parental irresponsibility is the cause of the high rate of school dropout

The Con Side accurately reports various factors in why a high school student may drop out prematurely from high school, and yes that is correct. However, what the Con side fails to realize is that those factors he lists from his South African study are still in fact CAUSED by parental irresponsibility. Section 1: Parental Involvement is the Most Paramount Factor to Academic Success Parental involvement is one of the most important contributors to school completion and success. The most accurate predictor of a student’s school achievement is the extent to which his/her family encourages learning. Success is more likely if the family communicates high, yet reasonable, expectations for the student’s education and future career and becomes involved in his/her education. Middle school and high school students whose parents remain involved tend to make better transitions maintain the quality of their work, develop realistic plans for their future, have higher graduation rates, and advance to post secondary education (Clark, 1993; Henderson & Mapp, 2002; Mapp, 2004; Schargel & Smink, 2001; Williams Bost, 2004)[1]. An article from Princeton University[2] also highlights that although there are again various factors that lead to such dropout rates, family intervention is deemed the most decisive factor in determining academic success in a student. “Students' family background greatly affects their educational outcomes and is commonly viewed as the most important predictor of schooling achievement. Among the strongest family domain dropout predictors are parental education, occupation, and income—in other words, socioeconomic status. Although students who need to take a job to help out the family are more likely to drop out of school, Stephen Cameron and James Heckman find that long-run factors associated with parental background and family environment matter the most for students' schooling progress, including graduation from high school." The Gates Foundation[3] also notes that the level of parental involvement was low in children that did not succeed in high school. In terms of high school drop-out respondents, 59% reported that their parents/guardians were not involved in their schooling, with more than half of those parents who were actually involved were so because of “discipline reasons”. Furthermore, 68% of respondents said their parents had become more interested in the students when they were immediately informed about their child dropping out, indicating the parents were just “not aware”. So this should contest the Con’s argument that parental involvement only accounts for 5%, when it is in fact felt by the vast majority of students who do in fact drop out, which coincides with my thesis that parental involvement is the most prominent factor in academic success. Section 2: Many Other Contributing Factors have a Direct Link to Parental Involvement in Regards to Academic Success The Con side states that there is a "9:1 ratio" against absent parents as the cause of high school drop out rates, which is a mostly false statement. Although parental irresponsibility cannot account for all environmental factors, many of the factors that the Con side claimed can be actually traced to absent parents. For example, to take a look at his assertion of “teen pregnancy” as one of the causes, an article from Psychology Today[4] successfully links teen pregnancy with absent fathers. The research states that girls with fathers that left before or up to the age of 5 were 7-8 times more likely to achieve early pregnancy as compared to girls living with their fathers, where a departure between the ages of 6-13 indicates a 2-3 time greater risk. So if the Con side argues for other factors that lead to high school drop out rates, the Con side must also validate that some, perhaps even most, of those factors are highly influenced by the lack of a responsible family environment for the child to thrive in. The Pro side has not said that the lack of parental involvement is solely attributed to the drop out rates, but that addressing this factor as the chief contributor will help promote policies to decrease such dropout rates in our high schools. We can even link this to crime with students with one or more absent parents, or those that are too irresponsible enough to be involved with the student. According to Demuth and Brown, research has shown that “mean levels of delinquency are highest among adolescents residing in single-father families and lowest among adolescent in two-biological-parent married families” [5]. So we can see that when both parents are involved and take an active role in their child’s development, we see that the level of delinquency of a child is reduced. So when the Pro side wonders why children are “engaging in armed robbery, cyber crimes, kidnapping and even prostitution”, it can be clearly seen that the first step in addressing those factors starts with the family.---------- My next round will be to respond to the next round of the Pro’s argument, and for solutions on making parental responsibility a priority in promoting educational success in our children.Thank you to the Con side for this debate and a great Round 2 References: [1] http://www.ncset.org... [2] http://www.princeton.edu... [3] https://docs.gatesfoundation.org... [4] https://www.psychologytoday.com... [5] http://ejournal.narotama.ac.id...