Is it good parenting to encourage your kid to drop out of high school?
A reader just sent me a column entitled, “My Daughter’s a High-School Dropout and I’m Totally Okay With It,” and asked for my thoughts. The author, a teacher at the UC-Berkeley extension campus and well-regarded author on the topic of parenting, begins by explaining:
“My daughter Annie grew up in a hotbed of education. But high school didn’t work for her, so I encouraged her to drop out. I’m proud of her for making the choice and I’m proud of myself for supporting it.”
I initially didn’t want to judge this decision because of the extreme nature of the case. In addition to her father’s sudden death, the daughter “coped with mononucleosis, attention deficit disorder, dysgraphia, depression, strep throat (twice), a severely sprained ankle, pneumonia and countless colds.” But as I reflected on some of the mother’s words and choices, I began to have a stronger opinion.
First, the mother uses the “Here’s a list of people who were successful without a high school degree” argument, explaining,
I could list hundreds of high-school dropouts who’ve become wild successes: Billionaire Richard Branson, movie star Uma Thurman, labor leader Cesar Chavez , scientist Albert Einstein.”
Although I always find it motivating to read about and learn from people who beat the odds, I don’t think their success is enough to rationalize taking that obstacle-filled road oneself. While she is prepared to list hundreds of success stories, there are hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of kids who dropped out of high school and whose stories have had unhappy endings. Also, of the dropouts she lists, the youngest is Uma Thurman, who was 18 years old in 1988. That was 22 years ago, when globalization as we know it had not yet begun, two billion people in China and India weren’t yet part of the global economy, and the Internet was still years away. Because of the time in which she grew up, Uma Thurman had much less competition–both domestic and international–and thus better chance of succeeding than a teenager without a high school diploma would have today.
Next, the mother writes that “high school didn’t work for her,” and that her daughter currently
works part time in a bookstore, sleeps late, hangs out with her friends, studies acting at a top theater conservatory and dreams about being a movie star.”
Now, the author’s column leads me to believe that the girl only attended one high school. My guess is that she attended a regular public high school, and though that particular high school may not have worked for her, there are plenty of options out there (especially around Berkeley, where I assume they live since the author teaches at the UC Berkeley extension campus). Perhaps her daughter needed a change of scenery in the form of a charter school, a private school, a school that was focused on the arts, a smaller school where there was more personal attention, or an International Baccalaureate school where her daughter could have done more project-based learning that would have been more meaningful to her. And perhaps she could have taken some summer classes and finished up high school in one more year, instead of staying in high school for another two years. There are many ways to have a positive and successful high school experience, and I think there’s a good chance this teen could have done so if her mom had helped her find a school that matched her needs and interests.
I’m not a fan of kids dropping out of school, especially when their parents encourage them to. However, there could be valid reasons for that decision being made. In this particular case, though, I think the parent did a poor job of taking her daughter through the process of deciding to leave school. She seems to have presented her daughter with a false choice, acting as if the only two options available were suffering through two more years at the same school or leaving school completely.
Given the author’s academic background, and the fact that she chose to write about her daughter’s experience, this is an extremely rare and interesting case. What’s your take?
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Agree with you that its tempting, but a bit unreasonable, to take the examples of the rare few who succeeded so well without a high school degree as a rationale for dropping out, or encouraging it.
The statistics, as you know, show without any doubt that people without even a high school degree fare far worse than those who graduate, which today is considered a basic achievement.
Hilary – What’s interesting is that this girl probably will succeed due to the influence of her mother and the advantages she has at home. But that’s also the problem with the mom writing this piece: Her specific situation should not be used as an argument for other kids dropping out. As you mentioned, very few people are going to end up better off after failing to graduate from high school. It would have been good of her to make clear that although she thought this was the right thing for her daughter, decades of statistics show it won’t be good for most people who take that path.
In response to another comment. See in context »It should be a valid choice but unfortunately the support structure in most towns is not there. In fact, the h.s. is the support structure. That and retail jobs are about the extent any community takes interest in youth.
The best thing you can do in h.s. is work, and fortunately most kids have that figured out. I now have a lot more respect for the kids who work their way through community college, because at least they are in control of their destiny.
Maybe there should be a push to take the GED at 16 and get it over with. Most kids senior years are a waste. Watch me drive to school and lunch at McDonalds! The last couple years are a local pageant show, funded by the town’s collective disinterest in anything more serious.
Grats to this parent for getting her daughter into a better program. All college kids sleep late, so that’s no loss.
Michael,
Like you I spent time in the teaching field, Unfortunately, in my view, far to many students for numerous reasons are not served at all in high school. We have become more and more determined to try to force square pegs into round holes. The beyond ignorant testing standards is just one more politically motivated model that does far more damage than good.
Just recently, we are seeing more and more articles written about college not being the answer for many students. This issue, like the high school struggle is really an unfair argument though as for students that approach these with a plan to use their education for an outcome, they are served well. For the students that have no guidance either at home or from their schools, many are lost along the way. That is the real struggle for our education system and the real downside of standardized tests. Instead of putting more resources into helping our students find meaningful directions that an education can take them, our students are forced to take tests that are only in place so that teachers can be validated as good employees.
questioneveryone2 – I agree that not all students are served well by their high schools, but I think parents need to be more proactive about letting the school system know what their children need, and choosing charter or private options if the public school system is not responding to those needs. That’s what has happened in Detroit over the past five years: After the district lost about half of its students, many to charter schools, the district is undertaking a massive retooling. Schools are controlled by taxpayers, so taxpayers–especially parents–need to speak up and make sure their children are being served.
In response to another comment. See in context »Mtchael,
In response to another comment. See in context »I agree with your take that parents need to better involved in their children’s road thru education. With that said though, the gap that many parents face is understanding the options they might have or on many levels not understanding how important their role is. Many of the students that run into barriers in the education system are children of parents that themselves ran into barriers in their educational experience.
Information is so many ways a guarded resource and many folks simply do not have access to quality guidance. My point about the struggles and standardized testing models is that it limits the schools in their ability to bridge that gap with information that would better serve the student, regardless of the parents uninformed liabilities.
Good point about parents. That is one downside of the charter school model: Oftentimes, the parents who need that type of model the most for their kids are the ones who are least likely to know it is an option, or to know how to access that option.
In response to another comment. See in context »The examples this mother listed of famous drop-outs are of very exceptional people, many of whom were well on their way to their intended careers before they left school. In Uma Thurman’s case, for example, she had already been cast in “Dangerous Liaisons” at age 18, which was probably what prompted her to do acting full time. Very few actors continue their educations–Jodie Foster and Natalie Portman being notable exceptions–once they have consistent work.
And as for the ADHD, she may not like to hear this, but there are medications to keep her daughter focused, and they are not necessarily evil. Both my kids have ADHD and it’s my belief they need to learn work-arounds for their disorder, not just shrug their respective shoulders and opt out of life. If a kid has poor eyesight you get them glasses. If a kid is asthmatic, you get them an inhaler. Neither these conditions, nor ADHD, are a pass for not insisting your kids gets an education. And if this girl’s case is really severe, there’s always private tutoring and/or special schools.
Well said!
In response to another comment. See in context »I do know a few high school dropouts who went from disillusionment in their junior years straight to college, but those are the only ones I know personally who have an easier adult life. This was also 20 or so years ago, and yes, life has changed.
We do have to think about how our secondary schools are structured. The emphasis on testing has really skewed teaching and evaluation towards getting the right answers and away from reasoning, cohesive thought, creative thinking, and the like. So the family presented in your article will, as you mentioned, probably come out of things OK, since the mom is a professor and writes about child rearing.
Yes – that last thing: Dr. Mom should think about her responsibility to her readers when relating this personal experience. Her daughter studies acting? Great. Dear mom, please be realistic about this young woman’s chances in the world. I’m not saying that her daughter should be taking career back-up classes, but not everyone in the arts will end up in that field, just as not everyone with a psychology degree ends up in counseling professions. The situation you excerpted makes the daughter’s situation sound like a fantasy come true. I just hope that the dream is tempered with a general work ethic and doses of reality. Best wishes to her.
As for the general population, finishing high school should be a worthy goal. Perhaps if attending college wasn’t such a push, high school education would have a weightier role in our society. Perhaps the lower level education would regain its substance and even some prestige.
gypsysister – Your final point (“As for the general population, finishing high school should be a worthy goal. Perhaps if attending college wasn’t such a push, high school education would have a weightier role in our society. Perhaps the lower level education would regain its substance and even some prestige.”) is a very good one. I certainly have met folks from older generations who got a near college-level education in high school.
In response to another comment. See in context »Agreed. I also think that college isn’t for everyone, increasing the need for actual education in high school. At the very least, most if not all should take at least one year of between high school and college if college is a goal.
I do agree that a GED is a reasonable goal for those who don’t mesh well with high school.
I can say that i was very fortunate to have quite a fine high school education in a public school system. That same district is still strong, although they have implemented a magnet school arrangement for high school: governor’s school, math and science, technology, other concentrations, and the standard general degree options.
In response to another comment. See in context »What’s wrong with a GED? There’s nothing to suggest that you can’t learn outside of a school environment, and there’s nothing saying that you can’t get into college as a high school dropout. Some of the smartest people I’ve ever known were dropouts, and all but one have bachelor’s degrees (and she’s the most successful of the whole bunch). If school isn’t working for you, you have no obligation to go. Lord knows completing high school is no achievement in any intellectual sense. Just show up and you’ll probably wind up with a diploma, which more than anything demonstrates a willingness to submit to authority and withstand crushing boredom, which obviously is good preparation for the working world but at least with a job you get paid for it. You can talk about the educational needs of our children but how exactly does high school serve those needs? It’s a joke, even in AP classes. I learned nothing in high school I couldn’t have learned five times as fast if I wasn’t spending 8 hours a day in a glorified prison for teenagers. For a smart, curious youth with a supportive environment and access to educational resources, school is just not necessary.
Let’s not confuse the need for education with a need for traditional schooling.
Uriah – You write, “For a smart, curious youth with a supportive environment and access to educational resources, school is just not necessary.” But millions of students are not coming from supportive environments and do not access to educational resources. That’s the point of having public schools–to ensure that everyone has access to a quality education. Public schools do not always get the job done as well as we would like, but as I note in my comment below, when public schools fail it means that citizens have failed. If people really believe that a school is a “glorified prison for teenagers” then they should mobilize and change it. If they choose not to do so, then it is the citizenry that is to blame. Government institutions are not “them”–they are us. Too often we forget that.
In response to another comment. See in context »Bold swipe at High Schools Uriah and some topics you should take on Michael. Maybe the glorified prison for teenagers is a little strong, but in so many ways you do get the sense that for many students that’s what high school is. Like you, I found high school to be mostly a boredom fest with the lack of meaningful and engaging instruction. I can count on one hand the number of classes I had that were at any level something to look forward to. Amazing to get out of school and find topics, books and approaches to learning that would of served the students so much better.
In response to another comment. See in context »I often tell the story of a history class I had where my teacher was great and I was totally engaged in the class and loved what we were learning. My teacher sat down with me and said he just couldn’t understand why I was so involved in class and yet only got C’s on our tests. I told him I loved the class, the lessons, the discussions and everything about the topics, but when you tested us it was only a test on memorizing dates and names and nothing about the lessons we were learning from history all week. Instead of testing us on these topics we had to study numerous pages and spit back dates and names on multiple choice exams. What did this exercise have to do with what we were learning in history? He was surprised at my response, said he understood, but this was the model he had to follow according to the school’s curriculum.
The same was true in many other classes, where we either read books that bored most to tears or never seemed to have our teachers take the time or make the effort to connect how the subject matter related to anything meaningful or why it might be of any interest to us.
Michael you make the point that we as a people should insist that changes be made to better serve our students; I agree, but with so much of a political process stuck in grandstanding, rather than problem solving, it’s more and more difficult to make these changes.
Public schools (K-12, at any rate) or little more than conformity schools and miniature prisons that fail spectacularly at their stated mission.
If the girl in question has higher education in mind, a GED and a college degree is just as good as anything.
uncertain – I think it’s important to clarify that when you write “public schools,” you’re writing about schools for which the public is responsible. Any failure of the schools must be shared by citizens, who fund and control them.
In response to another comment. See in context »Michael,
In response to another comment. See in context »As I said above, good luck with waving the magic wand and getting our schools changed. Just consider what’s been gong on in Texas as a great example of change. Change we can believe in except that they’re rewriting history to fit their political views of the world.
But that’s the point…a group of people wanted change, so they mobilized, got the people they wanted on the state board of education, and then got the change they wanted. It may not be the change you would like to see, but they made the process work for them. And if liberals are concerned, then they need to set their sights on 2019, when the next round of history revisions will take place.
Now, one problem with my whole “go out and create change” idea is that the people with the most influence in this country generally have their kids in private schools, or in the best public schools. So if their kids are being served well by the system as it currently operates, they have little incentive to put forth the time, money, and energy to change it. Unfortunately, the voices of parents whose children are not well served by the current system often are not heard.
In response to another comment. See in context »