Dallas officials going door-to-door to beg children not to drop out of school

David Goodspeed, says:

I think I only heard one tiny mention of a driving force behind this "roundup." On a certain day early in the school year, the state makes the districts count bottoms in seats in classrooms and the state's payment to the districts is based upon this number (or something like this). Schools are strongly encouraged to have as many students in the classrooms on that day. I agree with the arguments that HAVE been made public concerning the future of our communities being better and safer the more we educate our youth, but perhaps a bit more disclosure on another key aspect of the roundup would be in order. And how will the districts feel about rounding up kids over the next month or two once the count date has come and gone?

Jason Rice, says:

David! You know I can't resist temptation!

Chris Kidd, says:

bchil03 brings up a good point about CIS, Its a program that actually gets the at-risk students into an actual environment where they can succeed, as Operation COmeback is nothing more than a feel-good publicity stunt engineered by a broken district whos more concerned about making money...

David Hopkins, says:

One of the more effective way to keep kids in school is also the most expensive. Smaller class sizes would make a huge difference, which means (a) hire more teachers and (b) build more schools. A smaller class gives the teacher better control and contact with his or her students. The teacher should be able to better target those "at risk" students. These kids get lost in the system, because the system is too large to keep track of them all.

Chris Kidd, says:

I myself benefitted from a smaller class structure in HS. In fact, its the only reason I graduated. I had two things against me:

A)Learning Difference B) Bad Attitude

While ive kept the latter into my current day ;), I got the special attention to my learning difference, which helped me exponentially. We've seen DISD throw 64 Million into a hole this week, maybe we should give the smaller class size a try

Pavel Lishin, says:

Is "learning difference" a fancy word for "learning disability"?

You know, back in my day, we just called that "stupid".

Jason Rice, says:

So in three weeks it went from "important enough to leave your office" to layoffs in that department.

That's why they get paid the big bucks, eh? "A certain moral flexibility" ?

Travis Bush, says:

Are you sure they weren't recruiting teachers?