Tuning In to the Dropout Scandal

Re “L.A. Schools’ Silent Scandal ... “ editorial, March 25: You stated that the single biggest obstacle to improving inner-city schools is “attracting and retaining qualified, committed teachers.” Once again, The Times looks to hold responsible the only group that can be held accountable, the teaching staff. If teachers are the problem, how do we explain the successful inner-city student?

You have come to the wrong conclusion. Students who drop out do not participate in the process. They refuse to do assignments and do not attend school for academic reasons. Their parents offer no support for education or blame schools for their failure to support the educational process.

I will retire in June after 34 years as a teacher serving the students of LAUSD. We have been retrained over and over, but student apathy and lack of parent support remain the No. 1 problem.

Tom Parker

Simi Valley

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Re “ ... and How to Start Righting It,” editorial, March 25: Los Angeles Unified School District’s huge dropout rates for minority students, as revealed by the Harvard study, are no surprise to those of us in the classroom. What is surprising is that no researchers or policymakers are considering what is probably the only approach that can truly help these students -- financial incentives.

Sure, smaller schools, better materials and smaller student-teacher ratios will help, but as long as students don’t see the value of an education, all of these other reforms are hopeless. Students can be taught the value of education by paying them a performance and attendance-based salary. We need to teach them the relationship between education and income through direct experience because many of them have no role models in this area.

Imagine if their report cards were also bank statements. Why do we give financial incentives to everyone in our society except the people who need it the most -- poor children?

Keith Abouaf

Los Angeles

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I’m curious to know more about the Harvard study that reported far fewer LAUSD graduates than the district reported. The study tracked only students from given schools who graduated with their class, assuming that any student who failed to graduate with his class never earned a high school diploma, and that’s just silly.

Also, I think it’s unfair or unrealistic to compare the graduation rates of whites, blacks, Asians and Latinos, as this suggests that the goal of education should be to make them exactly the same -- the truth of the matter is these groups are very different. As an African American (with a BA from the University of Washington), I feel as if we are not focusing enough on our differences and wasting too much time and energy trying to make clones of whites.

Theron K. Cal

Los Angeles

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The graduation rates in California high schools are declining not only because of low-achieving dropouts but also because the school systems are constantly raising the standards for education, which puts great pressure on students to learn new information in a small amount of time. I feel that our schools are rushing education and are not taking enough time to make sure that students have a complete understanding of what they are learning and how it applies to the real world.

Not only is this problem in California, it is also in the rest of our nation. We need to stop putting so much weight on students to hurry up and learn as much as they can in a short time so that they can run out to the world and join the workforce. If we are so concerned about students earning a good education, we must take the time to develop a better learning system that will be more efficient and allow students to learn at a comfortable pace.

Nicole Coriaty

Brea