High School Dropout Factories Stuck in an Investment Catch-22

by Mike Smith · 2009-10-06 08:40:00 UTC
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Dropout factories — the nations lowest performing schools — maintain their bad streak due to a lacking of investment, investment they miss out on because of bad results. It's a catch-22 situation that sees the status quo perpetually maintained for the "2,000 or so high schools that produce half of the country's dropouts," explains Catherine Gewertz. She argues that a separate stream of money for these dropout factories could get results.

Arne Duncan is proposing to close 35 dropout factories, and reopen them as charters. But the Massachusetts Teachers Association explain that many Boston charter school have become dropout factories, and that by Arne Duncan's own standard, "Boston’s charter high schools are among the worst ‘dropout factories’ in the state." Duncan would likely counter with examples where charters have worked, but is closing schools, accepting defeat, and hoping new schools will be better ever a good idea, even for the very worst schools?

Photo Credit: dave_mcmt

Mike Smith is associate editor at Change.org.
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