Speaking out of school.

• Author: Toback, Claudia
• Position: LETTERS - Letter to the editor

Sarah Garland's report on New York City's "remedy" to the dropout crisis ("Big Gains in the Big Apple," July/August 2010) is accurate but disturbing. Giving potential dropouts the opportunity to finally discover that graduation can be achieved at smaller, 200-student schools is commendable, but at what price? Funds allocated to smaller schools are disproportionate to their numbers, while the larger comprehensive high schools are still expected to maintain a high standard with shrinking budgets.

Claudia Toback

CMT Educational Consulting

Staten Island, NY

Thank you for taking the initiative to do an in-depth report ("Fighting the Dropout Crisis," July/August 2010) on America's high school dropout crisis. Your special report provided a good opportunity to see how the challenges of raising high school graduation rates play out on the ground and in three distinct parts of the country. It is also good to hear that the current administration is taking the lead to acknowledge the problem and talk about this group of struggling students as a priority. I want, however, to point out a few critical points that the report failed to raise.

Yes, improving the quality of education in our high schools is non-negotiable. But for students with adult responsibilities' (work, taking care of families, and early parenting, for example), improving graduation rates is also a matter of improving the mix of quality, nontraditional schools that young adults can attend to stay on track to graduation. Since this group of students is a growing population in our schools, it's imperative that we include their needs in any discussions on high school reform.

Second, I was a bit surprised that your report did not cover the work that New York, Portland, and Philadelphia have underway to create educational stability for youth who are often most at risk of leaving high school without a diploma: those involved with the juvenile justice system and those in foster care. For anyone trying to reenroll a student in school after detention or keep a foster youth in the same school after yet another placement, it is typically an uphill battle to navigate the systems and thus a...