Increasing High School Graduation Rates and Preparing Students for Their Future

Increasing High School

Graduation Rates and Preparing
Students for Their Future
2014


4/16/2014
UNM
Matthew Jackson


Increasing High School Graduation Rates and Preparing Students for Their Future



Overview
The point of this project is to help students graduate high school on time, and to help prepare
them for their future lives; whether it be college or starting a career fresh out of school. I am
proposing that we add classes to help students with challenges that they will come to face after
high school, and classes that help send them in the right direction to figure out what they would
like to do once they graduate. We will first incorporate these classes into one high school to
make sure the project does well before adding it to other schools around the state. The target high
school for now will be Monzono high school, for the dropout rate is higher than most other
schools. When the classes are added they will aim to teach the students real life skills that are
utilized every day, and help them to better understand what kind of goals and careers they wish
to pursue. This will also act to help increase the graduation rate by getting teens more involved in
school, and giving them more options for what they would like to do.
Statement Of Need
New Mexico's current dropout rate stands at 30% which is more than noticeable around all
schools. Compared to other states we are amongst the highest of dropout rates. Decreasing the
rate would benefit the work force, our education system, and our overall standing as a state.
Goals:
1. Add courses to high schools that help the students to learn real life skills.
- This will help to prepare the students for what is to come in their futures such as doing
taxes, paying loans, mortgaging homes, interest rates, saving, credit cards, debt, and even classes
that teach CPR and life saving skills.
2. Add courses that offer career bases.
- Classes that you may electively take with other courses that branch off from that first
elective and all lead toward learning a great deal about that subject (so as to set the student up for
knowledge on that career and whether they would like to pursue it or not). These would not so
much be random electives, but classes that are taken that lead into higher level college courses
(courses that are taught at UNM). The main purpose of these courses is to motivate the student to
find something they like to do, and graduate with more knowledge in that given field.


Increasing High School Graduation Rates and Preparing Students for Their Future

Plan of Action
Firstly to start this project we must look at what courses we wish to incorporate into the
education system. By looking at the skills students would utilize outside of high school and what
careers students have interest in. We can start to categorize classes, and begin to plan the outline
of what would be taught throughout the semesters. At the same time teachers will also talk to
students about what they would like to learn about, and what courses could make school more
interesting for them.

Timeline:
1. Adding classes to schools:
- 1-3 months depending on what classes are most popular, and what classes are decided to be
necessary.
2. Designing teaching plans:
- Teachers will be given from the time they are hired to when they start working to design a
teaching plan, and carry it out through their semesters.
3. Finding and hiring teachers for the given subjects:
- 6-8 months, looking at their experiences and teaching strategies.
Overall the process is expected to take a year, starting at the beginning of a new school year to
the start of another.

Courses will include:
1. Financial planning
- This can be split into multiple sub divisions such as paying taxes and taking out loans,
mortgaging houses and buying cars, credit cards and debt. Over the semester these topics will be
covered.
2. Life Saving Skills
- This can also be split into multiple sub divisions, CPR, escaping a sinking car, the Heimlich
maneuver, preventing hypothermia, and exiting a burning building. These courses can change
throughout semesters, and even replaced with other skills throughout the years. This is mainly
for students to gain knowledge that could save their life one day.
Moving on to career based classes we will look at what local careers we have right here in New
Mexico, and can make classes based off of those for hands on experiences (I.E. taking a field trip
down to the General Mills cereal factory). There will of course also be career classes that aren't
found locally. The idea is to create open career paths that can lead into smaller more narrow
careers, and set the student on that path.

Increasing High School Graduation Rates and Preparing Students for Their Future

Career courses will include:
1. Working with technologies:
-This various from computer sciences to designing video games. It will mainly focus on work
that you can do on a computer, so no new equipment will need to be purchased.
2. Outdoor careers:
- Such as park ranger work, reffing sports, playing sports, community services, gardening, and
environmental cleaning.
3. Hands on work:
- This will focus on working with your hands such as changing a tire, fixing appliances, and
working on things around a common household.

These five classes will throughout the semester change subjects as a normal class would, but
more drastically to cover more subjects, and try and help the students to narrow down their
interests. Only five classes are proposed but are subject to change if more open classes arise or
are brought to mind. These will set the examples for how well the project works, and if it
increases graduation rates. The plan is to incorporate this into one high school in Albuquerque to
see how well it does before adding it to other high schools.
The next step is to hire teachers that can teach the given information and/or find teachers that
already have knowledge on the given subjects and have enough experience to teach them. After
the right teachers have been found and the courses are set up and ready for students to enroll in,
the project will initially began.
Qualifications
We will want to hire teachers that have a four year degree in one of the main subjects that will be
taught throughout the semester and information on the other subjects that will be taught as well.
These classes will be more of a hands on experience, the students will see firsthand what the
career is, and this will hopefully motivate them to take interest in one of the careers. The teachers
will build the curriculum.
Budget
The costs will accumulate from paying teachers' salaries every year. Each teacher hired will
average a salary of about 35,000 a year. Five teachers hired will come to a total of 175,000 a year
(averaged salaries) plus costs of field trips (expected to be no more than 50,000 a year). Each
teacher hired will be expected to have a curriculum design and supplies for that design as well
(for each teacher we are asking around 5,000 per design). If we want to bring in professionals to
talk about their jobs, or go and visit them we will go off of volunteer based options, rather than
Increasing High School Graduation Rates and Preparing Students for Their Future

paying them. This will reduce budget costs, and we then have an idea that the professionals are
interested in actually teaching students about what they do, rather than just getting paid.

Conclusion
This project is mainly to help students stay interested in school, and also to help motivate them to
graduate. Upon graduation hopefully they will have gained some knowledge on a career that they
have taken interest to and will pursue that path. We aim to increase the graduation rate by
expanding student's options in school, and inspire them to start to build a foundation for a better
future.




















Increasing High School Graduation Rates and Preparing Students for Their Future





Works Cited
Strauss, Valerie. "How much teachers get paid state by state." Washington Post. The
Washington Post, 15 Dec. 2013. Web. 9 Apr. 2014.
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/12/15/how-much-
teachers-get-paid-state-by-state/>.
"New Mexico Public Education." New Mexico Public Education. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Apr.
2014. <http://ped.state.nm.us/Graduation/index.
"How to Get Classes Added to High School Curriculum." wikiHow. N.p., n.d. Web. 10
Apr. 2014. <http://www.wikihow.com/Get-Classes-Added-to-High-School-
Curriculum>.
"2011-2012 Average Starting Teacher Salaries by State." Rss. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Apr.
2014. <http://www.nea.org/home/2011-2012-average-starting-teacher-salary.html>.