DOCUMENT RESUME ED 311 526 gA 021 112 AUTHOR Sheffield, Anne, Ed.; 'Frankel, Bruce, Ed. TISLE When I Was Young Loved School: Dropping Out and Hanging In. INSTITUTION Children's Express Foundation, Inc., New York, NY. SPONS AGENCY Primerica Foundation, Greenwich, CT. REPORT NO ISBN-0-9621641-27 PUB DATE 89 NOTE 175p. AVAILABLE FROMMeckler Books, 11 Ferry Lane West, Westport, CT 06880 ($9.95). PUB TYPE Books (010) -- Reports - Research/Technical (143) -- Viewpoints (120) EDRS PRICE MFO1 Plus Postage. PC Not Available from EDRS. DESCRIPTORS Administrator Attitudes; *Dropout Attitudes; Dropout Characteristics; *Dropout Prevention; Dropout Research; Elementary Secondary Education; National Surveys; *Runaways; *Student Attitudes; *Teacher Attitudes; *Youth Programs ABSTRACT Thirteen teenage editors of "Children's Express" investigated the dropout crisis by talking with teenagers who had quit school, with those who had returned to Tive it a second chance (back-to-schoolers), and with others who were iigllting at all odds to hang in there (hangers-in). Hundreds of youth from five American cities -- Newark, Boston, Kansas City, Dallas, and Oakland--were interviewed. Informal and tape-recorded discussions were conducted with groups of students as well as teachers and administrators who were chosen spontaneously. Out of thousands of pages of transcripts, 23 voices were selected to speak for the rest. This book contains five parts concerning respectively: (1) dropouts;(2) runaways; (3) back-to-schoolers; (4) hangers-in; and (5) the beginners, the principal, the teacher, and the young Bronx entrepreneurs. The point of view of the book is that the crisis in the schools is a societal rather than simply an educational issue. Children must resist incredible outside pressures just to remain in school. The sensitive attitudes of students, teachers, and administrators across the country reflected in this book reveal the problem far more humanly than the statistics can suggest. (SI) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * from the original document. O S DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educatonai Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES 'NFORMATION CENTER (ERIC, TMS document PISS been reproduced as r^cffived from the person or organization WHEN I WAS YOUNG origmafing .t C M1,101 changes have been made to "wove eproducrion dtinhly Po$M.'s of oew or opinrons stated Malts dace. men, do not necesssnly representofficial I LOVED SCHOOL OE RI pos.fion or policy "PERMISSION 10 REPRODUCE THIS DROPPING OUT AND MATERAL IN MICROFICHE ONLY HA EEN GRANTED BY /Or HANGING IN 4111rMIIMF TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)." BY CHILDREN'S EXPRESS EDITED BY ANNE SHEFFIELD AND BRUCE FRANKEL 2 When I Was Young I Loved School Dropping Out and Hanging In by Children's Express Edited by Anne Sheffield and Bruce Frankel CHILDREN'S EXPRESS wishes to gratefully acknowledge Children's Express wishes to express its grateful ac- the support of the Primerica Foundation w:iich made knowledgment for permission to publish the follow- this book possible, and Peter Goldberg, the founda- ing excerpts from copyrighted works: tion's vice president, whose vision it was. A Hero Ain't Nothin But a Sandwich,by Alice Chil- dress. Copyright © 1973 by Alice Childress. Repro- duced by permission Coward, McCann & Geoghe- Library of Congress gan, Inc. Catalog Card Number: 88-63736 The Gold Cellby Sharon Olds. Copyright © 1987 by ISBN 0-9621641-2-7 Sharon Olds. Reproduced by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Copyright © 1989 by "The Mystery of the Caves" by Michael Waters, Children's Express Foundation, Inc. fromAnniversary of theAir, Carnegie Mellon Univer- sity Press. Copyright © 1985 by Michael Waters. Published by Children's Express Foundation, Inc. Reproduced by permission of the author. 245 Seventh Ave., New York, New York 10001 "The Longing" by Theodore Roethke. Copyright C) 1962 by Beatrice Roethke as administratrix of the Distributed by Meckler Books Estate of Theodore Roethke. From 11 Ferry Lane West The Collected Po- ems of Theodore Roethke.Reprinted by permission of Westport, Connecticut 06880 Doubleday, a division of Bantam, Doubleday, Dell Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce The Time of Your Lifeby William Saroyan. Copyright this book or portions thereof in any form. (c) 1989 by the William Saroyan Foundation. Re- printed by permission. "High Rollers" by Ice-T and Afrika Islam. Copy- Printed in the United States of America right © 1988 Colgems-EMI Music Inc. and Rhyme Syndicate Music. All rights administered by Colgems- EMI Music Inc. "No Surrender" and "Pink Cadillac" by Bruce Springsteen. Copyright © 1984. ASCAP. Repro- duced by permission of Bruce Springsteen. "The Long and Winding Road" by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Copyright © 1970 Northern Songs Ltd. All rights for the U.S., Canada and Mexico controlled and administered by SBK Blackwood Mu- sic Inc. under license from ATV Music (MACLEN). Ai' lights reserved. International copyright secured. Used by permission. "Fast Cal" by Tracy Chapman. Copyright © :988 SBK April Music Inc./Purple Rabbit Music. All rights controlled and administered by SBK April Music Inc. All rights reserved. International copy- right secured. Used by permission. "Dropout Is Not the Word" by Vincent Wilkins and Steve Mariotti. Copyright © 1987 by Vincent Wil- kins and Steve Marioti. Reproduced by permission of the authors. "Runaways," an excerpt fromLISTEN TO US!Copy- right © 1978 by Dorriet Kavanaugh. Reprinted by permission of CHILDREN'S EXPRESS. Cover and book design by Jean-Claude Snares Printing by Einson Freeman, Inc. Acknowledgment Following are the teen editors responsible J-or this The editors of this book wish to pay special book: thanks to Karen Zelermyer, the former program director of Children's Express, for her tireless Julie Horowitz, Senior Editor efforts on behalf of this book. She worked on it Rachel Burc, from its inception: planning, visiting various Glenn Golz cities, contacting school officials, and generally Thelma Foster orchestrating the entire project. Linda Holmes We also wish to thank the teen editorsthe Adam Horowitz work horseswhose dedication, enthusiasm, David Katz sensitivity and seriousness made this book a Maureen Alacione reality. Their thoughtful and often astonishing Meredith Miller interviews cut to the tap root of the dropout Tanya Pearlman crisis, and for that the teen editors deserve bill Elspeth Steiner credit for this book. Rebecca Walkowitz The teen editors devoted a large amount of Jonathan Zachary their time to interviewing education experts, including: Judy Weitz, director of state and Thanks as well to the many other reporters and local affairs for the Children's Defense Fund; editors who contributed to it. Eugene Lang, whose advocacy of guaranteeing college tuition to every student who wishes to attend college is becoming a national move- ment; Irving Harris, another activist business- man, whose foundation in Chicago provides funding for the pre-school Lare of children as an early form of drop-out prevention; and Dr. Ernest Boyer, formerly U.S. Commissioner of Education under Piesident Carter; and Anne Rosewater, staff diiecto: of the U.S. House of Representative's Select Committee on Children, Youth and Families. In addition, we wish to thank the many other educators, principals, school administrators and guidance counselors (see Appendix) for contributing their invaluable help, time and cooperation. We also wish to thank Aaron Retica, a former CE editor and consultant, who contrib- uted many astute comments. Finally, we would like to express our enor- mous gratitude to all the teenagers and children who participated in the roundtables and the one-to-one meetings (see Appendix for their names; in the text, names have been changed). Without them there would be no book. We are indebted to them for their courage and their willingness to share with us their lives and feel- ings at the risk of facing their own pain and embarrassment. We hope they profited as much as we did from the experience. We thank them r- and wish them all success in' or out of school. J Contents The only people for me are the mad ones. Preface 1 the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad Part One: The Dropouts 9 to be saved, desirous of everything at the scime Sheila, 17 15 time, the ones who never yawn or say a common- Brent, 18 21 place thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous Marybeth, 15 27 Sara, 15 35 yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across Mario, 15 43 the stars and in the middle you see the blue Juliet, 16 53 centerlight and everybody goes "Awwur Part Two: The Runaways 63 Mira, 15 67 -JACK KEROUAC Linda, 16 79 Odetta, 15 85 Part Three: The Back-to-Schoolers 91 Carrie, 17 95 Morgan, 16 105 Lawrence, 15 113 Charles,19 119 Joshua, 19 125 Part Four: The Hangers-in 131 Ronica, 16 135 Deborah, 14 141 Noel, 16 147 Katina, 13 151 Kisha, 16 157 Brian, 15 ' 63 Part Five: The Beginners, the Principal, the Teacher, and the Young Bronx Entrepreneurs . 169 Coleman, 11, Beginner 173 Roberto Marquis, Principal 181 Steve Mariotti, Teacher 189 Josephine, 17, Entrepreneur 197 Howard Stubbs, 17, Entrepreneur 201 Afterword 209 Appendix 215 rl V Preface P-1 4 he title of this book indicates its intent: to go directly to the vcice of the child, to listen to it, to let it speak about the conditions of lift and education at the end of the twentieth century in America. The children and teens who speak share none of the polite distance of academic discourse. They claim none of the dispassionate, orderly objectivity of statistics. They almost warn us off, promising to reveal all of their pain and disappointment, to engage us in conversations where the child, not the adult, is the ultimate authority. In early 1987, thirteen teenage editors of Children's Express set out to investigate this country's dropout crisis in the only way that made any sense: to talkkid to kidwith teenagers who had quit school, with those who had returned to give it a second chance, and with others who were fighting against all odds to hang in there.