Chronic Truancy or Chronic Apathy

Although awkward, the phrase over-age and undercredited is powerful as it shifts the blame of our nation's graduation crisis from students to the dynamic interplay between students and schools.  As much as possible I try to avoid the phrase "drop-out" as it places all the responsibility for not completing high school squarely on the shoulders of students.  "Drop-out" allows us to turn our backs to the experience of students we have failed to teach to read.  "Drop-out" allows us to close our ears to the fears of students as they fall farther and farther behind. "Drop-out" allows us to close our minds to the institutional racism that pushes young people out of school and onto the streets or into jail.

Over-age and undercredited is never going to just slip off the tongue.  Maybe that's okay. In the seconds it takes to say it we have to pause and recognize that we need to pay attention to both schools and students if we are going to renew our nation's economic strength.  Sure students are responsible if they just give up and walk away from school.  But schools are responsible if they give up on students without creating ways for them to get the help they need to succeed or provide on-ramps to get their diplomas. Students and schools both have to commit to finding pathways to success.

I raise this, as there has been increasing attention to attendance and truancy. I just reviewed a great report by the University of New Mexico'sCenter for Education Policy Research on the landscape of educational outcomesin Albuquerque -- and there were maps with splashes of bright red highlighting neighborhoods with "habitual truancy". I've noticed the phrase "chronic truancy" finding its way into policy conversation. Once again, it feels like students and families are shouldering the blame.  Is there some way we can talk about the lost opportunity when students are not in school as a both/and?  Is there some way we can recognize that some students miss the first class because they have to take their siblings to school first and need to have greater flexibility about when they start? Can we create the online capacity that was established across the country in face of the H1N1 flu to support students that miss school because their employer insists they fill a gap in the day shift? Can we use suspension and expulsion rates as an early warning system about school culture as much as we use it to indicate that students are disengaging from school? 

I've waited in line with students in howling winter winds as they enter the school through metal detectors.  I've been bumped and pushed in overcrowded school halls. I've been in classrooms where the teachers spent the entire day reading from the textbook.  I've waited at locked schools for 45 minutes with students who were late to school and told to wait outside until 2nd period. Yes students should come to school. But in the face of chronic institutional apathy, we may simply be creating that Catch-22.  Either way, they may not get the education they need.

Language can be our friend or our foe.  As we push to make sure our students are in school we need to have complementary language. There may be students that drop-outs that need drop-in schools. There may be students that are chronically truant that need "sticky" schools that won't let them slip away.

Let's make sure we aren't chronically apathetic. Let's care enough to find language that empowers schools and students.