Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Joshua Higbee
Mequette M. Sorensen
issue. Every year over 3 million students drop out of high school in the
United States of America. That is 8.3 thousand a day! Hispanic students have
ago, but the fact that Hispanics had the highest percentage of dropouts has
been the same. For 50 years! Hispanics have gone from 34.3 percent in 1970
to 15.1 percent. Staying at the highest percentage drop outs per ethnic
group.
In the 2000 census, the percentage for Hispanics older than 25 that
have a high school diploma or equivalent is only 52.4 percent (85.5 percent
Association)
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The reasons why this is an issue, is first and foremost that with a high
school diploma someone will make roughly 260,000 dollars more than those
without a high school diploma someone only qualifies for 10 percent of jobs
So now what are the reasons as to why Mexican Americans have the
percent of Hispanic drop outs! Putting female dropout rates high for
Hispanics since they have to stay home to take care of the child. Some have
to work to support their families. You also have Hispanics struggling learning
English, and some leaving school to be in gangs (School system fails and
good idea since pregnancy is high and it can also help with the issues of STD
and STI transmission among Hispanics. My main idea is that more teachers
things taught (like sex education which is my second idea to lower the
dropout rates). Hopefully changing their thinking and future decision making.
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experience. By increasing teachers who have this, you should see a decrease
in students disconnecting and leaving school. You should also hopefully have
better understanding in sex education, also having teachers with the ability
to teach it in Spanish with students and students parents could help greatly.
Association)
This idea could have a huge range in cost, from being free (actually
costing the teachers a few hundred for the classes but free for school
districts) if you have teachers who want to learn on their own to better serve
the best teacher I can be. I hope other teachers and future teachers can
have the same dedication. Another solution is passing legislature that would
update the requirements to be a teacher. They could add Spanish and ESL to
the Education major requirements, or for specific school districts only hiring
those with that education. This would probably upset some teachers but it
would be for the best of their students and if they dont understand that they
Second having the government or school district pay for these classes.
This would be needed for those who are already teachers, helping set them
up with classes might cost them upwards of a thousand dollars per teacher.
cheaper than giving a salary increase to all teachers who have finished
Spanish and or ESL courses. Though this would be the better option to help
encourage teachers to take the class on their own and hopefully take it more
seriously.
Lastly the option of increasing the salary of teachers with ESL and
Spanish background. This would be the most expensive option, even if it was
just a thousand dollars per teacher, there are a lot of teachers. I also think
that teachers that test fluently in Spanish should be paid more, on top of the
salary raise for talking the ESL course for their students.
In the state of Utah teachers are vastly underpaid (which is why I dont
plan on teaching in this state). So, I believe some states could definitely
afford the pay increases, though I dont know which states would actually be
interests in the field of education (or like some of the people I know who
speakers need to learn English if they live here, not the other way around.
Other area of resistance would be current teachers being too busy with their
life to take the class (which giving them an exception by only requiring new
The other area of resistance is cost, with most things money is a huge
factor of actually getting things to happen. Can the public fund this? Can the
school district or state pay for it? Either way the public would have to support
the solution a lot to get the funding from the public or state/government. The
a solution I am sure there will have to be a lot of politics played with the
school legislature.
After really thinking about this issue and its possible solutions, I
realized that most issues are a buildup of more issues that are lacking
solutions. Having those problems solved will help solve the big problem a
little.
For instance, the problem I chose of high school dropout rates, has the
and feeling pushed out as sub problems. Each of these sub problems require
usually had the same thing unless they were addressing a sub problem, and
issue. It has sub issues, first off there is the issue of self-esteem problems
Americans). Then you have the added problem of kids/girls hitting puberty
faster now than they used to (a lot of people blame added hormones in
food). Then the strong Catholicism which leads Hispanic teens to keep the
child (anti-abortion which I agree with being pro-life). Again, there isnt one
communication among role models for the children, including the parents,
teachers, and religious groups included. I know church and state (teachers)
Back to my solution, I thought a lot about what I think would truly help
having teachers be more active about the issues and better communicating
them with the parents and students, an added area of resistance is talking
sex education is very controversial and when I went through school. I only
heard about it in the fourth grade, then I didnt have any instruction in school
again till my sophomore year in health class. I know of only the letter that
went home letting my parents know that I was being instructed on the class.
network of fixes/cures. This will also address the problems personally for
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individual students, and not just Mexican American students, but all
students.
took it a step further though and said that administration should too. I fully
agree teachers should have Spanish and ESL experience, but I believe more
people need to do so. That the public should have basic conversation skills.
chat to much with South Americans en espaol. They are the greatest, and
place, leaving my own mark for future generations and teachers. I will be
References/Works Cited
http://www.statisticbrain.com/high-school-dropout-statistics/
http://www.nea.org/home/HispanicsEducation%20Issues.htm
http://www.npr.org/2014/04/14/302906835/why-do-more-latina-teens-
get-pregnant
Joseph Colvin