The stats of high school dropout ratings have increased tremendously in the past five years. On the national center for education website I found that in 2004 that a total of 8 percent of students drop out of high school every year, and in 2009 10 percent of students dropped out. Lawrence has taken notice to the national dropout rate, including Lawrence High. Most adults think that teens drop out because they are dead beats and druggies, but they don’t listen to what the teens that are dropping out have to say.

Teachers need to attempt to make their classroom environment more caring and accepting as possible, but due to the full classrooms and hectic lives of the teachers the one-on-one time with students is decreasing. Teachers and students should build a bond with each other in order to learn the criteria to graduate. The majority of students in high school do not have a relationship with their parents or guardians. Students need someone to look up and bond with, and teachers should be those people who step up to the job.

Most of the dropouts were Latino or black, according to a report by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston, and the alternative schools in Chicago and Boston. The education environments in rundown areas in most cities do not have positive environments and do not have the proper resources to educate the students. Instead of learning algebraic equations and sentence fragments, they’re out on the streets selling drugs and hustling to make it.

Whether it is a rundown inner-city in Chicago or a rural city in Kansas, students need to be positively motivated to keep going to school and graduate. To prevent teens from dropping out of high school and continuing their future, teachers and even kids need to be proactive about going to school. Social icons including many celebrities promote not only going to school but staying in school. The Obama administration has promoted school staying in school by speaking to the students and understanding their dilemma

Teachers should promote school as being a positive environment and a fun place to be. If adults would take the chance to accept what the students have to say they would get a better understanding of what teenagers go through today.