Book Review: The Last Dropout

The Last Dropout
Bill Milliken
Hay House Publishing 2007
240 Pages






I am deeply suspicious of non-fiction. Whether it is history, biography, social commentary or self help.... they stink of fiction, masked in fact. As a Christian I get people handing me Christian self help books all the time. Granted... I am a person who needs a lot of help. But historically these books leave me cold. Max Lucado, James Dobson, the mega Church guys... all have great messages (well maybe not Dobson) but these books all wrap around individual themes. They then take those themes and extrapolate them out into action plans and life plans and planning plans... and it always feel like they are telling me something I already know, whether I know it intuitively or because I learned it, or because I know it because Christ spoke it in “The Sermon On The Mount”. I do not mean to be smug about this. Christian or not we all live our lives or should at least be guided by what we are simple rules.

The ones for business life are even worse where people take simple ideas and m them into your “plan” for success. I am sure that there are some good ones out there but in the main they stink and are useless... or at least that is my opinion.
The non Christian, non business, self help books I believe are all about dieting.

So a person I respect a lot who knew of my passion for teenagers recommended this book about our troubled approach to education. I liked a lot of portions of the book which emphasizes that the dropout problem is not a “school” problem but is instead a community problem. The author is the head of a GREAT program called Communities In Schools and the idea is simple, that we need a supportive community AROUND (embracing) our schools in order to educate and ultimately advance our children. Especially children in under privileged environments.

The book gives a little history of the author and his rough and tumble up bringing and how a Young Life leader and Young life camp saved his life and helped him become a servant. Mr. Milliken has done a lot of awesome things but among others he started up the urban street academies to give inner city youth a path towards their GED’s. What that experience allowed he and some of his cohorts to do was to realize that for schools to function properly the kids had to have a certain baseline. This lead to some essential principals which the book fleshes out:

• One: Programs don’t change kids – relationships do.
• Two: The dropout crisis is not just an education issue.
• Three: Young people need the five real basics, not just the Three R’s: a one-on-one relationship with a caring adult; a safe place to learn and grow; a healthy start and a healthy future; a marketable skill to use upon graduation; and a chance to give back to peers and community.

• Four: The community must weave a safety net around its children in a manner that is personal, accountable, and coordinated.
• Five: Every community needs a “Champion for Children” – a neutral third party with “magic eyes” to coordinate and broker the diverse community resources into the schools on behalf of young people and families.
• Six: Educators and policy-makers can’t do it alone...and they will welcome your help.
• Seven: Curing the dropout epidemic will demand change, not just charity.
• Eight: Scalability, sustainability, and evidence-based strategies are essential to creating permanent change in the way our education system combats the dropout epidemic.
• Nine: Our children need three things from you – your awareness, your advocacy, and your action.

****

That is some pretty good stuff. This guy has some good partners and has hung with some good people. Bill and Melinda Gates, Jimmy Carter and Senator Lugar are just a few. He also rips on the dreaded sacred cow of “No Child Left Behind” which of course resonates with me but points out, over and over again, that the drop out problem is NOT an education problem and that, in case you did not know it, a kid whose parents are beating the shit out of him, or each other, cannot learn. He writes about it dryly but you get the picture and you get some heart warming stories AND you get a call to action. I noticed St. Louis does not have a Communities In Schools Program. Another sign of our backwards approach. We could use a Champion For Children in this town. Any takers?