My Journey from High School Dropout to Becoming a Professional

My high school drop out mistake began at age fifteen. Although legally I could have been forced to continue attending school until age of 16, the big city school that I attended either didn't have a truant
officer or if it did, no one was sent to my house to investigate why a youngster of fifteen all of a sudden wasn't going to school.

The reality was this school just didn't care. In fact, in my opinion neither the administration nor the teachers really cared about the students. And, therein lies the primary reason why most youngsters drop out of big city high schools. They perceive, and accurately so, that no one cares about them. To put it another way^, no one is likely to take the time to understand what they are experiencing in their lives that might be driving them towards dropping out of high school. They just drop out and become another statistic.

However after dropping out and wasting nearly three and a half years of my life, having no sense of direction and getting into trouble in the streets, I enlisted into the Army. My goals for going into the Army were to finish high school and to learn a marketable trade. I did not realize either of these two goals, although I did complete cook school and became an army cook. Nevertheless, the two benefits that were really helpful for me were the GI bill providing Educational Benefits and the Veterans' Home Loan benefit. After being honorably discharged, I took advantage of both. One allowed me to enter and complete undergraduate school and the other allowed me to gain ownership of my first home.

Although it took me six years from the time I dropped out after my second year in high school to graduate from high school, the learning experience was invaluable. I then had acquired the inner motivation and discipline to complete undergraduate school, to complete graduate school, and to go on to become licensed in three different professions.

The lesson here is that if just one teacher or administrator would take maybe five to ten minutes after classes are over to engage a youngster in a conversation about how things are going at home; how things are going with his class mates; and, how things are going in his neighborhood. Then after this conversation, to invite the parent to come in for a conversation about how they can work together in behalf of the student.

Just this small act would significantly reduce the number of yearly drop outs.


Do you know any youngsters who had a similar experience as I did? Leave your comments below.

Don't Drop Out. Take Control of Your Education

This is a message to all teenagers who are prone to dropping out of high school. 

When you become a teenager you will increasingly be held responsible for your actions and behavior. Your parents will expect you to take responsibility for your own clothes, your allowance, and your chores as a resident of the household. Taking responsibility for your education is no exception.

It's Your Future
Think about your future. Consider what your strengths are. There is something that you do well – – something that you become so engrossed in that the time goes by without you noticing or something that you do so well that others would say that you are in your “element”.

My brother had a natural gift for playing the piano which we discovered early. He would hear a tune and just began playing it on the piano without knowing how to read a word of music on a music sheet. On a different note, when I was a teenager it was the norm for a group of guys on a summer night to gather together under the street lamps and just sing. Many of these guys went on to either form or become parts of great singing groups.

Know Your Strengths  
Consider your strengths and skills very carefully. Keep in mind that you will have some teachers who are caring and competent and some who are uncaring and incompetent. Use your powers of discernment  and do whatever it takes to get out of the bad teachers’ classes. Enlist your parents' help and, if necessary, go to the principal together. It is your education and your future. And by your efforts, you’ll get your parents to wake up and take notice.

Accept Challenges 
Do not get discouraged and drop out of school. If you feel at all that your actions are futile, then you and your awakened parents can work together to get you transferred to a new school. However, if you remain in your current school, ask your good teachers to challenge you more. This is an especially  good step to take if it’s a subject you like and if it has significant real world value. More on this and how it worked for me in a future post.

Once again, take control of your education and your future. Don’t drop out of school.  

Superb Ways to Prevent Dropouts

We cannot afford to shortchange our youngsters intelligence.  When you, as a teacher, make your
classroom interesting and challenging, you show that you are interested in the child intellectual advancement and the child's effort will reflect that.

And, as a child goes through his elementary grades and advances to high school, that high school must find ways to individualize the education of the youngsters and show the child that their presence in the classroom is important. Indeed, the whole climate in the school must reflect that for all the students.

The school must not only teach basic subjects, but also be flexible enough to have the child pursue personal interests either in or out of the classroom and get credit for doing so. The youngsters who created the app for dealing with police brutality are to be commended just as much or more so than the youngsters who excel in basketball or football..

We must recognize our children not only for their athletic prowess, but also for their intellectual accomplishments.  This gives an equal recognition and consideration to both and when children know that their individual efforts are being appreciated and praised you will get more of that type of effort. Always keep this in mind. It will go along way towards preventing dropouts.



What would you like to add to these ways? Leave them below.

Parents! End the Black Dropout Epidemic by Creating Charter Schools

Creating your own charter school can be an excellent answer to help end the Black dropout epidemic. While it is not the total answer, it can be a significant part of the solution.

If you are engaged in creating your own charter schools and enrolling your children in them, the chances are close to zero that your child will drop out.

Creating your own charter school will:

• allow you to design the curriculum, 
• hire the teachers, 
• hire the principal and other support staff, 
• make sure your children are getting a quality education, 
• and finally to maintain the  school climatic and culture you desire.

Charter schools week occurs every May. Visit Black Alliance for Educational Options and learn more about recognizing this important initiative.


Would you like to create you own charter school? Let me know.

11 Warning Signs of a Potential Dropout Situation

Parents must stay vigilant. Low test scores and bad report card are obvious indicators.

Here are some other early warning signs that may portend problems at school and a potential dropout situation.

Your child:

1. keeps forgetting his homework, says he doesn't have any, or doesn't completed.
2. doesn't know when assignments are due for tests that are coming up.
3. doesn't want to go to school in the morning.
4. frequently complains of various aches and pains in the morning.
5. talks about how he doesn't like school, or doesn't want to talk about school.
6. makes excuses for not showing you his homework
7. start losing self-confidence.
8. acts nervous and depressed
9. develop behavioral problems.
10. begins to show a lack of interest in studies.
11. doesn't like to read, or has trouble reading.

Can you think of any other warning signs?

Leave your comments below.

Who Benefits from Dropout Factories?

Dropout factories are the norm in most large cities with a significant number of black students. Specifically, a dropout factory is a high school where graduation is not the norm. Nearly half of the nation’s Black students attend such schools whereas only 11% of white students attend high schools where graduation is not the norm.

On May 22, the mayoral appointed school board in Chicago made the final decision to close 49 schools. The parents were not at the table when the decisions were made and it is their children who are affected – not the mayor’s children, not the school board members' children, not the CPS (Chicago Public Schools) CEO’s children, nor the union president’s children. More about this in an upcoming post.

This was essentially political decision because the evidence shows that most of the schools that the children will be transferred to are no better than the ones being closed. The CEO of CPS even told the parents to not expect any immediate improvement in the academic performance of their children after the transfer. Furthermore, when the children leave these elementary school, the high schools they will be going to are the dropout factories. Neither the union nor the politicians are concerned about the quality of education for the Black children who are being forced to either attend these schools or dropout.

But then who benefits from dropout factories.

Keep in mind that the unions exist to make sure that the teachers have a job, make good salaries, have an excellent health care plan, and have a retirement plan that is significantly better than what we taxpayers have.

Here’s an example from Chicago. The budget for the Chicago public schools is $5.11 billion. The average spending per pupil is $13,078. The average teacher salary is $74,839. Teachers average a 3 to 5% increase for the first 13 years of service and can get an average of 3.8% pay after earning an advanced degree.

These are the benefits the people get who teach in the dropout factories. Here are the results of their so-called work:

• Over the past 30 years roughly half of the students fail to graduate.
• The average ACT scores in this district dropped by 0.1% in 2011.
• In  2011, fewer than 24% of CPS graduates were prepared to attend a four-year college and only 1 in 7 tested college ready.
• 39 % of  CPS teachers send their children to private schools.
• And finally, in a recent study tracking CPS students who graduated between 1998 and 1999, only 35% of the student who went to college earned their degree within 6 years, below the national average of 64%.

The dropout factories should not be allowed to exist. This is what this site is all about -- ending these dropout factories. 



What do you think about dropout factories? Leave your comments below.

How to Survive Your Teenager and Eliminate Dropouts

Every stage of life carries with it certain tasks of emotional development and adolescence is no exception. 

Adolescence is a major developmental bridge lasting from approximately thirteen to eighteen and can be an extremely stressful time for any parent. 

During this developmental period, adolescents have the following tasks to accomplish: 

• establish their own identity; 
• give up childhood dependency; 
• develop their own values; 
• deal constructively with authority; 
• learn to deal with the opposite sex; 
• and, handle their rampant physical and emotional changes. 

All this, while on the surface, rejecting their parent.

Teenagers Learn to Emulate Their Parent's Values
Recent research, however, indicates that teenagers learn to emulate their parent's values more than they do their friends'. If you value education and demonstrate it by your behavior, your child will pick up on it. The research indicates that the enduring values of their parent are in fact transmitted.

So then as the parent you should take a look at what you can do to more positively influence your teenager, prevent the possibility of your youngster dropping out of school, and get through the often tumultuous adolescent years with less stress.

Here are six actions you can take:

1. Don't fail their test of your love. If you must withhold, withhold your approval, not your love.

2. Don't insist on intimacy. Communication comes in many forms. If you are fortunate enough to have an adolescent who shares his or her feelings, that's great. If not, don't force it.

3. Be sure your teenager has some reasonable amount of privacy.

4. Set parental limits. Make your standards and expectations very clear, but not excessive. Excessiveness invites rebellion.

5. Take their problems very seriously no matter how small they may seem.

6. Finally, like everything else in life, realize that adolescence like everything else will pass. Keep your sense of humor and learn how to laugh at what is often only a temporary difficulty.

Indications of Genuine Teenager Difficulty
On the other hand, there are some indicators of genuine difficulty in an teenager such as: schoolwork becomes a significant problem; there is persistent fighting and arguing at home or school; physical complaints, anxiety, and depression of a chronic nature; there is significant difficulty in your child's social life such that she begins to avoid friends and isolate from others; and, any self-destructive behavior, sexual promiscuity, drug use or abuse.

When professional help is recommended, I will often recommend an intervention which involves to one degree or another the entire family. While often adolescents do need their own individual counseling, time spent working with the entire family can be particularly helpful to everyone involved.


Call (773) 614-3201 for a free consultation.

How Quality Teacher Student Relationship Can Prevent High School Dropouts

The two most important way to stop high school dropouts is to do whatever it takes to improve the quality of the relationship between the teacher and student and to make sure that the teacher is effective.

• If it requires reorganizing the classroom or course so that the teacher can teach smaller classes, then lets do so. 
• If it requires retraining teachers so that they can individualize their teaching strategies to accommodate the students, then lets do so. 
• If it requires a change in the overall school atmosphere whereby standards are set high and excellence is rewarded, then lets do so. 
• And, finally, the course work must be both challenging, interesting and have real world significance to the student.

Providing the students an education of the highest quality must be the key mission of any and all schools. Teachers must accept this mission and be rewarded for their ability to do so. Bad teachers must be weeded out and asked to leave. And if they don't do so willingly, then they must be fired.

Any type of procedure that prolongs the presence of a bad teacher in front of the students and crippling them must be eliminated. Each students must be recognized  for her or her academic achievement. Athletic achievement, although important, must be secondary in importance.

Teachers must reach out and strive to establish a healthy relationship with the students' parents simply because this is in the best interest of the students. Parents(see Parent's Place)must be encouraged to establish, at the very least, a home atmosphere that is conducive to learning and to coordinate expectations with the school so that homework and school projects are promptly completed and enhance the learning experience.


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