Frontline: Dropout Nation

Very Important, But Would Have Preferred A Broader Perspective
'Dropout Nation' focuses on four at-risk students at Sharpstown High in Houston. Its student body are largely poor, and minority - the school was labeled a dropout factory by a Johns Hopkins University study in 2007; during that year 41% of high-school-aged children zoned to Sharpstown chose to attend a different Houston ISD school. (A freshman Sharpstown class earlier in the decade numbered 1,000, then dwindled to less than 300 by the end of their senior year.) The district's 2011 graduation rate was 78.5%, up 14 points from 2007 - presumably due to a special program (Apollo) funded by $61 million in special funding. Sharpstown itself sees less than 60% of the freshman class still enrolled their senior year.

Sharpstown's Apollo coordinator, Brandi Brevard, works 10 - 12 hours/day to help her charges, picking some up, providing snacks, and sometimes even inviting them to live at her place. The school replaced half its teachers - however, the story centered on Brandi, two...

Illustrating by Example
The nation has a large dropout problem, especially as brawn jobs disappear and employers only offer brain jobs. This gives two hours of footage at an actual high school focusing upon four students. For middle-class Americans, this may feel like looking at the other side of the tracks. The big point that one gets from this footage is that dropping out is a multiply-caused phenomenon. These students are dealing with homelessness, teen parenthood, deportation of family members, and especially anger issues.

I never use the term "acting out" because I am not quite sure what it means. I really think it means different things to different people. But that term comes up here a lot because the students are having troubles at home or on the streets and they vent their anger at school. If you don't like watching youth mouth off to adults, then you don't want to see this work. If you hate people who don't know how to channel their anger appropriately or effectively, then you...



Click to Editorial Reviews