School expert speaks at chamber forum

BY ANDREA EGER World Staff Writer
Thursday, July 12, 2012

Reducing the high school dropout rate requires some new thinking when it comes to addressing behavior and attendance problems, according to an education expert from Maryland who spoke Wednesday in Tulsa.

“The ground that we lay now can propel or subvert,” said Robert Murphy, a specialist in school completion and alternative programs for the Maryland State Department of Education.

Murphy was keynote speaker at the Tulsa Metro Chamber’s latest Partners in Education forum. He has been an integral leader in helping reduce the number of dropouts across the state of Maryland by 35 percent and also participates in a work group that is developing strategies to improve the performance of black male middle- and high-school students.

Public school research data for Maryland found a direct correlation between freshman year attendance and high school completion. There, 87 percent of students with four or fewer absences per semester during ninth grade graduated four years later, while only 21 percent of students with more than 15 missed days per semester during their freshman year ultimately graduated.

Incentives for students can help, including free meals and dress-down days at schools with uniforms.

Murphy also said that educators need to rethink the use of out-of-school suspensions because of the emotional and academic impact it has on students. By isolating students from their peers and school support network, which often includes some students’ only opportunities for meals, suspensions can establish a negative reputation and self-image for children and make them feel alienated, Murphy said.

He contends that it rarely ever serves its intended purposes of deterring additional bad behavior or engaging parents in their child’s education.

“How is this an effective intervention anymore?” he said. “With the statistics on the school-to-prison pipeline in discussion between the U.S. Department of Justice and Department of Education, this may not be an option in schools five years down the road. Where I’m at, schools are considering barring suspension for non-violent offenses."

Murphy said the myriad alternatives that would keep kids in school include detention, peer counseling, letters of apology, community service, child study groups and having explicit rules for student behavior that are enforced uniformly from classroom to classroom.

Andrea Eger 918-581-8470
andrea.eger@tulsaworld.com