Michael Jimenez
4/1/13
English 1301

Minority Drop-outs

Over the past years, the dropout rate has seemed to increase rapidly and it seems to have been among the minority of African Americans and Hispanics. Being that most of the majority of the two live in lower class areas, they are zoned into urban inner city schools and unlike a vast majority of white Americans they are not as fortunate to attend “better” middle class suburban schools. Due to many circumstances at hand, many children of racial or ethnic minorities do not graduate high school, but the lack of motivation, transportation to school, and the school’s lack of financial stability all contribute to the high dropout rates. In any issue dealing with kids it always starts first with the parents. Parents are there to set a solid foundation for their child student. It is the parent’s job to motivate their child to attend school and know the importance of the child’s education. However, it is a struggle to be the motivation that these kids need when the parents do not always have the time. In Charles S. Clark’s article “Parents and schools”, he states that “the parental involvement movement . . . steadily declines as children get older . . . [because] of parents lack of time” (13). The vast majorities of these parents are hard working while working strenuous hours so the time needed to be that driving force isn’t always available. The mere fact these students don’t have a solid foundation is a vital reason as to why they cannot succeed. There is no motivation, with no motivation there is no force and they now feel as if there is no reason to go to school because no one is pushing them to go nor instilling in them how important their education is. Another issue at hand is that the urban schools have a lack of proper transportation for students. Living in a lower class neighborhood these students are zoned to the inner city schools. Due to the fact that these are lower income schools they are not financially able to provide transportation for students to get to school, “forcing kids to often get to school on their own, often through unsafe neighborhoods” says Marcia Clemmitt (“Fixing Urban Schools” p.17). Many of these students are left with the option of either walking to school or taking public transportation such as city buses to get to school. Leaving a decision like this to a child who already does not want to go to class will not result in a responsible outcome, such as making the decision to attend school. When students are not able to find a way to school they start to fall behind on school work which causes them to receive bad grades, and not learn the material needed to pass. This affects the students in the long run because when they continue fall behind they are not able to receive a high school diploma. Being that these minorities are forced to go these schools that they are zoned to, they are faced with another problem. These schools do not have the utilities or proper tools to help them succeed which is a hindrance to the students and contributes to them falling behind in their education. Not only do they not have the finances, but most school officials are not willing to help raise money to support the wellbeing of the students. Because these schools are not located in the best areas a lot of the students do not want to be there, and when they are there the teachers are not the best fit for students that need a little more push than those of whom live and go to suburban area schools. “All too often these schools are left with the teachers other schools don’t want . . . and the teachers who do have options exercise seniority rights to leave as soon as they can” (Clemmit, M p.29). In many of these schools the