The Dropout Nation Podcast: The Dropout Crisis Beyond Cities

On this week’s Dropout Nation Podcast, I explain why one must stop thinking about big cities as being the only epicenters of the dropout crisis and the nation’s crisis of low educational achievement. While Detroit and other major urban areas are often associated with systemic academic failure, small cities such as Hammond, Ind., and Alexandria, Va., along with rural communities, suburbs and exurbs also struggle with dropouts.

You can listen to the Podcast at RiShawn Biddle’s radio page or download directly to your iPod, Zune, MP3 player or smartphone. Also, subscribe to the podcast series. It is also available on iTunes, Blubrry, Podcast Alley, the Education Podcast Network,  Zune Marketplace and PodBean. And the podcast on Viigo, if you have a BlackBerry, iPhone or Android phone.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Voices of the Dropout Nation: August in Quotes

“[The] shame of success has pervaded America’s educational culture for far too long. I’ve heard it repeatedly from low-income and minority students who are picked-on and ridiculed because they want to do their best in school. It saddens me to hear the same sentiment expressed by someone who should be a model for her students and peers. — U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan arguing why we need value-added evaluations of teacher performance — and why reports such as those by the Los Angeles Times are doing what education traditionalists and some reformers aren’t willing to do.

“The gender gap is larger in the Black community than in others. There are deep historical reasons for this and they do not lie in the Black community  it is part of what Gunnar Myrdal called the “American Dilemma.” Racism in America has always been “gendered.”… When Black males are educated to world class standards we can be pretty sure that all American children will have that opportunity.” — Schott Foundation research  czar Michael Holzman, author of the Yes We Can report, in response to Richard Whitmire at his Why Boys Fail blog.

“[Although] the number has remained roughly consistent over time, about 4 in 10 public school parents say they’d change schools if they could.  From a pure loyalty and market share perspective that should be a troubling number for the public school establishment but instead they take comfort from the 60 percent.” –Eduwonk‘s Andy Rotherham responding to the latest Gallup/Phi Delta Kappa poll on political support for public education.

Listen tomorrow for the Dropout Nation Podcast, which will focus on how to reform failing suburban districts such as the mostly-black Roosevelt district in New York (now under state control).