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Sunday, September 7, 2008

Dallas officials going door-to-door to beg children not to drop out of school

By Pegasus News wire

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DALLAS — A slew of Dallas officials, including Mayor Tom Leppert, DISD Superintendent Michael Hinojosa, City Council members, teachers, school officials, parents and members of the Dallas Independent School District board boarded a bus on Saturday and went door-to-door to persuade truant students to go back to school. It's part of Operation Comeback, a statewide effort to prevent 50,000 students from dropping out of high school before graduation that includes Austin, El Paso, San Antonio, and Fort Worth. Dallas officials hope to get 1,100 students back to class.

Posted by T.G.

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David Goodspeed Verified

I think I only heard one tiny mention of a driving force behind this "roundup." On a certain day early in the school year, the state makes the districts count bottoms in seats in classrooms and the state's payment to the districts is based upon this number (or something like this). Schools are strongly encouraged to have as many students in the classrooms on that day. I agree with the arguments that HAVE been made public concerning the future of our communities being better and safer the more we educate our youth, but perhaps a bit more disclosure on another key aspect of the roundup would be in order. And how will the districts feel about rounding up kids over the next month or two once the count date has come and gone?

2 months, 3 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

bchil03 Anonymous

There is a program called Communities in Schools (CIS) that does a mentoring program for at risk students. This program has an unbelievable success rate at not only keeping students in schools but helping them to succeed (pass classes). I believe that the CIS program would be much more effective than Operation Comeback could hope for. Thoughts...

2 months, 3 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

David Gouldin

David Gouldin Staff

Wait, Austin has a dropout problem? That's impossible. They have a Cesar Chavez street!

2 months, 3 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Jason Rice

Jason Rice Verified

Don't! David! You know I can't resist temptation!

2 months, 3 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

chrisdanger Anonymous

bchil03 brings up a good point about CIS, Its a program that actually gets the at-risk students into an actual environment where they can succeed, as Operation COmeback is nothing more than a feel-good publicity stunt engineered by a broken district whos more concerned about making money...

2 months, 3 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

David Hopkins

David Hopkins Verified

One of the more effective way to keep kids in school is also the most expensive. Smaller class sizes would make a huge difference, which means (a) hire more teachers and (b) build more schools. A smaller class gives the teacher better control and contact with his or her students. The teacher should be able to better target those "at risk" students. These kids get lost in the system, because the system is too large to keep track of them all.

2 months, 3 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

chrisdanger Anonymous

I myself benefitted from a smaller class structure in HS. In fact, its the only reason I graduated. I had two things against me:

A)Learning Difference B) Bad Attitude

While ive kept the latter into my current day ;), I got the special attention to my learning difference, which helped me exponentially. We've seen DISD throw 64 Million into a hole this week, maybe we should give the smaller class size a try

2 months, 3 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Pavel Lishin

Pavel Lishin Verified

Is "learning difference" a fancy word for "learning disability"?

You know, back in my day, we just called that "stupid".

2 months, 2 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Jason Rice

Jason Rice Verified

So in three weeks it went from "important enough to leave your office" to layoffs in that department.

That's why they get paid the big bucks, eh? "A certain moral flexibility" ?

2 months ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Travis Bush

Travis Bush Verified

Are you sure they weren't recruiting teachers?

2 months ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

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