Solving the Dropout Problem Part 2

1st - Thank you to Malik, who challenged my depression-inspired, cynical-frustration-laden post on the failure of the school system. Seriously, optimism and idealism seem all too rare out there in a world that seems to have taught us to be cynical, afterall it never fails (if you never try, you never lose). God bless the Maliks of this world - hope is an all too rare commodity, even in our "post-racial", Obama-state America (whatever happened to the "Audacity of Hope"? - seems like we forgot that we were the movement and sorta assumed that electing Obama was all we needed to do to solve all our problems - we must be lazy, scared of real change and/or really stupid).

That said, I think Malik's comment reflects a failure on my part to be clear about the larger picture and my own internal conflict vis-a-vis education, the state, and true freedom. It's not that I don't think street-workers are genuine, I just wonder if what they are really promoting is worth it. I mean, aren't the values that one applies in terms of what constitutes "success" really the values of the state? Life on the street is more tenuous, dangerous, etc. But, I wonder if it isn't a valid choice in its own right. I mean, existentialist philosophy has been challenging the idea of the quiet (conformist) life as a life of real happiness. Maybe security/safety is a trap of pathetic meaninglessness. What are the arguments that the anti-dropout crowd make? From what I hear, it's about not being in jail and not being dead. But from an anti-statist perspective, not being locked-up is hardly a compelling argument: just do what they tell you, or else you'll have to do what they tell you. As a guy who voted for the Green Party candidate in 2004 (sorry, I just couldn't stand John Kerry - plus I was voting in MA: there was no way Kerry was losing MA), the "lesser of two evils" argument is simply unpersuasive. And the idea that one is better off not dead . . . well perhaps, but as has been said: "better to die on one's feet than to live on one's knees."

I suppose it is trite and easily said, given the bourgeois life that I lead. But from a philosophical position (that is, supposedly third-party neutral: as an outsider), I can appreciate a certain value in dropping out of school. So, from this perspective, the street-workers are misguided at best, co-conspirators at worst. The system is truly fucked (I don't think this is cynical at all, actually), not that it doesn't ever work (which would be cynical), but rather the contention that the true horror would be if it worked as well as it aspired to.

But, let us assume that Malik's optimistic/idealistic (in the best sense of the term) position is correct. Let us assume that there is hope within the system - that the system doesn't destroy when it works, that the system can make people's lives better without ruining their souls. In which case, the street-workers are to be honored and respected and held up as model citizens (well, the logic of "model citizen" works in both interpretations - only the concept of "model citizen" is negative in the first and positive in the second). The problem isn't getting kids back into the system, but rather creating a better system - thus, my proposal that there be a parallel track that understands what these students need before they are reintegrated into the system and provides it before reintegration occurs. This is what the politicians and liberal do-gooders fail to take into account - after all, for them, the problem isn't the real lives of these kids, but more of a numbers problem - "X" number of kids drop out; "Y" number of kids are convinced to return. The logic of using data analysis (all the rage in education these days - something that makes me want to vomit on a daily basis. When I was in high school, the idea of treating children as numbers was something our teachers explicitly rejected.) teaches us that the relationship between X and Y determines success - not whether "A" student actually received what they need. So then the question becomes how do we reduce "X" and increase "Y", but never - how do we get "A" who dropped out because "A" has undiagnosed dyslexia and is reading at a second-grade level, but is super-uber-intelligent and can run intellectual circles around the teachers that regularly give him (usually) an "F". And those teachers that can't keep up with his intellect berate him and make him feel small so that they can feel better about themselves. And those that understand his intelligence sigh and shake their head, but afterall, what can they do - how do you give a kid a passing grade in 11th grade English when the child reads on a 2nd grade level and can't write a comprehensible sentence to save his life?

After all this, perhaps the larger personal issue I have begins to become clear: I hate the state; but at the same time, as an educator (a position which means I am responsible for replicating the state in the youth) I hate the fact that the system fails students. I want the system to work for them - especially for those that decide to come in from the cold. It's fairly criminal that it doesn't and one reason that it fails these days is that it sees its problems in terms of numbers, not people: MCAS, AYP, The Dropout Rate. Where is the humanity in that? We've become a nation of accountants (ironically, perhaps, my first major in college). We should be a nation of artists.