

School Attendance (9th grade) Predicts Graduation - rafaelc
http://www.learnboost.com/school-attendance-in-9th-grade-predicts-high-school-graduation/

======
derefr
Conformance, not intelligence, predicts success in school at every level
(well, until you're a tenured research professor, at least.) This fact is why
I find it so amusing when people use school drop-out rate to as a proxy for
per-capita intellect (as in the study on HN yesterday that showed that
"Socratic discussions lower the drop-out rate"): all you're measuring is an
increase n the amount of shit students are willing to put up with before
walking out.

~~~
vecter
Intelligence (with a healthy dose of diligence) plays a big part in success in
college. If you don't think so, then you're either not challenging yourself
enough, or your college is not challenging enough.

Why do so many people on HN love to disparage school? Did they have horrible
experiences? I had an incredible experience and learned an amazing amount of
stuff. I almost never felt like I had to "put up with shit" to get a degree,
or anything along those lines. Maybe I'm the exception, but I doubt that's the
case.

~~~
DaniFong
My teacher in seventh grade was a tenured paranoid schizophrenic who had it in
for me as soon as I corrected her on the first day of class. This was combined
with an altogether toxic social environment. For me, school seems pointless --
a failed exercise in education cited within in a social disaster zone. I'm
glad I got out. But the general inefficiency of the educational process has
spread as memes to most corners of western society, so I am never truly away.

~~~
vecter
Can you describe toxic? I'm not trying to be a jerk, just genuinely curious. I
remember social life in junior high and high school as being pretty stressful,
and there were bullies (a handful I suppose), but I wouldn't describe it as
toxic. I wasn't particularly popular or unpopular, just kind of did my thing
with some like-minded friends. Kept to my academic clubs, played some sports
here or there.

It sounds like the social aspect was what really killed it for you, not
necessarily the education you got.

~~~
thaumaturgy
You asked this 3 days ago, so probably you'll never see my reply. But:

I read, and understood most of, _Cosmos_ while I was in elementary school. For
me, the educational process of school certainly was toxic. I can see that it
works for plenty of other people, but for many -- some like me -- it is
extremely adversarial.

It took me years after graduation to relearn learning, and re-discover focused
curiosity, and to recall again how to _intelligently_ consider the accepted
notions that many other people have.

To be more specific, public schools lack (among other things) any focus at all
on critical thinking and problem-solving. There are simply not classes for
those at most schools. At best, a few teachers try to work them in to their
class here and there, but it's not taught the way that, say, mathematics is.

Science classrooms are another specific example: they tend to concentrate on
printed material and multimedia, and the few "experiments" that students do
are little more than facades for re-confirming whatever thing is being taught
that week. There is very little there to teach investigation, or to drive
intellectual curiosity.

I say this as someone that was fortunate enough to attend some of the best
schools in the Bay Area at the time; I imagine that my experiences, mediocre
and toxic as they were, were still quite a bit better than what the vast
majority of students are exposed to.

This is not to say that I didn't have some brilliant and dedicated teachers,
however. I remember several of them quite fondly, all the time.

------
Rhapso
Corellation != Causation

Why do high schools keep abusing statistics? This is one of many cases where I
have seen a high school find correlation between an act and grades, and then
made policy decision assuming things like attendance and extra-curricular
activities caused increased grades instead of considering the alternative that
kids who have a nature that causes good grades also causes attendance and
participation in extra-curricular activities.

~~~
hugh3
Somebody's Third Law: the comments on any study of anything will inevitably
contain some guy reminding the world that "correlation != causation".

This will happen whether the study actually asserts some kind of causal link
or not. In this case, it doesn't.

~~~
Rhapso
Just because "correlation != causation" comments correlate with studies, does
not mean idiots like me cause them. I pose that it is the fault of the Study,
and not the crazy person on the other end of this keyboard.

------
hugh3
That's a great graph. The best thing they could do with it would be to just
hand out a copy to every 9th-grade student.

~~~
anamax
> The best thing they could do with it would be to just hand out a copy to
> every 9th-grade student.

What makes you think that the folks who dropped out would be affected by that
graph?

Assuming that someone does something because they're ignorant is almost always
a mistake.

Example - smokers know that smoking is bad for them and they knew it long
before the warning campaigns. (The phrase "cancer sticks" is quite old.) If
you don't understand that they smoke because smoking is better for them than
doing without, you can't possibly help them.

~~~
hugh3
I'm assuming that at least _some_ of these kids who are wagging school are
just doing it out of short-term thinking. They don't want to be high-school
dropouts, they just feel like hanging out at the mall today instead of going
to school. They don't think it matters. Having this graph burned into their
minds might scare 'em into showing up on days they otherwise would not have.

Cigarettes are chemically addictive, so analogies to most other behaviours are
weak.

~~~
anamax
> I'm assuming that at least some of these kids who are wagging school are
> just doing it out of short-term thinking.

Actually, almost all of them are.

> They don't want to be high-school dropouts,

You're assuming that they care.

> Having this graph burned into their minds might scare 'em into showing up on
> days they otherwise would not have.

Do you really think that seeing that graph will keep them from engaging in
short-term thinking? Wowsers.

The graph shows one consequences of short-term thinking. However, they're
surrounded by negative consequences of short-term thinking and still they
continue.

> Cigarettes are chemically addictive

That's not the only effect. It may not even be the strongest.

And it isn't true of starting smokers. They also know what smoking will do for
them, but yet they start.

------
thejash
Isn't this pretty obvious?

Also, it's clearly not the absences causing people to fail to graduate. Just
think about the people you know who skipped classes and days of school in 9th
grade...

~~~
hugh3
It should be obvious both ways. On one hand, the people most dispositionally
inclined to skip school are the people most inclined to drop out. It should be
fairly obvious there's a causal link too, because if you're missing every
fifth day of school you're probably going to fall way behind in your classes
and understand less and less.

Still, the magnitude of the effect is surprisingly large, and this information
is useful to schools if they're trying to minimise dropout rates.

~~~
shelfu
I wouldn't be entirely sure of your assumptions that missing class makes them
fall behind.

An example is myself. I am a high school drop out. I gave up when, in Grade
11, I passed my Math 20 class with an 85% - but had credits withheld (meaning
that I either had to retake or had to make them up with some other class)
because I missed 60% of the class. This repeated itself in other subjects. I
didn't need to go to school, I was still learning the concepts etc, but I
would not have graduated without repeating classes (and actually being there
for them) because of my attendance record.

I'm also aware that this is anecdotal, but from discussions I've had with
other people in similar situations, it's not that I was necessarily unique.

