After reading this I looked up the center for BrainHealth at UT Dallas. It’s pretty incredible stuff - and Laura Bush visited there the other day!

Someone left a comment pertinent to this post on the previous blog. I’m just going to post it here so that everyone sees it:

“#5. Posted by Virginia Bolton on December 16, 2009
I just read an article in the Dallas News of your visit to the Dealey Montessori and International Academy where they are working with middle school students on critical thinking skills.  I have been retired for some years but my heart still lies with middle school students.  My entire teaching career was in middle school, as a teacher and a principal.  I became a principal when Dr. Meno was superintendent of schools. He, also, believed in middle schools.  There was a big focus on middle schools and teaching strategies for middle school students, as well as money for training. After he left, that seemed to fall by the wayside.  I was involved in that push for many years and saw a great improvement in my teachers, their methods of teaching adolescents, and in the students.  I am out of public school but still in a related field and I don’t seem to see much interest and focus on middle schools anymore.  That is why I was thrilled to see that someone in Austin is beginning to realize that middle school is not just a “holding pen” for adolescents until they are old enough to move on to high school. They actually are capable of critical thinking.  I am sending the article to my former superintendent and the principal of my former middle school. I just wanted you to know this is a much needed movement.”

It was wonderful to hear of the plans to address our state dropout crisis by focusing on middle school. As a middle school teacher with a dropout prevention hobby I applaud your wisdom. Middle school is most often where the plans for dropping out are sewn and grow. Here is a simple Texas two-step for eliminating our dropout crisis:

Step one is to know dropout rates. An annually updated 10+ year enrollment by grade spreadsheet on every school and school district web site would do that, with graduation numbers included. Using the numbers they already have, for a very minimal investment, the TEA web site could be providing such spreadsheets for every school. From these spreadsheets a minimum of four separate dropout rate measurements can be made for every school and school district in Texas. See an example at http://www.studentmotivation.org/DallasISD.htm. It would not only document the current dropout crisis, but it would also track the progress from step two.

Step two is to bolt a 500-pound gun vault to the floor in every secondary school lobby to function as a 10-year time-capsule. Ten shelves would be installed inside. Each new class in a school would write letters to themselves for the vault as they begin classes that first year. They write about their life history and their plans for the future. Then, as they plan to graduate from that school, they would receive back the initial letter and rewrite it with a clearer focus on their future in 10 years. They plan for a 10-year class reunion at which they receive back that letter.  The reunion will also include giving a “Recommendations for Success” talk to the then current students in the school. They are warned to prepare for questions from these decade younger students such as “What would you do differently if you were 13 again?”

The first School Archive Project started in 2005. They were the Graduation Class of 2009. Both high schools who received these students had the largest 12th grade class in history with the Class of 2009! Dropout rates are going down! Dallas now has four more schools who installed 500 pound gun vaults in their school lobbies this past summer.  The School Archive Projects are spreading!

One of the things you may most like about this plan is that it is popular with donors and costs very little, about $2 per student.

I hope you will consider encouraging such a simple solution to our dropout crisis. Do not give in to lobbyists saying that millions of more dollars are needed. We need something simple that really works.  An article I wrote 2 years ago,  http://www.studentmotivation.org/WhyArchiveProjectWorks.htm.explains why this simple project works.

Since my above posting, the 2009/2010 Dallas ISD enrollment data has been studied with remarkable correlations located.  Since 2005/2006 the 11th and 12th grade enrollments in all 32 Dallas ISD high schools have gone up a total of 5%, or by 758 students, during a time when total enrollment for DISD went down 2.5%.  That indicates significant progress in lowering the dropout rate and keeping students in school.

Upon more closely studying this data a truly remarkable correlation was found.  Of the 32 schools, only two of them account for 55% of this 758 student improvement.  These two high schools are Pinkston and Sunset high schools in Dallas ISD who together account for 9% of all high school enrollment in DISD.  However, over the past four years they account for 55% of the progress in keeping students until the 11th and 12th grade. They had an increase of 417 more students during this time in 11th and 12th grade enrollment. This is a powerful indication that the School Archive Project may be having a very positive effect on keeping students in school.

Fortunately we now have four more schools who have started School Archive Projects.  Within the next two years, if we see similar improvements in their schools, we will have even more proof that planning 10 years into the future, and documenting those plans, makes a very big difference,