Dropout approach proven

I applaud Mayor Verner for convening an education roundtable on June 25 to discuss the dropout issue in Spokane Public Schools. I presume that teachers had seats at this table.

I offer two classroom-based approaches with which I have successful experience and that have demonstrably impressive results nationwide.

The first is service learning, connecting service in the community with academic skills. Youth change from being regarded as consumers of crisis-management resources to community assets civically and academically engaged. Credible data support this transformation.

The second is the Roberto Clemente method. The premise of this approach is that by infusing curriculum with art, music and philosophy (i.e., the humanities), students gain confidence in their ability to learn, and “to see the world and themselves differently in the (ancient) Greek sense of reflective thinking, of autonomy. … Students who know the humanities become good citizens, become active, not acted upon,” insists author Earl Shorris. The Clemente Course has dramatically reversed dropout rates in some New York public schools.

It is evident that each approach links civic involvement with academic improvement. A question is whether Spokane leaders are prepared for the democracy implicit in each approach.

John B. Hagney

Spokane