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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