to bringing dropout students back, because they actually go out
into the community and talk to other family members. These were
very, initially, hard to establish because of the fact that you
are not the principal, so we have our territory. We were like,
What do you mean they are not an employee of the district? This
is their school. They are coming in to help assist you with
students on your campus that maybe you cannot get to, or your
counselor cannot get to, or the teacher cannot reach. So there
is a partnership right now.
That is some that, in fact, we presented nationwide. We
presented at a conference in Chicago. Our parents have just
been selected to present the national PTA in Charlotte, North
Carolina in reference to Family Centers. So I think that is a--
--
Senator Bingaman. How many of these Family Centers do we
have now?
Ms. Sanchez-Griego. Currently, we have three.
Senator Bingaman. At which schools?
Ms. Sanchez-Griego. They are at Albuquerque High, West Mesa
High School, and Del Norte High School.
Senator Bingaman. How long have you had them in place?
Ms. Sanchez-Griego. Same amount of time, about 8 months. We
are going to be presenting to the Legislative Education
Committee in reference to this. The director up in the
southern, who works on policy, is actually working with the ad
hoc committee to write some legislation----
Senator Bingaman. Do they provide some specific services in
addition to giving the kids snacks?
Ms. Sanchez-Griego. They provide services such as they
bring in tutors from the university, they bring in mentors. And
the parent is here. She could probably tell it a little bit
better than I because she is there day to day.
They have dealt with students who have had suicide
situations. What they do, they are working with the school. So
the student might come in and say, I have got a friend, and she
is having trouble. And then what happens is, they go to the
counseling office, say, They have come to us first. We want
your help, but we are also working with the family.
They helped a young man who was not going to graduate last
year. The parents were monolingual Spanish speakers and did not
feel comfortable going to the school. So they directly went to
the family center and talked to the parents, initially. They
have helped runaways. They found out that a student had been a
runaway, from a friend of the friend. They deal with a
multitude of problems. And again, I probably am not saying as
best as my parent, who is in the audience, could do.
Senator Bingaman. That sounds like a very interesting idea.
Yes? We have someone from the audience who wants to speak
up.
Ms. Patterson. I would just like to say, to add----
Senator Bingaman. Tell us your name, again, please.
Ms. Patterson. I am coordinating the PASS project, the
pilot project. I would just like to add, to the four or five
services that might directly help students are school-based
mental health services or school-based health clinics where
mental health services help students, and perhaps family
counseling type situations. I think we are seeing more and more
students who have substance abuse issues at younger ages, or
serious mental health issues, and school-based services can
really help them.
Senator Bingaman. Very good. This has been very useful, and
we have another excellent panel coming forward with, I am sure,
some additional great insights. Thank you all very much for
being here. I appreciate it.
Why don't we go ahead with the second panel? And let me see
Stan Rounds, who is the superintendent of Hobbs Public Schools.
And we have Dr. Haugen, who is the superintendent at Gadsden;
is that correct?
Mr. Haugen. Yes.
Senator Bingaman. And Everette Hill, who is the coordinator
of the dropout project for YDI, the Youth Development Industry,
Incorporated. And do we have Beverly Averitt, also? Beverly,
are you going to be on our panel, or not?
Ms. Averitt. Am I? Yes.
Senator Bingaman. We would love to have you up here. Let us
get another chair. Beverly is a principal at Espanola High
School. Let me just do a slight introduction of each of these
individuals. Dr. Rounds, Stan Rounds, the superintendent of
Hobbs Public Schools, has led the effort there to implement the
advanced placement and preadvanced placement programs, and a
variety of other initiatives that have been very successful,
and has been successful. And I have had the good fortune to
meet with him and others in that community, and admired their
success over several years now.
Ron Haugen is with Gadsden schools. And as I indicated
earlier, they did receive a dropout intervention grant, which,
unfortunately, I don't believe the funding was continued the
following year, so I would be anxious to know what progress you
were able to make.
Everette Hill is with YDI, which is well known in our State
for the good work that they do. And as I mentioned, Beverly
Averitt, who is the principal at Espanola High School.
So thank you. Why don't we just start with Stan and go
right across? And each of, you let me just say that we will
include your whole statement in the record. If you could just
summarize, make the main points that you think that I ought to
be aware of, I would sure appreciate that, and then we will
have some questions.
Stan, thank you for coming.
STATEMENT OF STAN ROUNDS, SUPERINTENDENT FOR HOBBS SCHOOLS; RON
HAUGEN, SUPERINTENDENT, GADSDEN INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS; EVERETTE
HILL, YOUTH DEVELOPMENT INC., ALBUQUERQUE; BEVERLY AVERITT,
ESPANOLA HIGH SCHOOL PRINCIPAL
Mr. Rounds. Good morning, Senator. I want to express my
appreciation, first of all, to Senator Bingaman for your
foresight in bringing this hearing to southern New Mexico. I
know that is unusual as far as Congressional hearings. We are
certainly honored to have you here today. I would also like to
thank you for your leadership in the Advanced Placement
Program, both at the National and State level. You certainly
are a friend to education in that respect. And I am delighted,
today, that we are able to sit here and have an opportunity to
discuss a very important issue of student dropouts.
When it comes to dropout statistics odds, the numbers speak
for themselves. The percentage of kids who drop out of Hobbs
High School before graduation dipped from 3.4 percent in 1995-
1996 to approximately 1 percent in this last school year of
2001-2002. As we heard earlier, that compares with a statewide
average, I believe the number was 5.3 percent. During that same
timespan, Senator, the percentage of children who entered the
Hobbs kindergarten class grew, and then graduated 12 years
later, jumped from 45.3 percent to 87 percent. We are quite
proud of that move.
Though putting a face on the numbers might be the easier
approach for us today. That is why I will start with Jake
Loflin. Last year at this time, Jake was a Hobbs 9th grader
headed for trouble, in school and out. He was a drug user who
had anger issues and was a discipline problem. Jake faced long-
term suspension and was on the brink of leaving school for
good. However, he also had the option of enrolling in the TARS
program, a boot-camp style class that is a combination of
calisthenics, crew cuts and tough love. After spending 16 weeks
in the program, that requires students to curb their attitude
and temper, Loflin, with other spit-and-polished classmates in
uniform, marched in front of the Hobbs School Board last
Tuesday night and collected his TARS diploma.
Hobbs Mayor Bobby Wallach showed up too, because he wanted
to give Jake a heroism award for helping save the lives of an
El Paso family whose boat flipped over at Brantley Lake this
summer. His mom said that she didn't think that he would have
had the forethought to strap on a lifejacket and jump in and
help those people if it were not for TARS, for the discipline
he had learned there.
Instead of being at risk for dropping out of school, I am
proud to tell you, Senator, that Jake is now making As and Bs
and has his sights set on college.
I would also like to talk to you about Natalie Rios. Only
17, Natalie easily could have become part of the 68 percent of
teenage mothers nationally who fail to complete high school.
Instead, she enrolled last year in the newly formed teen
parenting class in Hobbs High School, and learned how to care
for her son, who is about 2 years old. The class features a
teacher who makes home visits, and a curriculum that covers
everything from the ABCs of giving birth to courtroom tactics
for securing child support payment.
Now, we are certainly not thrilled about the rising
epidemic of teenage pregnancy, we choose not to bury our head
in the sand about this national epidemic. To be honest,
however, not everybody is pleased with the innovative programs
that are offered by the Hobbs schools. If you ask the 39-year-
old mother who, this summer, became the first person found
guilty of violating the compulsory school attendance law in
Hobbs, she probably wouldn't be too happy with us. But her four
children are in school today, thanks largely to an aggressive
attendance policy that saw Hobbs hire four truancy prevention
specialists. Charged with going to the homes of students with
chronic absences, truancy officers, two of them were bilingual,
provided one-on-one contact to parents, who, oftentimes, are
too intimidated to visit their children's schools.
You see, providing a united front helps, so much so that
the absence rates at all levels has been reduced by almost one-
half in just the first year of the truancy program's existence.
In the rare cases where parents refused to take the
responsibility for getting their children to school, the long
arm of the law is the last resort.
And the guilty verdict rendered by the judge got the
woman's attention, as well as other parents in the community,
whom we have decided to hold responsible for their children's
behavior.
Here is another for you. Michael Ware was only 17 when he
graduated from Hobbs High School 2 years ago, but already had
42 college credits when he enrolled at Colorado State
University a couple of months later. Ware took advantage of the
Advanced Placement Program that other schools districts in the
State are now emulating. While Michael was clearly never at
risk for dropping out of school, here is what makes our AP
program so innovative.
It targets more than overachievers in its academic net.
More than 40 percent of the students from Hobbs, largely a
blue-collar town, that now has a 51 percent majority of
Hispanic students, of which, Senator, about one-half are ELL,
or limited English proficient students, take at least one AP or
pre-AP class last year. Our goal is to exceed 70 percent.
The AP program attracts an abundance of students to its
classes because it offers financial reward. Make a 3, 4 or 5 on
your AP exam, and you earn a paycheck as well as college
credit. Get high enough scores and you take home a $2,000
computer.
With that, an aggressive student mentoring effort is a key
element, we believe, to the success of that program. You see,
the AP classes are not limited just to the high school. Pre-
advanced placement curriculum in the junior high, and CORE
knowledge, which is a cultural literacy curriculum at the
elementary school, means our students will be even better
prepared for tough classes when they encounter them.
Our research also shows that thematic instructions embodied
by CORE improves the learning and test scores of bilingual
kids. An important project you might want to look at, Senator,
is the San Antonio schools in San Antonio, Texas.
By choosing to set the bar higher, Hobbs has succeeded in
raising the academic standards for all students, even those who
don't enroll in AP classes. Of course, not all kids go the AP
route. Plenty of students are enrolled in vocational programs
that take advantage of nearby New Mexico Junior College. More
than a hundred students get on a bus each day at Hobbs High and
ride to the community college campus, where they are enrolled
in classes like auto mechanics, cosmetology. Computer-assisted
drafting or metal working are also examples of the skills they
can learn with equipment that the Hobbs school system has
purchased and placed on that campus.
They can take advantage of a newly outfitted technology
lab, a $250,000 facility that opened this semester to high
schools, or a $300,000 lab at the freshman school. It is no
secret that conducting experiments in a simulated wind tunnel,
or being the director of your own digital movie appeals to
students who are not pen-and-pencil types. And it is no secret
that continually updating technology labs is what it takes to
make the high school relevant to today's students.
Hobbs voters recently passed a bond issue which would keep
our schools current with this century's technology, $22.3
million. In addition to cutting-edge computers, the Hobbs
school offers a Career Technology Education Plan, which turns
out students with skills that allow them to get an entry-level
job anywhere in the business world, upon graduation. Again,
Senator, relevancy to the student.
It is a simple fact of life, however, that some kids do not
feel comfortable in the standard classroom. Recognizing that
nontraditional students are those most at risk of dropping out,
Hobbs schools offers a number of individually tailored
education plans. They include an alternative school where
students work at their own pace. See, these are not bad kids.
They are kids we are losing, kids that have special needs, kids
that have children of their own or problems at home.
Enrollment at the alternate school has increased from about
25 students a decade ago to more than 110 now. Night school has
also increased its enrollment at roughly the same pace, as has
summer school.
The fact that Hobbs High School closed its campus in 1993,
meaning that hundreds of students were not making the run for
the Taco Bell border at lunchtime each day also has helped.
See, kids now stay on campus and problems don't come on to
campus.
There is no one reason we can point to that accounts for a
dropout rate that has been on the decline for 7 years running.
Instead, we have incorporated a mosaic of programs to make
school relevant, while raising the bar of education for today's
learners, learners who include everybody from unwed mothers to
teens who are capable of saving lives but might need some
direction. See, each students matters to us. And, Senator, as
you voted, no child should be left behind.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Rounds may be found in
additional material.]
Senator Bingaman. Thank you very much. That is excellent
testimony. And again, congratulations on many of the projects
and programs that you are implementing there. I am very
impressed with them
Mr. Haugen, why don't you go right ahead and give us the
perspective from Gadsden? I know you have a very challenging
situation there with a very fast-growing school district.
Mr. Haugen. Thank you, Senator Bingaman. First of all, I
would like to thank you for the opportunity to provide some
information to the Senate Health, Education and Pension
Committee regarding the dropout prevention programs that are
currently in operation or in need in the Gadsden Independent
School District. The programs that we have are currently
focused on the upper elementary, middle school and high school
students, due to the urgency in improving the academic skill
level of these students to enhance their future opportunities
for success.
The Gadsden Independent School District has implemented the
following programs: First we have the Desert Pride Academy.
This is an alternative school that consists of, basically, two
programs. We have a credit recovery program for students who
are off grade level----
Senator Bingaman. Let me just interrupt a second. Do I have
a copy of this testimony? I just don't see it. OK, thanks. Go
right ahead. Sorry.
Mr. Haugen. Like I said, these students have two groups.
First are those that are off, in terms of their grade level,
and it is mainly a credit recovery program. The other group of
students are there for long-term student disciplinary reasons.
This is primarily students grades 9 through 12, and it is
supported solely by district operational funds.
The second program is the Title I reading and math labs.
These are academic support labs for incoming 9th grade students
who are basically identified as at risk for dropping out. These
students, in lieu of being retained in the 8th grade, are
promoted to the 9th grade and placed in these special classes
for reading and mathematic assistance to support their
additional language arts and reading classes, math classes that
they would have in high school.
These students are basically identified as being in the
bottom quartile, over time, in the States norm-referenced
testing system. And these laboratory courses are solely
supported by Title I funds.
Our most recent experience in this school district, with
resources and opportunities for dropout prevention, is a pilot
partnership with New Mexico State University, and funded by the
U.S. Department of Education, as you mentioned, entitled the
Dropout Prevention Demonstration program. This pilot program
allows us to work with students in grades 6 through 9 that are
identified as at risk of dropping out. This is basically a
literacy program for older students to focus on improving
literacy skills by providing in-school and after-school
services.
After 1 year of funding, the U.S. Department of Education
did not fund this project, even though an application was
submitted for three additional years. The weaknesses as
referenced in the application, or by the reviewers of the
application, indicated that the program focused on literacy
skills and not dropout prevention. We strongly disagree with
these assumptions that literacy is not the underlying factor
that leads to students dropping out.
As a district and as a community of educators, we believe
this is the primary cause that leads students to the point of
making the decision to leave school. The dropout situation is
generally not created by a single incident, but more often by a
series of incidences, most of which are related to years and
years of frustration and lack of success on the part of the
student. The lack of literacy skills to function effectively
and competitively with their peers is important early in a
student's education. We believe it could have made a difference
in the middle years of school had this project been funded in
the future.
We believe that the long-term strategy for dropout
prevention in border communities lies in having the ability to
work with children prior to their official entry into the
public school system, such as the Gadsden Independent School
District, and not in remediating students late in their
educational career.
We propose that moneys be focused on early childhood
literacy programs for 3- and 4-year-olds. This is needed in a
district such as Gadsden that has a low socioeconomic status.
Each year we enter about 1,000 students into our kindergarten
programs. Approximately 850 of those students are monolingual
Spanish-speaking students.
The District has found that these students enter
kindergarten two to 3 years behind their peers. The moneys
needed for this type of literacy program will provide the
necessary developmental opportunities that are prevalent in
communities that have a higher socioeconomic status. Equity of
opportunity could be achieved by access to this type of a
structure that would allow the children in the Gadsden district
to acquire English language skills, leading to earlier
proficiency.
To equalize the playing field, we believe it is imperative
that Districts such as ours be afforded the resources and
opportunity to provide early literacy programs for 3- and 4-
year-old students.
We believe that a funding structure is needed to support
early literacy and struggling reader programs that will address
No Child Left Behind. Reading is a fundamental right of all
people in this country.
Yesterday I read an article out of the National School
Board Association--their monthly publication, and the article
was entitled ``Poor Kindergartners Lack Basic Skills.'' And,
just briefly, it said that children from poor families start
kindergarten at a tremendous disadvantage. They are way behind
other children in their cognitive skills, they need to learn
math, reading and other skills, which is concluded by the
Economic Policy Institute. This is research that was done by
people out of the University of Michigan. And the title of the
research was ``Inequality of the Starting Date.''
And we believe that is so important in our district. We
have kids that come in. They are fundamentally behind their
peers. And with the No Child Left Behind, we have a mandate to
get them to a certain point by the time they reach the 3rd
grade. I think we have these children that--a large number of
children who actually have acquired the language skills to be
competitive with their peers, this puts them at a disadvantage.
We believe if we can get these children prior to that point and
help remediate some of the situations, that maybe the family
has not been able to afford them, we can probably help the
dropout cause in the long-run. This is a long-term solution
rather than the Band-Aids that are normally applied to students
later on in their careers. Thank you.
[The prepared statement by Mr. Haugen may be found in
additional material.]
Senator Bingaman. All right. Thank you very much for your
excellent testimony.
Mr. Hill, you are here to represent the YDI and give us
some insights as to the work you folks do. And I am glad to
have you.
Mr. Hill. Yes, sir. Thank you very much. First, let me say
thank you for the opportunity to be here. I must send along
some apologies for Chris Baca, our President and CEO, who is
out of town on some other previous commitments.
My name is Everette Hill. I am the vice president of the
Education Employment Training Division for Youth Development
Incorporated. We have heard, this morning, some wonderful
testimony about not only successful programs, but also
strategies that work in dealing with youth at risk of dropping
out. Two of the projects that we operate, the Project Succeed
Program, and the Project Achieve Program--Project Succeed is a
program that runs out of the high schools, and Achieve is a
program that works in the middle schools. And those programs
work competitively to provide services for youth throughout
that spectrum. You actually highlight this in the ``New Mexico
Dropout Prevention Handbook.''
Those programs have received numerous awards for their
effectiveness, the ability to retain students. In fact, Project
Succeed, over the course of its life since 1986, has retained
about 88 percent of the students its worked with, and I think
we are somewhere in the neighborhood of 15,000 to 18,000
students over that time period. There are some things that we
know about dropout prevention. Many of the panelists earlier
spoke to some of those things.
We found, in operating these programs since their
inception, that smaller class sizes makes a difference. Not
only smaller class sizes, but individualized instruction,
modalities in terms of how instruction is delivered, case
management outside the classroom, job development for not only
students, but sometimes their parents, being able to affect the
system from which a student at risk might come from, because
they, inevitably, have to return to that system, and what
skills they return with.
So we have known that there are some things that really
work, and many of these programs incorporate those things that
work. In my written testimony I tried to speak to what I
believe is the challenge that lies before us.
The question for me really is, how do we sustain the
progress that we have made? We heard testimony earlier that the
dropout rate has been on the decline for the last seven to 10
years. Although some of the numbers--there may be discrepancy
in the actual numbers, I think that is a truism, that these
programs that are working with young people, are working. They
are making an impact. Also, we have heard that--I believe to be
true is that, there is no one reason why youth drop out of
school. Along with that, there is no one methodology for a
program that will retain the student in school. But many of the
strategies that are used, including things like assessment,
follow-up, individual service planning, individual education
plans, individual service strategies, those are things that we
know work.
I think that where we are trying to move to, and something
that the Project Succeed Program has used since its inception,
is utilizing a system of integrated service delivery. Utilizing
a system of service delivery really speaks to the hallmarks of
that kind of methodology, that you recognize that education
does not happen in a vacuum. Learning does not only take place
in the classroom. Systems affect how people learn and what they
learn and what they retain and how they will be able to use
those things in their lives. So we have looked at not only what
strategies work, but looking at the system and how they are
delivered.
One of the other hallmarks, and I outline in my written
testimony, actually, three hallmarks that the system of
integrated services deliver. Right now, many programs utilize
assessment. We have started to look at assessment, not only as
a myopic or linear activity, but something that has to be done
cyclically. Youth at risk need to work with staff persons or
educators, on a continual basis, to assess for their
achievements, to assess for their continued needs, to assess
for what opportunities and options are out there to meet their
needs. Of course, their needs change as they meet plateaus of
achievement and they reach different grade levels and age-
appropriate or age-ability standards.
Along with assessment, that could be done in a cyclical
way, we also look at follow-up or after-care. So many times our
programs, even though they are effective, will have a very
limited amount of time that follow-up is done with our youth at
risk. Follow-up or after-care could be something that was done
throughout a student's career. We have seen that 9th grade is
really one of the periods of a student's educational life that
they are mostly at risk for dropping out, which is why the
Project Succeed program really focuses on 9th grade, and the
Achieve program focuses on 6th through 8th, trying to instill
some of those opportunities that students will have in terms of
a support structure.
So follow-up is something that we look at, that is going to
be monumental, in terms of continuing to give youth at risk an
ability to return to an area that they may be comfortable with,
folks that they have gained a rapport with that can possibly
help them out of future situations that might lead to them
dropping out.
The last thing I would like to speak on, in terms of
utilizing a system of integrated service delivery, are the
partnerships that are involved to do such a thing. Utilizing a
system such as an integrated service delivery system, every
entity in the community that is involved in working with a
young person, this would involve our postsecondary
institutions, our secondary institutions, community-based
organizations, Health and Human Services organizations, working
in partnership. And in terms of partnership, there are lots of
collaborations that people have. We certainly have many of
them. But in terms of partnership, we are talking more about
ownership, each entity having ownership for the success of the
individual, which could also mean the sharing of resources, the
sharing of creating treatment plans so on and so forth.
If we are going to be successful in continuing to see a
decline in the dropout rate, I think we have all experienced,
and my colleague to my left just talked about a program that
was very successful but did not receive further funding, we are
going to have to look at the susceptibility of projects that
work. We know so many things work, but we are going to have to
look at the susceptibility of programs that do work. And I
think by creating partnerships and utilizing a true system of
service delivery, that is one method that we could use to keep
those effective programs in operation for our youth at risk.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hill may be found in
additional material.]
Senator Bingaman. OK. Thank you very much. I appreciate you
being here to testify.
Our final witness is Beverly Averitt, who is the principal
at Espanola High School. We are very pleased to have you here.
Thank you for coming.
Ms. Averitt. Thank you for inviting me, Senator. Espanola
High School has had a high dropout rate for a number years,
ranging from 10 percent to 18 percent in the last six to 8
years. I wish I had Mr. Rounds' problem of one percent. In
fact, to make it even sound worse than that, we usually have
over 300 freshman entering, and a little over 150 seniors
graduate. Due to this consistently high dropout rate among our
students, the Espanola Board of Education formed a Stay In
School Blue Ribbon Task Force during the 2001-2002 school year.
The task force was assigned a task of gathering data and
conducting necessary research in an attempt to identify the
underlying issues related to our high dropout rate.
The task force was to then use this data to make
recommendations, based on their findings, that might help
reduce the dropout rate. The task force consisted of teachers,
administrators, parents, students and community members, which
included local and State police, Los Alamos National Laboratory
employees, Northern New Mexico Community College employees,
business owners, and representatives from Senator Bingaman's
office.
One of the activities of the task force was to interview
both midschool and high school students, as well as students
who had dropped out. The task force found that there were
almost as many reasons given by students for dropping out as
there were dropouts. Some of those reasons were: Classes were
too hard, classes were too easy and students became bored,
pregnancy, students' need and/or desire to work, students
missed too much school for various reasons, students failed
courses and did not make them up in summer school and got too
far behind in credits to graduate with their class, not enough
parental support, and students felt that no one really cared
whether they succeeded or dropped out. The one reason that kept
coming up with nearly all students interviewed was that these
students did not feel there were enough adults at the high
school who knew them or cared about them.
Several members of the task force had heard of a program
being run at Rio Rancho High School. Members visited Rio Rancho
for a day, learned all they could about the program, and
brought back as much information as possible. In using this
program as a foundation or a basis, the following
recommendation was made to the Board, and this was the number
one recommendation: Create a student support program in which
teachers, administrators and counselors are assigned up to 18
students to mentor, advise and support.
A committee of high school teachers and parents with
student input and support, along with personnel support and
grants from the LANL Foundation has been working on the design
of a somewhat similar program for EVHS. The program has been
named Team Up EVHS and was put into effect this past Monday.
The main goals of the program are to improve communication with
parents through scheduled one half-hour individual appointments
to be conducted twice yearly, build teams and team spirit in
order to raise the graduation rate by having monthly team
meetings, and inform parents and encourage students.
Through this program, we hope to make parents feel more
welcome at the school, help them become more involved in their
child's education, keep them more informed on school
activities, impress upon them the importance of student
attendance, give them testing information and results, review
graduation requirements, help them select methods to help their
students catch up on credits, etc. We also envision that
students now have an adult at the school who is their mentor,
as well as a team of students who can help them succeed.
The Team Up program targets all students in all grade
levels. We have also started two other programs that target
only 9th grade students, this grade level being where the
largest percentage of dropouts occur. The first of these two
programs began with applying for and receiving a two-year
grant. The New Mexico Department of Health, in conjunction with
the State Department of Education, received Federal funds to
assist selected New Mexico schools in developing a dropout
prevention program, and EVHS was one of three schools selected.
This program utilizes a case manager to address the needs
of each at-risk student that is identified for the project. 30
to 50 at-risk students in the 9th grade will be targeted. By
the end of the first year, only those 9th graders who the case
manager and counselor feel need to continue in the program will
remain as 10th graders, and new incoming 9th graders will be
added. The case manager will schedule appointments with the
students and parents, make home visits when necessary, bring in
outside agencies to work with the families, and do everything
in their power to help make these students successful.
This program will go hand-in-hand with the Team Up program,
giving additional support to these high-risk freshman. The case
manager has been hired and began work this past Monday. And you
have heard this already today, but the Department of Health has
also changed the name of the project from the Dropout
Prevention program to Positive Assistance for Students Success
or PASS.
The second of the two programs targeting freshman is the
AVID program. AVID is an acronym for Advancement Via Individual
Determination. A team made up of seven faculty members,
counselors and administrators attended a week-long AVID
training in San Diego this past summer. Incoming freshman
students, along with their parents, were then contacted, the
program was explained and the students were interviewed.
A total of 23 freshman students were selected to
participate in the program. Targeted students were those whose
parents had not attended college, but were students the
interview committee felt had the potential to succeed if given
the necessary guidance and a little extra push. They had GPAs
ranging from a 2.0 to 3.5. They are considered high-risk
students, but are students willing to try something new to
prepare them for college.
During class time, students are taught a variety of
techniques, in order to make them more successful students.
These techniques include notetaking, asking questions, simple
things such as sitting up straight in class and sitting in the
front of the classroom. The students also work with tutors who
are taught to ask questions of the students, not just give them
answers. In addition, there are guest speakers and presenters
who work with the class to provide them with valuable
information that can be used in our classes now, or give
students thoughts for the future.
Parents are expected to be involved with the students in
many ways, such as asking questions of their students at home,
meeting with the students' teachers on a regular basis, helping
in the classroom or even doing public relations to help the
program grow for the future.
AVID was selected as a program for the school on the basis
of its success, starting in California and spreading to 23
other States and 15 foreign countries. The success rates for
AVID students who finish college is 93 percent. I would like to
say we are getting a lot of help from Northern New Mexico
Community College and from ENLACE in the AVID program.
A fourth initiative that has just begun, but which will
continue in school during the next several years, is the New
Mexico Initiative on Schoolwide Positive Behavior Support. We
were one of 23 schools Statewide to be selected to participate
in training to change the way schools look at behavior. The
idea is to notice and reward positive behavior rather than
focusing on the negative. The research behind this shows that
suspending and punishing students does not work and change
needs to happen.
A team of students from the school, including one
grandparent guardian, participated in the first of several
trainings. The team has a coach working with it, and the coach
will participate in additional trainings. Through the
trainings, the team will learn positive alternatives and
interventions versus the traditional exclusionary and punishing
solutions. The team will be presenting information they
received at their first training to the Espanola High School
faculty at an in-service this afternoon.
In addition to the four programs mentioned, we are also
still reviewing the structure within the school to implement
interventions by the counseling staff, drug prevention
specialists, social workers and the PASS case manager, both
before students are suspended for inappropriate behavior and
after their return from suspension. We have also established a
threat assessment team made up of a school administrator,
associate superintendent, district safety officer, local police
and juvenile probation officers to help with the intervention
process.
We are putting much time, effort, money and faith into
these programs with the hope that we will be able to decrease
the dropout rate and increase the graduation rate. At this
time, only time will tell. And if anyone is interested in
information on any of these, I did put handouts at the back of
the room. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Averitt may be found in
additional material.]
Senator Bingaman. Thank you very much. I thank you all for
excellent testimony. Let me just ask a few questions that
occurred to me. Stan, in your testimony I was struck by the
indication that you went to a new policy, I believe this fall,
to close your high school campus?
Mr. Rounds. Senator, that was actually done 9 years ago.
Senator Bingaman. It was?
Mr. Rounds. Yes, sir.
Senator Bingaman. OK. Tell me your thinking on that and how
important you think that has been in trying to both improve
student performance and keep kids in school.
Mr. Rounds. Senator, we believe that for high school
students in particular, as well as junior high, that the
inability to maintain focus on what should be happening on
campus is directly relevant to whether you have the campus open
or closed. In the years prior to closing campus, our attendance
rates at the high school were much worse than the attendance
rates immediately following that and subsequent to that, and,
in fact, continue to increase.
Other things that people don't always think about, when the
students leave campus and come back on, so often at high school
levels, the problems come back with them, people that you don't
want on campus or events that you do not want on campus show
back up. A lot of times these are violence issues, drugs
issues, things that should not be happening on campus.
As we closed the campus, students became or continued to be
focused on what was happening there and did not have these
outside issues come into bear. So the safety issue, Senator, is
an example, fights and weapons, drugs have gone down
dramatically.
Senator Bingaman. Now, in practical terms, how do you
accomplish this closing of the campus? Do you have an
impenetrable barrier around the school that nobody can
penetrate? How does that work? [Laughter]
Mr. Rounds. The howitzer in the corridor.
Senator Bingaman. Right.
Mr. Rounds. Senator, we have no fence, in fact, at all
around our high school. What we simply have done is declared a
closed campus. You do cord off your areas of vehicular traffic
and limit the amount of vehicle movement with your staff. You
supervise your kids, which you do all day anyway. The issue
really becomes what convenience and opportunities have you
provided them? In all our campuses, we have brought vendors
from in town onto the campus. In fact, we are having a bit of a
go right now with our State and Federal food services people
about that particular aspect. I will save that for other
hearings.
But we felt that was a necessary component so the kids have
a reason to stay, a reason to congregate around the campus.
Senator Bingaman. They can either eat the school lunch or
buy lunch there on campus? Is that the way it works?
Mr. Rounds. Yes, sir. That is the way it works.
Interestingly, our type A lunch area, the Federal subsidized
area, prior to closing the campus, we had an average of 82
students a day eating there. This is in a high school of 1500.
Now that we have closed the campus, our average daily lunch
count is over 650 on that side, as well as, of course, the
participation of the other vendors. So we believe we have
increased student nutrition capabilities also.
Senator Bingaman. Let me just ask, Ms. Averitt, or Mr.
Haugen, there, if they have had any experience with this same
issue in your schools?
Mr. Haugen. As far as closing the schools?
Senator Bingaman. Yes.
Mr. Haugen. Our schools have been closed as long as I can
remember.
Senator Bingaman. So you do not have the problem of
students coming and leaving at lunch and coming back with
problems.
Mr. Haugen. No. That has not been a problem for our
particular situation.
Senator Bingaman. How about you, Ms. Averitt?
Ms. Averitt. No, We have a closed campus also, and it has
been there since I have been there, which is 14 years now we
have had a closed campus. Unlike Hobbs, our campus is
completely secured by a fence. We have a few entrance-only
gates. We have not, however, been able to bring in vendors at
lunch, which is a different problem, because we are on 100
percent free lunch. So we are not allowed to bring in outside
vendors.
Senator Bingaman. OK. Let me ask about another aspect of
this business of people just not coming to school, kids not
coming to school. I have had some meetings around the State on
this for the last several years. My impression is that one of
the problems that schools have is that they do not have good,
timely information about who is coming to school and who is
not, and any real timely mechanism for getting those kids to
school. I don't know what time school starts in the morning. Is
it 8 o'clock or 7:30?
Mr. Haugen. About that.
Senator Bingaman. If a student isn't there, they do not
have sort of a ready response. I can remember meeting with the
school board and school officials in Santa Fe, and they said,
well, their system was, they took attendance in the morning.
And then they had a computerized system where they would have
somebody there in the central office type in, into this calling
machine, I guess, the names of the students that were not
there. And then the system was preprogrammed to call the homes
of all these kids, and that was their response. And then you
talk to the kids and they say, Yeah, I am home watching TV and
the phone rings, and some computer program on there talking,
telling me I am not at school, and I hang up the phone and go
back to watching TV. How much is that a factor? You talk about
you have some truancy--I don't know what you called them. You
called them something besides truancy officers.
Mr. Rounds. They are truancy specialists.
Senator Bingaman. Yeah. They are people that go out and
bring kids to school, or find out why they are not there. Is
that basically it?
Mr. Rounds. Senator, yes, it is. And we reached that
decision because we had been using something called a Family
Involvement Team for a number of years on the very chronic
absence issues. We are talking the 20 or more absence kids.
Because those are usually very deep systemic problems within
the family. What we realized was that families lost control of
their children in many cases. And they really appreciate
reaching out for assistance in helping get the student to
class. These truancy prevention specialists we have are
especially trained to not only look for kids, but to identify
the patterns that are beginning to emerge at three and five
absences, begin to intervene with the home.
In Hobbs, as I mentioned in my testimony, a number of our
parents are monolingual Spanish. Many are coming into a world
where this is probably not their habit. And they appreciate the
opportunity to continue to discuss with them the real root of
the problem and counsel on joint efforts of how we are going to
intervene with that child. As was said by several people around
this table today, there are many different reasons why kids
turn off. But, the important thing that I know is, if you do
not get them in the door, you cannot teach them. So these
officers are doing that, and the results are dramatic. And we
will continue to watch that and perhaps expand if we feel the
need to.
Senator Bingaman. Let me ask you, Mr. Haugen, do you have a
similar capability, or how do you get kids to school if they do
not show up in the morning?
Mr. Haugen. Basically, we are very similar to the Hobbs
School District. We do have some attendance officers, that
their responsibility is to go out and work with the particular
schools on contacting the parents. The beginning of the year,
they are primarily used in tracking down the no-shows, students
who have not reported back to the school at the start of the
school year. During the course of the year, then, they work
with the individual schools on their daily attendance.
If your question is to how we do it on a daily basis, a lot
of that varies on the size of the school. Quite honestly, the
elementary schools, most of our are in the 5- to 700 range,
where attendance is probably about 97 percent per day. So you
are only talking, you know, roughly 20 students that may be
absent on any given day, which is fairly easy to contact the
parents individually. I have an attendance person who does
that.
Gadsden High School, on the other hand, with 2500 students,
running about 8 percent absenteeism means, daily, that is
probably 160 or so. There we have been using the Santa Fe
school system or computerized system to make contact with those
parents. We do also have other things set up. As far as
secondary schools, the students lose credit in courses at a
particular point. Once they have had seven absences in the
class, then they lose credit. At that point, it is the parents'
responsibility to come in and meet with the administration and
clarify the nature of those absences. But then again, it is
after they have accrued a certain number of absences.
Senator Bingaman. Yes, Mr. Hill? Go right ahead.
Mr. Hill. Just to speak to that point, YDI also operates a
charter school. And from our experience running Project
Succeed, we knew that a small school was going to be, in our
experience, beneficial for youth. In terms of folks not coming
to school, we do much of what they are talking about. Our case
managers actually try to assess where those ancillary problems
are that a young person might have before school or after
school.
Then, the expectations, in terms of expelling a student is
that, we do not expel anyone. The idea really is that we have
made a commitment to understand, to keep our school small. It
is a mission-driven school, so that everyone involved in the
school, from the principal to the teachers to the janitors to
the bus driver, everyone understands the mission. Because 80
percent of the students at the school have already been
expelled from other schools. So we know they have a history of
problems in terms of getting to school.
So the expectation really is, we are not going to let them
go. We are going to go to their homes. We are going to call
you. We are going to find you. Whatever we need to do. We will
tap into other programs that we have. We have a remediation
program, literacy projects, whatever it takes to keep that
young person in school. And sometimes, what we found is that
sometimes youth who have had trouble with attendance or staying
engaged in school sometimes need to get out of the classroom
environment and just kind of work on their own with an
individualized instructor for a week or two on something that
may be hard for them. Then they can reintegrate into a small
class of no more than 15 to 18 people.
Senator Bingaman. You know, I have been very impressed with
the programs you folks are engaged in. I think the frustration
that the schools have, the public schools, is that they do not
have the resources to give the individualized attention that
you are able to give in yours. I mean, I can remember meeting
with Chris Baca and some of the students that were in your
program at Rio Grande High School, and talking with the
students. And they would say what they liked about the YDI
program is all the individualized attention. And I said, Well,
why cannot you get that in your normal class work here in Rio
Grande High, and they said, Well, it is not possible. There are
35 to 40 kids in each class. The teacher is going to see 160,
180 kids a day, and it is just not realistic to expect the
teacher to give me the kind of personalized attention that I
can get here in this small group of 15, or whatever it is in
the YDI program.
Mr. Hill. I am glad they told you they like that, because
most of the time they really hate us for it. We tell them, We
are not going to let you go.
Senator Bingaman. Yeah. The interesting thing was they were
very sympathetic to the teachers in Rio Grande High. And they
said, you know, these are teachers who would spend the time
with us if they could.
Mr. Hill. Right
Senator Bingaman. But they are so overwhelmed with the
number of kids that they are trying to provide instruction to,
they just cannot spend that much time with us.
Ms. Averitt, let me ask you, how do you deal with the
problem there at Espanola of actually getting kids to school if
they do not show up when they are supposed to in the morning?
Ms. Averitt. Not very well, is the way we have been dealing
with it. We had, in fact, last year started doing a little
researching, contacting the schools that had truant officers to
see if that would be a possibility. Funding wise, we are not
able to do it. We are still using the automatic dialer that
calls home to the parents. But to try to give the parents a
chance to be home and not catch the kids during the day, we do
not turn the dialer on and start the calls until after 5:00 in
the evening. And we run it from 5:00 to 9:00. So we try to
get----
Senator Bingaman. There is really no effort during the
day--if the student does not show up in the morning, there is
no effort during that day to get the student to school?
Ms. Averitt. Not at all. We are still trying to find a good
way to do that. We have not come up with one yet.
Senator Bingaman. Let me ask, on this one other issue that
has come up here, on the previous panel and again here, about
the most troublesome year being the 9th grade. I think several
of you maybe mentioned that. I think, Ms. Averitt, you
mentioned that and Mr. Hill. I have heard that before. Any of
you give your ideas on this, but my impression is that that is
because the 9th grade is the first year that the student is in
the larger high school, so that the student can be in a middle
school, which is smaller, and then all of a sudden is being
dumped into a 2500-person high school, and they show up there
in the fall and look around and say, This is not for me, or may
decide, even before they show up, This is not for me, you know,
Nobody knows me in this place, and I don't know anybody in this
place.
Is the problem that we--again maybe this is my obsession
here, but these very large high schools are structured in such
a way that the connectiveness, that we were talking about in
the previous panel, is really not there for a lot of the
students who are going into the 9th grade. Am I right about
this problem? Since the microphone is already down here, let me
start at that end and go all the way down, and we will end up
with Stan.
Ms. Averitt. Yes, I think that has a lot to do with it. In
fact, the transition from the midschool into the 9th has
probably been even worse for the high school in the last couple
of years, because the 7th grade is on one campus, the 8th grade
is on one campus. First of all, the first 6 years they were in
their small communities. The Espanola schools are made up from
students from 11 completely different communities. They come
all together for the first time in 7th grade. They are on one
campus by themselves, then they go to the 8th grade for the
second year, and still on one campus. In 9th grade they enter
high school and come in with everyone else.
And we have been trying to come up with some transitional-
type programs for the students to help them feel, I guess, not
even more welcome, but not so lost. And we have played around
with the--in fact, next year, one of two things will happen.
Either they will remain at the high school and we will try to
put them into a Smaller Learning Community, called a Freshman
Academy, or they may stay at the 8th grade and we may start the
high school with 10th grade.
The 8th grade, right now, phase II of the building is
happening. It is a brand-new building. Last year we started
with just 8th graders. This next year we are trying to
determine whether to move the 7th grade up with the 8th or
leave the 9th grade back with the 8th. That is one thing. I am
not sure what is going to happen yet.
Senator Bingaman. I visited Cibola High there in
Albuquerque that had the 9th Grade Academy. They used the funds
through this Smaller Learning Communities Grant to set up what
they called their 9th Grade Academy, and they kept their 9th
graders in a separate wing. They had lunch together. They
stayed together as a student body during that extra year. And
they believed, at least at the time I was there, and this was a
couple of years ago, they told me they were very optimistic
this was going to substantially reduce their dropout problem. I
don't know that that was the result, but that was the way they
described it.
Ms. Averitt. We also applied for a Smaller Learning
Communities Grant, but we did not get the funding. We will have
to figure out how to do it without the help. It will mean more
teachers and everything.
Senator Bingaman. Right. Mr. Hill?
Mr. Hill. I would say your assessment is pretty dead on. In
addition to that, I would say that because that is a transitory
year in their educational careers, not utilizing something like
a System of Integrated Service Delivery, students who are
leaving middle school going to high school, not only are in a
new environment with new people, but what they are actually
losing is their support system, and they have to create an
entirely new one.
We actually created the Project Achieve program because we
saw that phenomena happening with students coming out of middle
school into high school. YDI, as a community-based
organization, has the ability to work with schools. For
example, Rio Grande kids who are leaving Ernie Pyle to go to
work with YDI, this creates the continuity for them, transition
from an environment they know into one they really have no
support. They can always fall back on the external support that
YDI provides.
In case management, mental health and so forth, we have
been able to act somewhat as an advocate and bridge from middle
school to high school and create some continuity for young
students who are leaving and moving into high school.
Senator Bingaman. Thank you. Yes?
Mr. Haugen. Senator Bingaman, we totally agree with you as
far as the smaller schools being more effective. I think a lot
of times you see, in high schools now, the 9th grade is kind of
like the freshman year in college, a screening point to
eliminate people and put them into a certain category. In our
district we have two high schools. You see a difference between
the two schools, even though the populations are almost
identical.
Gadsden High School has approximately 2500 students, and
Santa Teresa about 1100 students. You can see the difference in
terms of their attendance. Gadsden's attendance rate of 90 to
92 percent, and Santa Teresa, the smaller school, has 95 to 96
percent. Their dropout rates from last year correlate to that.
Gadsden ran slightly under 8 percent; Santa Teresa, 5 percent.
All those factors, I think, contribute to the success of
the students. And the fact they do not have the contact that
they need, they do not feel like there is a person, within such
a large system, is kind of lost, particularly freshman. Santa
Teresa High School went to a team concept similar to middle
schools, with pods or teams of teachers that work specifically
with freshman to make that contact. That has worked very
successfully there. We are looking to incorporate something
similar to that at Gadsden High School, with the very large
freshman class we have there. They are very correlated in terms
of the size of the school and other factors.
Senator Bingaman. Thank you very much. Stan, you get the
last word here.
Mr. Rounds. Senator, thank you. Let me say to you, we
studied this issue very carefully in Hobbs. We were losing a
lot of kids in that freshman school, 600 in size. This year we
have had a tremendous start. So, certainly, size would be an
issue, but I believe it may be more than that.
The school's structure last year, 7, 8 and the junior high,
three of which we have, also, were approximately 600 in size.
We were still losing our 9th graders. So the other part of the
mosaic we are looking at is not just size, perhaps it is also
the focus of the mission. That is why we felt we needed to have
a freshman school standing alone. I am happy to report to you
we handpicked a hundred percent of the staff for that school.
This year we also added a Dean of Students, and we believe part
of the answer is to increase our mission of student services.
Kids at that age need special handling, special care.
A lot of the points that have been raised around this table
today, that we are trying to develop without extra help from
anybody. This is directly an operational process. Certainly you
are dead-on as far as school size, with one other caveat to
this.
The second factor we see is transition from elementary to
junior high school, and that is our next most important
mission. The transition of 9th graders out of junior high, we
believe, need a special focus there. I am happy to report that
so far this year we are having tremendous results also in that
respect. So it is a little bit of a convoluted answer. I think
you are certainly on as far as the need to focus on 9th grade
and reduce school size.
Senator Bingaman. I do think these transition points where
you take a student who has been going to one school and move
them across town, or blocks away, and tell them to show up
somewhere else, I think that is where some of the problem of
kids leaving school and losing interest and feeling
disconnected, I think that is where it occurs.
We have got some people in the audience who want to speak
up. Let me call on them just for short statements, if they
would, and conclude the hearing. Yes, sir?
Mr. Liston. My name is Dr. Earl Liston, and I teach at Dona
Ana Branch Community College. I heard several comments made
about the teenage pregnancy problem we have in New Mexico. And
right now I am working quite a bit with a program, this is
directed at trying to prevent dropouts of pregnant teenagers.
And right now in New Mexico we have approximately 38 or 41, I
believe it is, high schools participating in this program, with
approximately 700 girls. The figure changes every day. But I
think we are--that it is a successful program.
It is a controversial program because a lot of people say
the minute we start providing day care and instructional
classes for these kids, it encourages more to join the group.
We are not finding that to be true, at least for the group that
is headquartered in Socorro. I think we really need to think
about that. For example, here in Las Cruces we have about 3300
high school girls, and right now, in these programs for
parenting, we have about 90 girls. That is about 2 to 3 percent
of our girls in Las Cruces in the programs. The percentage of
pregnant girls we have in our high schools is much higher than
that, because many do not participate in this program.
I think that is a big group of kids. We are talking nearly
700 that we can possibly stop from dropping out. In my college
classes, I have a lot of these girls who did drop out, and they
are now in their early 1920s, and they are coming back after
getting their GEDs at community college. And if you come to our
graduations you will see more kids in gowns graduating from
GEDs than we do have AAs. So it is an encouraging thing to see
happening, with them coming back and then they end up taking
classes.
I am teaching a nursing division, and many of those now
want to become nurses, but they are 20-, 21-year-old people who
have one, two or even sometimes three children in elementary
school, meaning they had these children at 13, 14 and 15. I was
talking to some 13-year-old mothers the other day. So we are
seeing that is a burgeoning problem. There is not a school
administrator in here who does not know what that is about.
Senator Bingaman. Thank you very much for your comment. I
will take one more question and then I would like to conclude
the hearing because these witnesses need to get back on the
road to their distant parts of the State.
Ms. Sanchez. My name is Alicia Sanchez. I am the director
of the Southern New Mexico Collaborative. The first comment is
about data. As long as we continue to collect data on an event
level, we are collecting data only for data sake. That does not
give us the information that we need to create the appropriate
programs and be able to give resources where they are needed. I
would think, at the Congressional level, if we made some
decisions about longitudinal studies as opposed to event
studies, then we have data we can use for programs' sake. So I
think that is really important that we do tell the NCES that we
need to get away from events and more into longitudinal
studies.
The second thing, we have heard a lot this morning about
interconnectedness, but the interconnectedness has been about
institutions or maybe even individuals inside. I would like to
just say there is an interconnectedness that relates to Latino
kids in terms of their psyche, and when you look at Latino kids
in schools today they are invisible. We are not in the text
books. We are not in the magazines. The only thing you see
about Latinos is we are in prisons, or gangs or whatever the
case is. We need some help at the Congressional level to change
the text books and push Hard Cope and Brace and all these other
groups to begin to be multicultural so we are included in the
books.
One of the things our kids say now, because we are
providing a lot of Latino literature, You mean there are
Latinos that write books? And they are writing about things as
simple as Mi Casita, and presenting ideas in another way that,
Wow, this is exciting. So this is a really big thing, and we
need to work on that.
The last thing I want to say is Las Cruces school districts
have, under the leadership of Mr. Davis and the school board,
we now are going to have partnership with an action team that,
together, we are going to begin to look at what are the
barriers to success for students. We will provide strategic
goals that the school board then can put into its own strategic
plan. I think it is going to be exciting. That partnership will
provide some lessons for other groups.
Senator Bingaman. Very, very good. One person here who
wanted to speak. You are going to really be the final word. Go
ahead.
Ms. Hines. Maria Hines, and I am also with the ENLACE
program. And I am one of the parents that are developing Family
Centers at Albuquerque High. And when you are talking about the
way the children transfer from 8th grade to 9th grade, where we
have been real successful is parents from the high school level
are going down to the middle school and we are meeting with
those parents. And then when we have met with 20 students, we
follow 20 students from 8th grade to 9th grade. And it is the
constant connection that we have with them at the family
center, not only with the parents there but the parents coming
into the school.
The other thing I think you need to know is the family is
very instrumental in really challenging our kids, also. We just
had our PSAT tests, and we have a really low turnout of our
kids taking that test. But through our efforts, through the
parents getting out there and telling the kids they need to
take this, it is really important. Their response was, I am not
smart enough, I don't have the funding, I can't do it. So it is
that encouragement that is needed. So this year, for the first
time at Albuquerque High, we had 40 kids. It was the highest
turnout we had. We are encouraging our kids they can do it.
Last, but not least, what we are trying to develop is a
community within the school. Because I think we can develop a
lot of programs, but until we truly get our parents involved, I
think we are going to continue to keep seeing the same issues.
Senator Bingaman. Thank you very much. Thank you for that
testimony. And let me thank all these witnesses. Again, I think
all this is very useful to me in trying to understand the
issues, trying to identify things we can try to do, to be
supportive, out of Congress. I appreciate it. I think it has
been a useful hearing, and we will undoubtedly have more of
these in the future. This problem is not going away. I think it
is getting somewhat better. I think the focus on this problem
is very encouraging. I think that that is a major step forward,
and so I appreciate all the attention to it. And again, I thank
the witnesses for being here.
[Additional material follows.]
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
Prepared Statement Kristin Meurer
Good morning, I am Dr. Kristine Meurer, Director of the School
Health Unit of the State Department of Education. It is a privilege for
me to be here representing the State Department and State Board of
Education at the invitation of Senator Jeff Bingaman. We look forward
to providing testimony on the important topic of dropout prevention to
the Senate's Health. Education and Pension Committee.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Michael Davis sends his
greeting and an apology for being unable to attend this hearing. The
State Board of Education is also meeting today in Santa Fe.
We truly appreciate the work that Senator Bingaman does on behalf
of New Mexicans. In particular, he has become a champion of many
programs to improve public education and the educational outcomes of
our children.
A specific area of his attention and concern has been students who
drop out of school before earning a diploma. He has been diligent in
calling this concern to the attention of educators and the public, and
has been a leader in seeking and securing resources to address the
needs of students at risk of dropping out.
The State Department of Education wishes to go on record in support
of Senator Bingaman's efforts to continue to fund the federal dropout
program that he has been so instrumental in establishing. We hope that
our testimony today will reinforce the fact that the concerted efforts
of policy makers and educators can have a tremendous positive impact on
school completion.
The primary focus of my remarks will be to provide an overview of
the status of the dropout problem in New Mexico. Those of you who are
familiar with this topic are aware that there has historically been a
good deal of confusion and frustration in understanding and
interpreting dropout statistics due to the wide variety of methods that
were used to collect, compute and report this data. To remedy this
problem, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has
attempted during the past two decades to establish and get all states
to agree to adopt a standard methodology to report dropout data. New
Mexico adopted the NCES standards and definitions in 1992-93, and is
one of 37 states currently using this methodology to report results.
This standardization ensures the reliability and consistency of New
Mexico dropout data for the past decade.
The method used by New Mexico to report statistics is called an
``event'' rate. This statistic represents the students who drop out of
school during a specific school year (and don't re-enroll) without
completing a high school program. This measure provides important
information on an annual basis of how effective we have been in keeping
students in school.
So how has New Mexico fared in this past decade using NCES dropout
standards? As you can see from our table, our dropout rate in 1992-93
was 8.0%. Over the next two nears it climbed to 3.7%. Senator Bingaman
and state policy makers expressed great concern about this increasing
trend and challenged educators to better address the needs of students
at risk of leaving school prematurely.
As a result of this public attention and their own concerns about
increasing dropout rates, educators began to focus more intently on
solutions to this problem. Many schools and districts developed and
implemented strategies to identify and intervene with students at risk
of dropping out, and to attract dropouts back into their programs. At
the same time, the Mate Board of Education and the State Legislature
collaborated on a proposal to add an ``at risk'' factor to the public
school funding formula to increase district resources to support
intervention programs.
State law established the at-risk factor in 1997-98, and schools
used this resource to expand existing programs and establish new
programs. The increased attention, focus and resources are working. New
Mexico's dropout rate has been steadily declining since 1994-95. The
reductions have been significant, as you can see from this table Today,
it is my privilege to release for the first time the statewide dropout
rate for the 2000-2001 school year. The dropout rate is 5.3%. This is
the lowest dropout rate since New Mexico began reporting dropout rates
in 1977-1973. The 2000-200 complete dropout report with data on the
performance of all schools and districts in the state will be released
in December 2002.
As significant as the percentage reduction has been since 1994-95,
the actual numbers have even more impact. The 1994-95 rate of 8.7%
represents 7,792 students who dropped out that year. The 5.3% rate for
2000-2001. represents 5,095 students. In other words, New Mexico
educators have been successful in developing strategies and programs to
keep 2,697 students in school that would have been dropouts just 7
years ago!
The NCES also uses US census data to report ``status'' dropout
rates which measure young adults ages 18-24 who are not currently
enrolled in school and who have not received a high school diploma or
GED. This statistic has also improved significantly in New Mexico since
1994-96, (78.8%) compared to 83% in 1998-2000. While this is still
slightly below the national completion rate of 85.7%, New Mexico now
out performs our neighboring states of Colorado (81.6%), Texas (79.4%)
and Arizona (73.5%) in high school completion rates.
Schools have also made considerable progress in reducing the
dropout rates for ethnic populations with historically high dropout
rates. The dropout rate for Native Americans in 2000-2001 is 5.9%, a
reduction from 8.6% in 1994-95. Schools have also had success in
impacting the area where dropout rates have always been the highest in
New Mexico, Hispanic students. The rate for these students has fallen
from 10.9% in 1994-95 to 6.7% in 2000-2001.
This is extremely good news and cause for congratulations to the
New Mexico educators who have been instrumental in this turnaround. But
there is still a great deal of work to be done to ensure that all
students complete a high school program and have the opportunity to
pursue a career or further education options of their choice.
l hope you will have the opportunity today to hear directly from
some of the practitioners responsible for these positive statistical
trends. While policy makers and state and district administrators can
help create the climate for successful dropout prevention programs, it
is the dedication of those who work in the ``trenches,'' that keep kids
in school. Credit should also be given to those thousands of ``at-
risk'' students who have overcome challenges and persevered to complete
their high school education.
Before concluding my remarks, I would like to spend a few minutes
reviewing the current priorities of the State Board and State
Department of Education in addressing the needs of high-risk students.
The State Board continues to place great emphasis on early literacy
as a primary strategy in ensuring success in any student's mid school
and high school rears. The Board is committed to the goal of having all
students reading at grade level by grade 3.
Funds made available to the state under the ``Reading First''
program of ``No Child Left Behind'' (the federal reauthorization of
ESEA) will provide our state with over $8 million dollars this year to
support literacy in grades K-3. We are proud that we are among the
first 10 states to be approved by the U.S. Department of Education for
this program due to the quality of our application, and we are
confident that research-based approaches to literacy will help us reach
our grade 3 goal.
The State Board has also placed a priority on student completion by
including recommendations for high school reform in its 2003
legislative package. The Board is highly supportive of changes in law,
regulation and practice that will give greater flexibility, to schools
in designing programs to meet the diverse needs of their students. This
will allow schools to better align coursework and graduation
requirements to post high school pathways selected by students.
The Board is also proposing programs that will provide more
stability and consistency when students wish to get concurrent high
school and college credit by taking a course at a local post secondary
school. In addition the board is prcposing a ``middle college'' pilot
that will allow students to work on both a high school diploma and an
associates (2 year) degree in a compressed period of time.
The Board is also looking for opportunities for students to earn
credit through high quality virtual schooling options.
I would also like to briefly mention a dropout prevention program
that is currently being piloted through a partnership between the State
Department of Education and the Department of Health. Senators Bingaman
and Domenici have been instrumental in providing federal funding for
this pilot. I have been personally involved in both the development and
implementation of this program, and am highly optimistic that this will
prove successful.
The dropout prevention pilot project's name is PASS- Positive
Assistance for Student Success. For the next two years three high
Schools in New Mexico- Cuba, Belen and Espanola Valley High Schools are
each receiving $183,000 to participate in the pilot project.
The pilot project is providing direct support to 9th grade students
who are struggling with grades, attendance or personal issues, which
make them more likely to drop out of school. The goal of the program is
to provide support to students and their families early in their high
school education so that they are less likely to see dropping-out of
school as their only option. Struggling students are referred to case
managers who work with the student, their family and the school
community to identify problems and create positive solutions to help
the student succeed. The ease managers also help students and families
find other in-school and community services that will support them. The
funds are also being used to develop support services in such tutoring,
mentoring, and mental health counseling for at-risk students.
The coordinator of the PASS program, Nissa Patterson, is here
today. She provides on-going technical assistance and training to the
pilot schools and the case managers.
In summary, we have accomplished a great deal, but there is still
much work to be done to ensure that all students complete high school.
I will be glad to respond to questions or to obtain any additional
information requested by the committee. Thank you again for the
opportunity to present this testimony on behalf of the State Board and
State Department of Education.
Prepared Statement of Karen Sanchez-Griego,
ENLACE ``ENgaging LAtino Communities for Education'' is a regional
and Statewide collaborative for the purpose of leveraging educational
impacts for success among Hispanic Youth.
ENLACE in New Mexico is a movement embraced by the community to
strengthen a collaborative effort to affect our educational pipeline.
45% of Hispanic students in the state of New Mexico do not graduate
from High School therefore not affording them the opportunity to obtain
a higher education.
50% of Hispanic students on New Mexico Higher Education campuses do
not receive their degrees.
1. New Mexico received W.K. Kellogg Foundation Funding in the
amount of 4.9 Million dollars for 4 years to address Hispanic Higher
Education.
2. 125 institutions applied for the initial planning grant, with 30
of the 125 received planning funds based on this proposal. New Mexico
was one of the 30 to receive $100,000 for the planning phase.
4. The planning monies were to be used to determine barriers to
educational success create and establish well-designed programs that
would assist Hispanic students in the state of New Mexico to graduate
from High School and go on to college. All programs address the (K-16)
pipeline.
5. Programs were developed with the partners in our Community.
Parents, families, business, non-profit organizations, community grass-
roots groups, students, professors, teachers, educational institutions,
administrators, and New Mexico charity groups. (This recognizes that
education is everyone's business).
6. Out of the 30 states, which received a planning grant, only 7
states were given implementation grants. New Mexico was chosen as one
of the 7 states.
7. There are 4 grants in New Mexico, one in the Southern part of
state Las Cruces, Northern part, Santa Fe, Espanola, etc., and Central
New Mexico, Albuquerque, as well as an overall state grant, which
encompasses all of New Mexico.
8. Our goals are to make systemic changes in our educational
systems that are positive and productive for Hispanic students.
9. We are also looking at National Policy changes in reference to
Hispanic students and the future of their education.
In the creation of this statewide collaborative model our goal was
to have a strong impact statewide, and this is currently being done. We
have seen significant potential for the future in terms of making
history in statewide educational development with others. It took
several leaders from across our state with higher education leading the
charge to have a dialogue to work towards programs that are best for
Hispanics in our state kindergarten through college, and do this with
limited funding.
Together we are sharing limited resources, which would maximize our
efforts to impact our youth. Our collaborative efforts have already
began the process in creating change not only locally and regionally in
New Mexico, but at State and National levels as well. We through ENLACE
are caring for the ``WHOLE CHILD'' in walking the talk of Hispanic
cultural ways, values and including families as part of the educational
structure of institutions.
Our focus and collaboration statewide deals with: 1. K-16
education, policy analysis revision and reform; 2. Leadership
development at student, family, community, and institutional levels; 3.
Enhance statewide effectiveness of communication and dissemination
throughout the K-16 pipeline focused on sharing and refining ``best
practices''; and 4. Close coordination of process and outcome
evaluation on three levels (cluster statewide, local projects) to
improve educational outcomes for all New Mexico Hispanics.
New Mexico is the only statewide collaboration nationwide and was
chosen due to our states vision and thinking outside the box. Many
Hispanic children and families would not have access to ENLACE, via
funding without great people in our state who had a vision.
Statewide all projects have three distinct, yet interlocking
programs to reach our goals and fall in line with President Bush's
Executive order 13230, in the development of an advisory Commission on
Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans, to address such
concerns. The development of ENLACE came before the Presidents
Executive Order.
Programs to reach our Goals and assist in a positive effect on Hispanic
dropouts in our state are being accomplished via the following
components.
FAMILY & COMMUNITY EDUCATION
Education Access Rooms (EAR's) are being utilized as extensions to
our local schools in local community centers, where students receive
much needed credits. Education Access Rooms use distance-learning
resources, tutors, and parent involvement. We target 9th and 10th grade
students at risk of dropping out these centers work closely with these
students' families,
FAMILY CENTERS
Family Centers are currently located at three high schools and we
are in the process of development of these centers at each high school
across the state. These centers were the brainchild of Grass-roots
community activists Maria Hines and Christina Chavez-Apodaca. They
provide a multitude of services, but mostly they empower families in
the schools surrounding community to Have a voice in the education of
their children, at the same time as providing a unique place where
families can come and share there concerns about our schools, one-on-
one with other parents. The Family Centers also have a strong
relationship with bringing students who have dropped out back to
school. Parents receive lists of students who are considered dropouts
from the principal and/or are not attending classes, these parents then
go door to door within the community speaking to students and parents
on these lists asking them why their student are not in school and how
they can assist in getting the students back to school. Our parents
call these ``knock and talks.'' A significant number of students who
have dropped out have returned back to school because of these effort.
Parent Universities are helping parents become strong advocates and
coaches for their children.
RETENTION
ENLACE has a variety of retention components within the grant and
the retention efforts steam from K-16. Our students have mentors at all
levels, support on campuses through course development such as; Chicano
Studies classes, outside course work at the neighboring community
centers, one-on-one support to assist with professors, financial aide,
and leadership to assist in tackling the bureaucratic systems.
In order to address the needs of Hispanic students throughout our
educational pipeline, we have targeted key points of the educational
systems to intervene and assist students. Beginning in the middle
schools, mentors are provided for at-risk students. In the high
schools, Family Centers/Parent Universities will assist the schools and
families to connect to better serve students. Chicano Studies courses
and Latino literature at all ENLACE target high schools will provide
culturally relevant teaching and empower Hispanic students to excel in
their studies. AVIDS courses have also been added. At out institutions
of higher education throughout the state Early Warning Intervention
systems are in place to assist incoming freshman maneuver through the
educational system and succeed.
A very unique component in which university students participate in
mentoring ``at risk'' middle school students provides one-on-one
relationship building, provides a supportive environment for students
to obtain academic success, make a unique connection, encourage
leadership, and provides support for these students to stay in school.
Over 1500 students from across New Mexico have received support from
ENLACE.
HISPANIC TEACHER PIPLINE
As we know the success of student retention greatly depends on good
teaching and teachers. Therefore we have developed the Hispanic Teacher
Pipeline to increase the Teacher pool in New Mexico and provide
opportunities within the pipeline for Hispanics young and old to obtain
a higher decree in the field of teaching.
PATHWAYS TO TEACHING
In an effort to ensure that our teacher population reflects the
cultural wealth and diversity of New Mexico, Hispanic students will be
exposed to teaching as a career as early as elementary school and on
through college. The Pathways to Teaching program will encourage local
Hispanic students to pursue teaching by providing them with shadowing
experiences, workshops, and scholarship assistance. Additionally,
Educational Assistants are encouraged to finish their teaching decrees
to return to and work in New Mexico.
EVALUATION
As we know in order to make systemic changes for Hispanics in the
state of New Mexico we need to have data both qualitative and
quantitative that show how the effects of the ENLACE movement are in
creating better more productive citizens in the state of New Mexico.
This is a strong component, and these results will be shared with the
main stakeholders in New Mexico as we progress to right for legislative
and national policy issues for Hispanics in our state as well as in the
nation.
Given the mission of promoting greater access to higher education,
retention and graduation from higher educational institutions for
Latino/Hispanic youth, ENLACE is organized to address policy at the
institutional, local, state and federal levels. To achieve this, the
ENLACE initiative identifies the institutional practices of barriers
that interfere with student recruitment achievement, retention, and
graduation. In addition, we are addressing local school district
policies that can facilitate the goals of the ENLACE initiative. We are
working with local partnerships as catalysts for surfacing and
informing state policymakers as then grapple with budget and policy
priorities. We are informing state policymakers at the state level,
where much of the education policies are generated. The collective
lessons learned from the 13 ENLACE sites Nationwide will be
instrumental as the initiate collaborates with other national entities
to inform both the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act as it
relates to unique and specific needs of Latino/Hispanic students) and
the implementation of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act
(ESEA). We are providing services and support to students within the
(K-16) educational system. ENLACE is the first initiative with a
national impact and will have documented results about how to support
the educational success of Latino/Hispanic students nationwide.
This nation is in a crisis in reference to Hispanic/Latino
education, and it has a direct impact on our future economic health.
Therefore financial and legislative support nationally is greatly
needed to sustain the efforts ENLACE has made in retaining dropout
students and moving them on to higher education. We applaud the Kellogg
Foundation for their initiative to address dropout's retention and
access to higher education for Latino youth. We look forward to work
with the Federal Government to increase educational access for Latinos.
Prepared Statement of McClellan Hall
The National Indian Youth Leadership Project is a non-profit, youth
development organization that has been working with young people for
nearly 20 years. Our work is based on a coherent set of principles and
beliefs about how young people can develop their skills and
competencies to become capable individuals. Although we have been
funded by various federal and state agencies to do ``prevention'',
whether it is specifically targeted toward alcohol, tobacco and other
drugs, dropout or other perceived deficits, our programs all include
the basic components of outdoor adventure, service and service-
learning, blended with a strong cultural awareness component. Our
approaches, although they are primarily targeted to Native American
youth, have been used with mixed populations in various venues and have
been successful in building resiliency, self-confidence and self-
efficacy.
In 2002, NIYLP was recognized by the Center for Substance Abuse
Prevention (Rockville, Md) with the Exemplary Program Award for our
Project Venture approach. PV is typical of all NIYLP programs in our
approach to prevention. We never call our programs ``prevention
programs'' and we don't directly talk about the topic we are working to
prevent. Project Venture focuses on positive alternative activities,
which engage young people in meaningful roles in community, encourage
participants to stretch beyond self-imposed limitations and develop
skills which will foster resiliency. Our evaluation data places us
among the top four or five programs in a recent national cross-site
evaluation study conducted by CSAP. In addition, we were found to be
the most effective program, of all those serving Native American
populations. As a result of our national recognition, we now have
nearly 20 replication sites across the United States. These programs
are funded by a variety of sources, but are intended to adapt the
principles of our model in various tribal and mixed populations of
youth, in Hawaii, Alaska, North Carolina, Montana, Idaho, Arizona and
New Mexico. As mane as 10 new sites may be starting up in 2003.
The schools are the most obvious places where we have been able to
access populations of young people to recruit for our programs.
Alternative school programs, public, tribal and Bureau of Indian
Affairs schools, as well as other programs also offer accessibility to
numbers of young people. However, we recognize that large numbers of
disaffected young people leave school before graduation, for many of
the same reasons that are cited for involvement in Alcohol, tobacco and
other drug abuse. In our experience, going back nearly 20 years, a
number of factors influence the relationships that young people,
particularly those from so-called minority groups, have with the
schools. The following questions are relevant: Are the school
administrators friendly towards the particular cultural group? Is the
school system parent-friendly? Are there subtle messages that
discourage or exclude certain groups? Does the school system embrace
the culture of the community? Are there members of the cultural group
represented in the school staff makeup? Are there opportunities for
experiential learning? Does the school have any accommodations to
different learning styles? What are the attitudes of the administration
toward youth culture, in general? These are just a few of the factors
that may impact the dropout rate. In Native American communities, which
have the highest drop out rates in New Mexico, as yell as nationally.
We have noticed some trends and can offer some recommendations and
strategies that will increase the probability that our youth will
complete high school. Three things schools can do immediately to alter
the dropout rate:
SERVICE-LEARNING
In our approach to drop out prevention, we encourage schools to be
more student and community-friendly. Offering alternative approaches,
such as service-learning is one way to extend the boundaries of the
classroom to include the community. Partnering with Community-based
Organizations shows respect and makes a statement about the commitment
of the school to the community. Student-driven projects, where
community needs are researched, assessed and projects planned with
extensive student input are a proven effective way to engage young
people in issues that are meaningful to them and get them to invest
themselves in their community. Youth voice should not be seen as
optional or irrelevant. Quality service-learning opportunities have
strong connections to the academic curriculum and can support the
culture of the community. Intergenerational projects, which link youth
and elders have great potential for authentic learning opportunities,
as well as building connections to the culture and community.
Conversely, alienation is seen as a major factor in youth violence,
vandalism and general apathy in our communities.
QUALITY AFTER-SCHOOL PROGRAMS
One trend that we have observed is that the schools have
increasingly become more like the prison industry, even adopting some
of the same vocabulary. Pressures to raise standardized test scores has
eliminated many of the little things that schools can do to make young
people more comfortable. Economic realities have eliminated many of the
courses (arts, music and others) that young people used to enjoy as
electives. Other extracurricular activities have been limited or
curtailed due to budget constraints. Budget cuts often limit the
transportation options, which impact after school possibilities. In
rural areas, many communities simply can't afford to run extra busses.
Many teachers are overworked and underappreciated and often can't take
on one more program. However, the after school programs are often the
only time teachers and students in need of help can find the time to
try alternative approaches and have more one-on-one opportunities. The
daily routine for most teachers does not allow individual attention.
A quality after school program could make the difference between
success and failure. In many cases the perception is that students are
blamed for the failures of the school system and teachers assume a
punitive attitude towards so-called minority group students. This is
especially evident where Native youth, who come to school speaking a
language other than English, are perceived to be holding the school
back, in terms of test scores, reading levels. etc.
ADVENTURE PROGRAMMING/RECONNECTING WITH THE NATURAL WORLD
Among other things, our programs have been very successful, in what
evaluators call ``school-bonding'', which includes improved attendance,
reduced disciplinary incidents, improved grades and increased
involvement in school-related activities. In our experience, young
people have a different perception of school when they have shared
experiences with teachers outside the classroom walls. The natural
world provides a context for activities that challenge young people to
stretch beyond self imposed limitations. Dialogue with young people,
where adults help young people draw meaning from experience, enhances
learning opportunities and helps both teachers and students realize
that serious learning often takes place outside of school. Respect for
the environment is difficult to develop indoors. The holistic approach
reaches young people in ways that are not possible in a classroom.
CONCEPTUAL FOUNDATIONS OF OUR APPROACHES
Programs must be holistic, incorporating physical, cognitive,
psychosocial and spiritual development; Experiential, learning by
doing; Structured risk and challenge; Connected to the natural world;
Student/youth centered; Developmentally appropriate scope and sequence
of activities; Culturally relevant; Focus on building life skills and
relationships; and High coherence and intensity of interventions.
RESEARCH FINDINGS
Project Venture consistently reduces overall risk levels for
program youth compared to non-program peers (American Drug and Alcohol
Survey).
Program youth demonstrate greater degree of internal locus of
control and sense of empowerment that comparison group at all ages, at
twice the rate for high school age group. (Locus of Control Scale for
Youth).
High school program youth show significant reduction in past 30 day
alcohol use, in feelings of depression and in aggressive behavior when
compared to nonprogram youth. (Strategies for Success survey).
Middle school program youth score more favorably that comparison
peers in areas of depression, aggressive behavior and in perception of
harm caused by alcohol, tobacco and other drugs. (Strategies for
Success survey).
Project Venture recognized as one of top four prevention programs
and top program of all serving Native American youth in national cross-
site evaluation study of over 80 CSAP-funded programs. 2002 US Dept. of
Health and Human Services.
The following is a summary of major findings from an extensive
national cross-site evaluation study conducted by the Center for
Substance Abuse Prevention, completed in 2002, by Dr. Fred Springer, of
EMT Associates.
As youth age, levels of risk and protection shift considerably. The
findings on risk, protection and substance abuse and the age of youth
reveals a consistent pattern. As youth move through the adolescent
years there is a steady movement from the protective to the risk
conditions in most of the external and internal factors. The movement
is greater in family bonding, school bonding and peer attitudes-those
factors that refer to the social environments to which youth are
building attachments as they mature. In my assessment, this means that
as young people move through the adolescent years, family and school
become less influential and the peer group becomes stronger. This
presents a challenge to schools to be aware that they need to do more
to attract and bond with young people. However, the trend with schools
seems to be to toughen policies and become less flexible at this
critical juncture.
Gender plays an important role in risk, protection, and substance
use. The data suggest that conditions in the neighborhood have a
greater influence on substance use in males than in females, while the
relationships between all the internal risk and protection factors and
substance use are substantially stronger for females than for males.
This finding may help us understand why more males than females seem to
be dropping out of school. Young men need to be bonding with positive
influences at this critical age, yet most of the accessible role models
seem negative (media, music, etc.).
Connectedness protect against substance use. Positive behavioral
outcomes among youth reflect a tight interweaving of external and
internal protective factors. Connectedness to family and school forms
the core of this protection. Meaningful involvement is key to
connectedness. When the external environments of family and school
offer youth involvement that is challenging, provides recognition, and
is rewarding, these environments serve as powerful protective factors
against substance use and will increase the likelihood of staying in
school.
The peer environment is critically linked to substance use. Youth
whose peers do not use substances tend not to use substances
themselves. Youth whose peers disapprove of substance use also report
less use of substances. Because peer relationships are strongly
associated with the family, school, and community environments in which
youth reside, positive changes in those external environments can
effect the peer environment and impact individual substance use. This
obviously goes beyond programs such as DARE, that have no evidence of
meaningful lasting impact. The schools have to welcome young people and
provide a nurturing environment. In reality, youth perceive schools to
be increasingly rigid and inflexible. The environment in many schools
is perceived to be more like prison.
Broadening the range of protective influences in the external
environments increases protection against substance use. Efforts to
strengthen families (by encouraging communication, appropriate
supervision, and positive norm setting) and to strengthen schools as
caring communities (to improve school bonding) increase the protection
of youth against substance use and increase the likelihood of staving
in school.
In our conversations with Dr. Springer, the most important factor
he found in his extensive analysis of prevention programs was the
concept of ``connectedness''. This seems to be the single factor that
comes through in reading the study. The efforts that were successful in
preventing alcohol, substance abuse, dropout, etc. had the concept of
connectedness in common.
McClellan Hall is the Founder and Executive Director of the
National Indian Youth Leadership Project, a Gallup-based national non-
profit established in 1986. Mr. Hall is of Cherokee descent, with roots
in both North Carolina and Oklahoma. He has devoted nearly 30 years to
serving Native American and other youth, as a teacher, counselor,
principal of two tribal schools and a consultant. He is the recipient
of the Kurt Hahn Award, from the Association for Experiential Education
(named for the founder of Outward Bound and the United World College
program), the Spirit of Crazy Horse Award (from the Black Hills
Institute and Augustana College) and other awards. Mr. Hall is a
graduate of the University of Washington's Native Teacher Education
Program and holds a Masters Degree from Arizona State University.
Prepared Statement of Stan Rounds
When it comes to drop out statistics in Hobbs, the numbers speak
for themselves. The percentage of kids who dropped out of Hobbs High
School before graduation dipped from 3.4 percent in 1995-96 to 1
percent in 2001-2002.
That compares to the statewide average of 6 percent.
During that same time span, the percentage of children who entered
a Hobbs kindergarten class and graduated 12 years later jumped to from
45.3 percent to 87 percent.
But putting a face on the numbers might be the easier approach.
So that's why I'll start with Jake Loflin.
Last year at this time Jake was a Hobbs ninth-grader headed for
trouble--in school and out. A drug user who had anger issues and was a
discipline problem, Jake faced long-term suspension and was on the
brink of leaving school for good. However, he also had the option of
enrolling in the Hobbs School District's TARS program, a bootcamp style
class that's a combination of calisthenics, crew cuts and tough love.
After spending 16 weeks in the program that requires students to
curb both their attitude and temper, Laughlin--with other spit-and-
polished classmates in uniform--marched to the front of the Hobbs
School Board room last Tuesday night and collected his TARS diploma.
His mom and plenty of other proud parents attended a ceremony that
had more than one person reaching for their Kleenex.
Hobbs Mayor Bobby Wallach showed up too. To give Jake a heroism
award for helping save the lives of an El Paso family whose boat
flipped over at Brantley Lake this summer.
``I don't think he would have had the forethought to strap on a
lifejacket and jump in and help those people if it weren't for TARS--
for the discipline he learned there,'' Jake's mom said.
Instead of being at risk of dropping out of school, Jake is now
making A's and B's and has his sights set on college.
Then there's Natalie Rios.
Only 17, Natalie easily could have become part of the 68 percent of
teen-age mothers nationally who fail to complete high school.
Instead, she enrolled last year in a newly formed Teen Parenting
class at Hobbs High School and learned how to care for her son, now 2
years old. The class featured a teacher who made home visits and a
curriculum that covered everything from the ABCs of giving birth to
courtroom tactics for securing child support payments.
Along the way, Natalie and other pregnant students who are
sometimes shunned by classmates picked up some important lessons about
self-esteem.
``When you have a baby and you're young, people seem to look at you
like you have less respect for yourself,'' Natalie told the local
newspaper. ``But I don't feel that way in this class. In here,
everybody's equal. Everybody's accepted.''
While we're certainly not thrilled about the rising epidemic of
teenage pregnancy, we choose not to bury our head in the sand about a
national epidemic. Recognizing that our students must deal with
emotional issues while also struggling to do their math homework,
classes like Teen Parenting help them through a difficult stage in life
without passing judgment.
To be honest, however, not everybody is pleased with the innovative
programs offered by Hobbs Schools.
If you asked the 39-year-old mother who this summer became the
first person found guilty of violating the compulsory school attendance
law, she probably wouldn't be too happy with us.
But her four children are in school today, thanks largely to an
aggressive attendance policy that saw Hobbs hire four truancy
prevention specialists.
Charged with going to the homes of students with chronic absences,
truancy officers--two of them bilingual--provided one-on-one contact to
parents who often times are too intimidated to visit their children's
schools. Working with a combination of agencies including juvenile
probation, Children Youth and Family and the judicial system, we
learned that parents are often as frustrated about how to keep their
kids in school as we are.
Providing a united front helps.
So much so that absence rates at all levels was reduced by almost
half in the first year of the truancy program's existence.
In the rare case of parents who refuse to take responsibility for
getting their children to school, the long-arm of the law is a last
resort.
And the guilty verdict rendered by a judge--the 39-year-old mom I
mentioned earlier avoided jail time but was fined--got the woman's
attention as well as other parents in the community whom we've decided
to hold responsible for their children's behavior.
Here's another face for you.
Michael Ware was only 17 when he graduated from HHS two years ago
but already had 42 college credits when he enrolled at Colorado State
University a couple months later. Ware took advantage of an Advanced
Placement program that other school districts in the state are now
emulating.
While Michael was clearly never at risk of dropping out of school,
here's what makes our AP program so innovative: It snags more than
overachievers in its academic net.
More than 40 percent of students from Hobbs--a largely blue-collar
town that now has a 51 percent majority of Hispanic students--took at
least one AP or pre-AP class last year. Our goal is to exceed 70
percent.
``For a public school taking all kids as they come, 40 percent is
by far the highest of any school in New Mexico and it's comparable to
the very best AP programs in the country,'' AP New Mexico director Pat
Cleaveland said recently.
The AP program attracts an abundance of students to its classes
because it offers financial reward: Make a 3, 4 or 5 on your AP exam
and you get earn a paycheck as well as college credits. Get high enough
scores and you take home a $2,000 computer.
In addition, teachers whose students do well on AP exams get a
bonus.
Suddenly, being smart is fashionable at Hobbs High School and
teachers who provide tutoring before and after school to motivate
students have more than a feeling of self-satisfaction to show for
their efforts.
But AP classes aren't limited to the high school. Pre-AP curriculum
in the junior high and Core Knowledge, a ``cultural literacy''
curriculum at the elementary school, means our students will be even
better prepared for the tough classes when they encounter them.
Our research also shows that thematic instruction embodied by Core
improves the learning and test scores of bilingual kids.
By choosing to set the bar higher, Hobbs has succeeded in raising
the academic standards for all students--even those who don't enroll in
AP classes when they arrive at the high school. Nonetheless, those
students have also benefited by having teachers who've undergone the
specialized AP training or Core Knowledge training all instructors
receive.
Of course, not all kids go the AP route.
Plenty of students are enrolled in vocational programs that take
advantage of nearby New Mexico Junior College.
More than 100 students get on a bus each day at Hobbs High School
and ride to a college campus where they are in enrolled in classes like
auto mechanics or cosmetology. Computer assisted drafting or metal
working are also examples of skill they can learn on equipment
purchased by the Hobbs Schools system.
Or students can stay put at the high school and grow geraniums in
the horticulture program. They can go to a barn to groom pigs or learn
how to judge sheep in a FFA program that consistently has winners in
national high school competition.
Or they can take advantage of newly outfitted technology labs--a
$250,000 facility that opened this semester at the high school or a
$300,000 lab at the middle school.
It's no secret that conducting experiments in a simulated wind
tunnel or being the director of their own, digital movie appeals to
students who aren't ``pen-and-pencil'' learners. And it's no secret
that continually updating technology labs is what it takes to make the
high school relevant to today's students.
Hobbs voters recently passed a bond issue which will keep our
schools current with this century's technological revolution--the
equivalent to the previous century's industrial revolution.
In addition to cutting edge computers, the high school offers a
career technological education plan that turns out students with skills
that allow them to get an entry level job anywhere in the business
world upon graduation.
Back in the classroom, curriculum is annually reviewed by a
committee of students, teachers and parents and updated each year to
reflect the changing times. Courses like Afro-American Studies and
Latin American Studies give minorities a chance to learn about their
own cultures while Anglos have the chance to explore something beyond
the traditional coursework.
It's a simple fact of life, however, that some kids don't feel
comfortable in a standard classroom.
Recognizing that non-traditional students are those most at risk of
dropping out, Hobbs schools offers a number of individually-tailored
education plans.
They include an alternative school where students work at their own
pace.
``These aren't bad kids,'' former Assistant Superintendent Bruce
Hardison said. ``They are kids that we were losing--kids that had
special needs, kids who had children of their own or problems at home.
Some students just aren't going to fit into a big school setting where
they are part of a student body with 1,500 or more students.''
Enrollment at the Alternate School has increased from about 25
students a decade ago to more than 110 now. In addition, we've
increased the teaching staff from two to ten and doubled classroom
space while eliminating the stigma associated with Alternate School.
Night school has also increased its enrollment at roughly the same
pace. Offered four nights a week in two, four-hour sessions, the
classes give students who've fallen behind on credits a chance to catch
up and graduate on time. Night school complements an aggressive summer
school program that gives students the same opportunity.
In addition, a variety of five work-study programs give students a
chance to earn money--sometimes necessary to support a household--while
also earning school credit. And the fact that Hobbs High School closed
it campus in 1993--meaning that hundreds of students weren't making a
run for the ``Taco Bell border'' at lunchtime each day--also helped.
Some kids never returned from lunch while others came back charged up
and distracted from the education process.
Offering fast-food vendors on campus along with the more
traditional school lunches gives students a chance to socialize but
also kept them focused on school--their 8:30--3:30 job.
There's no one reason that we can point to that accounts for a drop
out rate that has been on the decline for seven years running now.
Instead, we've incorporated a mosaic of programs to make school
relevant while raising the bar of education for today's learners.
Learners who include everybody from unwed mothers to teens who are
capable of saving lives but might need some direction. Each student
matters to us.
The common factor in all of our programs is a realization that the
world is changing. And our classes and curriculum must do likewise.
Prepared Statement of Ron Haugen
Thank you for the opportunity to provide information to the Senate
Health Education and Pension Committee regarding dropout prevention
programs that are currently in operation or needed in the Gadsden
Independent School District. The programs that we have are currently
focused on the upper elementary, middle school and high school students
due to the urgency in improving the academic skill level of these
students to enhance their future opportunities for success. The Gadsden
Independent School District has implemented the following:
The Desert Pride Academy Alternative School that consists of a
credit recovery program for off grade level students who are behind and
long term student disciplinary placement in grades 9-12 both of which
are currently supported by District operational funds.
The Title 1 Reading/Math Labs are academic support classes for
incoming 9th grade students who are at-risk for becoming drop-outs. In
lieu of retaining students in the 8th grade, the district has placed
entering students in a 9th grade program focused on reading and
mathematics instruction. These students have scored in the bottom
quartile overtime on the state's norm-referenced test. These laboratory
courses are supported by Title 1 funds.
I believe that the long term strategy for drop-out prevention in
border communities lies in having the ability to work with children
prior to their official entry into a public school system, such as the
Gadsden Independent School District and not in re-mediating students
late in their educational career. I propose that monies be focused on
early childhood literacy programs for three and four year olds. This is
needed in a district such as Gadsden that has a low socio-economic
base, and where 85% of the students enter into kindergarten as
monolingual Spanish speakers. The District has found that these
students enter Kindergarten two to three years behind their peers. The
monies needed for this type of literacy program would provide the
necessary developmental opportunities that are prevalent in communities
that have a higher socioeconomic status. Equity of opportunity could be
achieved by access to this type of structure that would allow the
children in the Gadsden District to acquire English language skills
leading to earlier proficiency. To equalize the playing field, I
believe it is imperative that districts such as ours be afforded the
resources and opportunity to provide early literacy programs for our
three and four year olds.
Our most current experience in this school district with resources
and opportunities for drop-out prevention was a pilot partnership with
New Mexico State University and funded by the U.S. Department of
Education entitled The Drop-out Prevention Demonstration Program. This
pilot allowed us to work with students in grades 6-9 that were at-risk
of dropping out. This was also a literacy program for older students
that focused on improving literacy skills by providing in-school and
after-school services. After one year of funding the U.S. Department of
Education did not fund this project even though an application was
submitted for three additional years. The weaknesses in the application
indicated that the program focused on literacy skills and not drop-out
prevention. I strongly disagree with their assumptions that literacy is
not the underlying factor that leads to students dropping out. As a
District and a community of educators we believe that this is the
primary cause that leads students to the point of making a decision to
leave school. A dropout situation is generally not created by a single
incident but more often by a series of incidences most of which are
related to years and years of frustration and lack of success on the
part of the student. The lack of literacy skills to function
effectively and competitively with their peers is important early in a
student's education. I believe we could have made a difference in the
middle years of school had this project been funded.
I believe that a funding structure is needed to support early
literacy and struggling reader programs that will address No Child Left
Behind. Reading is a fundamental right for all people in this country.
Thank-you for the opportunity to express the needs of the Gadsden
Independent School District.
Prepared Statement of Everette Hill
ABSTRACT
To prevent youth at-risk from dropping out of school, educators and
service providers must utilize a system of integrated service delivery,
a network of partnerships involving community, business and parental
involvement, and systems of assessment that can accurately, and
continually, evaluate youths' achievement, needs, and support systems.
These elements will effectively make the educational experience
relevant to youth, their families, and their future coals and needs. In
New Mexico, a model program (Project Succeed) has implemented these
strategies with practical results.
There is a significant amount of research available that outlines
the challenges individuals, communities and municipalities face when
youth discontinue their secondary education prematurely. All told,
young men and women who drop out of school cost the country substantial
amounts of money during their lifetimes in lost revenue, unrealized
taxes, and the increased burden placed on public resources and
programs. It seems quite obvious that to rectify these issues. We must
do something about the phenomenon of school dropouts. But what?
Before we begin a discussion about dropout prevention and the
efficacy of certain elements, we must first acknowledge that there are
many strategies, concepts, and programs that, over the years, have been
very effective. For example, there is a significant amount of research
indicating that keeping class sizes small, arranging classrooms to
enhance the environmental learning experience, creating support
structures outside of the classroom, increased individualized
attention/instruction, and utilizing experiential learning activities
are all effective strategies when attempting to engage youth at-risk,
and compel them to stay in school. Similarly, one can point to many
programs that have utilized the aforementioned strategies, and added
some other critical elements, to produce effective dropout prevention
programming. An example of this is the Project Succeed Program.
Project Succeed is a school-based dropout prevention and school-to-
work program that incorporates additional elements into the educational
environment including job placement, work readiness training,
incentives and rewards, case management and counseling, professional
development schedules for staff, and community service learning
projects for students. Conceptually, this approach is used to bridge
the gap between what educational elements that youth at-risk deem
relevant in the real world and what needs to be taught to make the
educational experience more personal and utilitarian. We have seen that
these types of approaches can be highly successful; Project Succeed has
been touted as a model program for youth at-risk, and has enjoyed a
greater than 88% retention rate of its' students since its' inception
in 1986.
So, if the aforementioned is true, that we already have concepts,
strategies, and model programs that have been proven to defeat the
spectre of school dropouts, then why do we still have to contend with
the very troubling and socially expensive prospect that nearly one out
of every 20 high school students will dropout of high school?
It is my assertion that among the myriad of reasons why youth at-
risk continue to dropout of school is that: 1) the assessment process
is much too linear and myopic, 2) the aftercare or follow-up regimen,
when there is one, is restricted in scope and limited in duration, and
3) systems of integrated service delivery, often utilized by community
based organizations and health and human service agencies, have not
always found their way into school systems within the framework of a
partnership.
ASSESSMENT
As eye continue to strive toward developing programs that are
effective in reducing the number of dropouts we have annually, we must
begin to redefine what assessment means to our youth at-risk and our
programs. Assessment likely exists in many, if not all, of the dropout
prevention programs in the state of New Mexico. Regardless, it is not
whether assessment exists but rather how assessment tools, information
cleaned from the assessment process, and the manner in which assessment
is performed that determines how effective the process will be.
Often times, the assessment process can be much too linear and
myopic to be effective. For example, many professionals contend that
haying the ``right'' assessment tool that yields the ``correct'' course
of action is the most important detail when it comes to assessment.
However, the assessment tools should be chosen for their ability to
extract meaningful information from those being assessed, even if it
requires a non-traditional approach, or more than one instrument to yet
the information needed to be helpful. Although there are many relevant
assessment tools and inventories when working with potential dropouts
(TABS tests, NCFAS, CFARS, etc), often the greatest assessment ``tool''
any program has is the professional performing the assessment. A well-
trained professional, armed with no more than a blank sheet of paper,
can do a wonderful job of initially assessing for a young persons
condition, home-life, support systems, educational status, interests,
career goals, and employment status, amongst other things. Using a
``blank-sheet'' approach to assessment not only deconstructs the
linear, and oft times tedious process of assessment, it allows for a
more cyclical approach to the activity.
Youth at-risk need to experience success in achieving milestones in
the continuous improvement of their situation, and providers need to be
able to continually assess for their chancing needs at each plateau.
Using an approach such as the ``blank-sheet'', in conjunction with
standard assessment tools, is the kind of strategy that might help get
professionals out of the linear process of conducting assessments, and
overcome the myopia that can often be experienced when a specific
assessment leads to an unambiguous set of challenges that directly
correlates with an explicit strategy for remediation.
AFTER-CARE/FOLLOW-UP
In my experience, after-care, or follow-up planning has probably
been the most important, yet under-developed concept when working with
youth at risk of dropping out. The idea of after-care is monumentally
important because this is the process when at-risk youth who have
benefited from programmatic services must now muster the courage to use
their newfound skills and abilities within their systems, or spheres of
influence. Many times, there are external pressures, or internal
embattlements, that preclude youth from utilizing new skills. Within a
comprehensive after-care plan, service professionals maintain contact
with youth often enough to know when such difficulties arise, and these
service professionals would then be in a position to provide assistance
and facilitate a successful completion.
For example, a young person who has recently acquired the ability
to utilize library resources and its' myriad technologies must be able
to continually access those resources, augment his/her skill set, and
have an opportunity to display his/her talents or make mistakes in an
environment that safeguards that particular kind of vulnerability and
provides for a positive learning experience. Youth who have gained a
certain rapport with staff of a program sometimes need to return,
albeit briefly to the forum that encouraged growth and exploration,
with the individuals who provided the initial support system.
So many times, if there is a plan for after-care, it is either not
defined in its' elements and outcomes, or it is of such short duration
that it renders itself ineffective. In a best-case scenario, all
dropout prevention programs would have an after-care or follow-up plan
that was actively engaged, making adjustments to the plan of care,
until each student involved with the program graduated from high
school.
SYSTEMS OF INTEGRATED SERVICE DELIVERY
Many schools, community-based organizations, and health and human
service agencies utilize a system of integrated service delivery;
however, it is rare for any of these entities to have a communal and
equal partnership when it comes to their interaction. For many, the
school cannot be ``all things to all people'', but I believe that the
schoolhouse is one of the most significant places in our communities
every day.
The onus is not, and should not be, solely on the schools and its'
educators to rectify the dropout problem. The problem is much larger
than any one school district, agency or individual. But the schools do
have an undeniable role to play in the amelioration of the phenomenon
due to the simple fact that all American children are expected to
attend school from the time they are four or five until they are
seventeen or eighteen. Most Americans spend nearly a quarter of their
lives in elementary and secondary schools, so the importance of our
schools should surprise no one.
I would assert that an effectual change in the status of our
dropouts will occur when schools begin to create partnerships where all
of the stakeholders have ownership in tie education process, and
subscribe to a school-linked integrated services approach.
By definition, integrated services are ``the coordinated delivery
of health, education, prevention and social services designed to
improve the quality of life for individuals and their families'' (North
Central Regional Educational Laboratory.) These services can include
counseling, job placement, literacy remediation, case management,
health care, mental health services, parenting and parental
involvement, and mentoring, to name a few.
The Center for the Future of Children (1992) states:
``In a school-linked approach to integrating services for children,
(a) services are provided to children and their families through a
collaboration among schools, healthcare providers, and social service
agencies: (b) the schools are among the central participants in
planning and governing the collaborative effort: and (c) the services
are provided at, or are coordinated by personnel located at, the school
or a site near the school. Most often, the school-linked approach
requires agencies that typically provide health and social services off
the school site to move some of their staff and; or services to the
school. Although school personnel are actively--involved in identifying
children who need services, they are not typically the actual providers
of the services'' (p.7)
Using a system of integrated service, linked with the school system
through a partnership that stresses mutual ownership, a sharing of
resources, seamless delivery of service both on site and off, is an
approach that gives all of the stakeholders involved in youth at-risk
education an opportunity to effect change within the system. In this
way, keeping our young people from dropping out of school truly becomes
a communal effort, where everyone is responsible for our rung people's
education and everyone is responsible for sustaining the collaborative
efforts of effective projects.
[Whereupon, at 11:27 a.m., the committee was adjourned.]