High School Dropouts

[sync0s]

Am I the only person that is pissed off that Obama is calling for legislation against allowing those under 18 to drop out of high school?

I'm a high school drop out (not trying to do a sob story here) who grew up very poor, and I can't imagine what my life would have been like if I was forced to continue school.

 

[UncleBuck]

i was shocked that kids are allowed to drop out of high school before 18.

 

[sync0s]

i was shocked that kids are allowed to drop out of high school before 18.

I don't know about anywhere else but 16 is the legal age here.

 

[UncleBuck]

I don't know about anywhere else but 16 is the legal age here.

that's what my wife said about her home state.

my thoughts on it: political rhetoric, won't pass.

my thoughts on the idea: i like it, but understand why it might have some detractors.

some people will argue against the idea simply because obama proposed it, sadly.

 

[Carne Seca]

I hate the thought of mandatory anything. What is the penalty for dropping out? Jail time? Fines? Will home schooling be outlawed? If children don't have access to a school close to home, will they be bused to mandatory boarding schools? It's been done in this area before with terrible consequences. That's my main concern. However, a diploma opens doors to higher education and career opportunities. I'm kind of torn on this one. Maybe it's just the Indica talking. Who knows.

 

[sync0s]

I hate the thought of mandatory anything. What is the penalty for dropping out? Jail time? Fines? Will home schooling be outlawed? If children don't have access to a school close to home, will they be bused to mandatory boarding schools? It's been done in this area before with terrible consequences. That's my main concern. However, a diploma opens doors to higher education and career opportunities. I'm kind of torn on this one. Maybe it's just the Indica talking. Who knows.

No doubt a diploma helps, but for some people and some situations it can do the exact opposite.

 

[Canna Sylvan]

Public school is a joke. When it came to civics and economics, I knew more than my teachers. I constantly questioned what they said. History was another topic. I knew more than the book. I constantly told them history is written by the victors. Ask Brazilians what they think, that Santos Dumont wasn't first.

I proved I knew more than they tried to tell me I didn't. I scored in the 99th percentile in the state civics and economics tests. Even though I received Cs and Ds on my teachers' tests.

In high school I also took the asvab to get out of classes for a few days. Scored a 137 on the GT. Max score back then was 140. 115 was the cutoff for any job, including things like crypto.

My teachers didn't teach me a damn thing. I once over heard in the teacher's lounge how they were proud of that fact and wanted to know how their worst student scored so well on government tests, since I was so unteachable and annoying.

 

[sync0s]

Public school is a joke. When it came to civics and economics, I knew more than my teachers. I constantly questioned what they said. History was another topic. I knew more than the book. I constantly told them history is written by the victors. Ask Brazilians what they think, that Santos Dumont wasn't first.

I proved I knew more than they tried to tell me I didn't. I scored in the 99th percentile in the state civics and economics tests. Even though I received Cs and Ds on my teachers' tests.

In high school I also took the asvab to get out of classes for a few days. Scored a 137 on the GT. Max score back then was 140. 115 was the cutoff for any job, including things like crypto.

My teachers didn't teach me a damn thing. I once over heard in the teacher's lounge how they were proud of that fact and wanted to know how their worst student scored so well on government tests, since I was so unteachable and annoying.

You want a cookie? Seems like the point of your post was to show how great you are.

 

[darkdestruction420]

mixed feelings here. I have my hsed which is a level up from ged, i refused to attend my high school and eventually got into an alternative program so my parents and everyone would leave me the fuck alone. it only took me about 6 months to get all the shit done and take all the tests(in the top percentile no less) cept the last one which i had to wait a year till i was 18 to take due to state law. I had a job so was no longer required to attend the school because of it but to be honest it doesnt really matter right now. my hsed (and great test scores) means nothing. No job ive had, even the good ones, required it. im glad i have it though. i say why not start a federal program that loans out some of those cheap ass tablet noebook things loaded with a course like i took to kids who dont want to attend their high school for one reason or another? i kind of have to agree with carne on the punishment part though. ive gotten more truancy fines and habitual truancy fines than i can remember, they suck. where i live afaik you have to be 18 to quit high school already. like i said before im kind of glad it is that way though as without it i never would of gotten my hsed. i have hope that in the future it will pay off for me.

 

[Carne Seca]

You want a cookie? Seems like the point of your post was to show how great you are.

Ouch.

 

[darkdestruction420]

Public school is a joke. When it came to civics and economics, I knew more than my teachers. I constantly questioned what they said. History was another topic. I knew more than the book. I constantly told them history is written by the victors. Ask Brazilians what they think, that Santos Dumont wasn't first.

I proved I knew more than they tried to tell me I didn't. I scored in the 99th percentile in the state civics and economics tests. Even though I received Cs and Ds on my teachers' tests.

In high school I also took the asvab to get out of classes for a few days. Scored a 137 on the GT. Max score back then was 140. 115 was the cutoff for any job, including things like crypto.

My teachers didn't teach me a damn thing. I once over heard in the teacher's lounge how they were proud of that fact and wanted to know how their worst student scored so well on government tests, since I was so unteachable and annoying.

And i was worried i was being boastful in my post when i said how i did very well on my hsed work and tests. lol. Anyway, interesting to hear story. If you dont mind can i ask what you do for a living and if you've gotten any degrees or anything like that?

 

[sync0s]

This move by Obama just reminds me of the Ides of March when they decide to go on the platform of requiring military service when people turn 18 because those who are already 18+ won't be eligible and thus won't care and those under 18 will not be able to vote.

I dropped out, got my GED, got a good job, and now I am in college paid for with cash. Sure, if I got my diploma I might very well have been a step further, but I damn sure would not have respected what I have right now.

 

[mountaingarden]

Am I the only person that is pissed off that Obama is calling for legislation against allowing those under 18 to drop out of high school?

I'm a high school drop out (not trying to do a sob story here) who grew up very poor, and I can't imagine what my life would have been like if I was forced to continue school.

I can't speak to your situation, because I don't know how old you are or what part of the country you're from, but by accident of birth, had exactly the opposite experience and wish we could, at least in this one area, go back in time.

I grew up during the draft years of Viet Nam. If guys dropped out of high school, they were immediately in the lowest, most dangerous combat jobs in Nam. TREMENDOUS incentive to stay in school. There were scholarships for good students, and even more grants and work study programs available to kids whose parents made less money than mine. (I got loans, they got grants, and that was cool and as it should be.)

Boys went to college to avoid Viet Nam, which was a war based on making old men rich and young men dead (aren't they all?). Girls went to school because boys went to school. And we got some great educations. Some stayed all the way to advanced degrees. In my personal circle of friends, many of them came from poorer households and qualified for more help and became PhD engineers, physicists, and doctors. All kids from very modest backgrounds. In my family, deal was folks helped a lot with a bachelors, anything else we had to really want and prove it by funding the majority ourselves! We all worked summer jobs, many part-time government like fighting forest fires for the National Forest Service or Department of Natural Resources. I worked construction for a union construction company that hired college students every summer as laborers. The deal was, if you got hooked on the $$$ (and they were big compared to anybody else's summer job) and didn't go back to school, the owner fired you. He was committed to educating as many young people as he could, but he worked our asses off. And that paid for the next 9 months of tuition, crappy housing, rice and beans, and a little cheap beer. Best time of my life.

Sadly, in the 80's, the Republicans branded that scholarship and help "welfare" and got rid of it. They "got the government" out of student loans and now the interest rate is about 12%. They privatized fire fighting and now there are no more summer jobs driving crappy green pick-ups, there are private contractors with chrome and metal-flaked red rigs, paying minimum wage or a bit more. Forever, as long as you're young. No insurance, no retirement, no nothing.

At the end of a long, successful career, I look back and realize if there hadn't been a draft, an entire generation would have ended up with far lower paying jobs instead of careers we (for the most part) loved.

And if it hadn't been for Ronald Reagan, there would have been so many more alternatives for you than dropping out of school.

I really hope Obama is successful in dialing it back to a different paradigm.

Sorry for the length, but your question deserved a thoughtful response. I so wish I had been different for you. all best, mg

 

[Canna Sylvan]

You want a cookie? Seems like the point of your post was to show how great you are.

The point is public school is a joke. It teaches nothing. Everything I did, I did. That whole, "if you can read this, thank a teacher," is bullshit. I taught myself to read. My parents were loser pot heads who didn't know a damn thing.

I was put into retard classes. This was because, at home, I was inhaling so much contact, I was higher than my parents. The school was so stupid it thought I was retarded. The last few weeks of school year I was given custody to my grand parents because my parents didn't want to be bothered anymore. I excelled not being high and learned to read and write on my own. Now that I had the ability to be properly tested, the school was shocked I had tested higher than any prior student.

So again, my point isn't for sob, or pity. It's to show anyone, given the right determination, can do whatever they want, no matter where others classify them. This is why I get sickened when minorities or other so called underprivileged and socioeconomically challenged groups bitch about not given the right opportunity. My life hasn't been the greatest opportunity. But what I have I did. What I don't have, I did. I'm not torn about this law one bit. Graduate, dropout. Your choice, not the government's.

 

[mountaingarden]

Oh yeah....pot was $10 a "lid", old school for ounce, but it was loaded with seeds!

 

[sync0s]

I can't speak to your situation, because I don't know how old you are or what part of the country you're from, but by accident of birth, had exactly the opposite experience and wish we could, at least in this one area, go back in time.

I grew up during the draft years of Viet Nam. If guys dropped out of high school, they were immediately in the lowest, most dangerous combat jobs in Nam. TREMENDOUS incentive to stay in school. There were scholarships for good students, and even more grants and work study programs available to kids whose parents made less money than mine. (I got loans, they got grants, and that was cool and as it should be.)

Boys went to college to avoid Viet Nam, which was a war based on making old men rich and young men dead (aren't they all?). Girls went to school because boys went to school. And we got some great educations. Some stayed all the way to advanced degrees. In my personal circle of friends, many of them came from poorer households and qualified for more help and became PhD engineers, physicists, and doctors. All kids from very modest backgrounds. In my family, deal was folks helped a lot with a bachelors, anything else we had to really want and prove it by funding the majority ourselves! We all worked summer jobs, many part-time government like fighting forest fires for the National Forest Service or Department of Natural Resources. I worked construction for a union construction company that hired college students every summer as laborers. The deal was, if you got hooked on the $$$ (and they were big compared to anybody else's summer job) and didn't go back to school, the owner fired you. He was committed to educating as many young people as he could, but he worked our asses off. And that paid for the next 9 months of tuition, crappy housing, rice and beans, and a little cheap beer. Best time of my life.

Sadly, in the 80's, the Republicans branded that scholarship and help "welfare" and got rid of it. They "got the government" out of student loans and now the interest rate is about 12%. They privatized fire fighting and now there are no more summer jobs driving crappy green pick-ups, there are private contractors with chrome and metal-flaked red rigs, paying minimum wage or a bit more. Forever, as long as you're young. No insurance, no retirement, no nothing.

At the end of a long, successful career, I look back and realize if there hadn't been a draft, an entire generation would have ended up with far lower paying jobs instead of careers we (for the most part) loved.

And if it hadn't been for Ronald Reagan, there would have been so many more alternatives for you than dropping out of school.

I really hope Obama is successful in dialing it back to a different paradigm.

Sorry for the length, but your question deserved a thoughtful response. I so wish I had been different for you. all best, mg

I appreciate your response, but I have to disagree. Using Vietnam as a way to keep kids in school sounds terrible. I can't imagine being told that I either stay in a school where you aren't being benefited or go die for a wrongful war. I would have left the country if I were in that situation.

There are many problems with government funded student loans, ones that we have gone over in detail on this forum many times.

I had my alternatives, and one of them was dropping out. I still regard it as one of the best decisions I have ever made believe it or not. I don't need student aid or any other government assistance, and I never have asked for it.

 

[Canna Sylvan]

And i was worried i was being boastful in my post when i said how i did very well on my hsed work and tests. lol. Anyway, interesting to hear story. If you dont mind can i ask what you do for a living and if you've gotten any degrees or anything like that?

I'm a writer. Mostly freelance reports which help a business organize their company mission or employee guidlines. I wrote another post some time back with my experiences helping what the company deemed, "lazy mexican illegals that can't do shit but are cheaper than Americans whose cost would bankrupt me to hire."

 

[mountaingarden]

This move by Obama just reminds me of the Ides of March when they decide to go on the platform of requiring military service when people turn 18 because those who are already 18+ won't be eligible and thus won't care and those under 18 will not be able to vote.

I dropped out, got my GED, got a good job, and now I am in college paid for with cash. Sure, if I got my diploma I might very well have been a step further, but I damn sure would not have respected what I have right now.

Right on! You're a natural learner and willing to go for it. (I was 39 when I paid off my last student loan!) Until you get that "piece of paper", you're at the mercy of what I've always called The Man. Nobody will EVER ask much about it, but "do you have your degree?" is a big question. Always has been, and it used to mean an automatic 3x bump in $$. Over 30 years, that's serious dough.

 

[mountaingarden]

I appreciate your response, but I have to disagree. Using Vietnam as a way to keep kids in school sounds terrible. I can't imagine being told that I either stay in a school where you aren't being benefited or go die for a wrongful war. I would have left the country if I were in that situation.

There are many problems with government funded student loans, ones that we have gone over in detail on this forum many times.

I had my alternatives, and one of them was dropping out. I still regard it as one of the best decisions I have ever made believe it or not. I don't need student aid or any other government assistance, and I never have asked for it.

Well, the draft ended that terrible war. For 10 years, I've watched a professional military staffed mostly by young people who can't get any other jobs. Then the "lucky" of that batch get hired as mercenaries and the balance come home to unknown futures for which they aren't trained. Hundreds of vets homeless around Ft. Lewis/McChord Joint Base, and that's just my back yard. Must be worse in many other areas.

Drafting (and the risk thereof) rich, privileged kids who objected to being cannon fodder put an end Viet Nam. Some friends went to Canada (and it derailed many for decades), some of us protested (and got put on lists that made customs hell for a looonng time), and others went, for many reasons. Some made it, some didn't.

Until rich, and more fortunate kids run the same risk of combat as poor kids who have that as their only source of viable income, our culture will be one of war profiteering on the backs of poor, less educated young people. That's not okay with me, and a draft is one way of making the Valley girls as vulnerable as those trying to get out of E. LA. Jmo.

 

[sync0s]

Well, the draft ended that terrible war. For 10 years, I've watched a professional military staffed mostly by young people who can't get any other jobs. Then the "lucky" of that batch get hired as mercenaries and the balance come home to unknown futures for which they aren't trained. Hundreds of vets homeless around Ft. Lewis/McChord Joint Base, and that's just my back yard. Must be worse in many other areas.

Drafting (and the risk thereof) rich, privileged kids who objected to being cannon fodder put an end Viet Nam. Some friends went to Canada (and it derailed many for decades), some of us protested (and got put on lists that made customs hell for a looonng time), and others went, for many reasons. Some made it, some didn't.

Until rich, and more fortunate kids run the same risk of combat as poor kids who have that as their only source of viable income, our culture will be one of war profiteering on the backs of poor, less educated young people. That's not okay with me, and a draft is one way of making the Valley girls as vulnerable as those trying to get out of E. LA. Jmo.

Made me think of that system of a down line: "Why don't presidents fight the war. Why do they always send the poor."