Is Our Children Learning?

Apparently not, according to the Alaska Daily News:

“Battling one of the worst dropout rates in the country, Alaska educators gathered for a third day on Saturday to brainstorm how to stop the epidemic of kids quitting school before earning their diplomas. They called dropping out a result of an accumulative failure, which can start before kids even enter school.

“This is a social issue, one we all own,” said Association of Alaska School Boards executive director Carl Rose. “We all need to take some responsibility in this.”

Among the grim statistics:

• Alaska’s dropout rate, at 8 percent, was double the national average in the 2005-2006 school year, according to the latest figures available from the U.S. Department of Education.

• 38 percent of today’s ninth-graders will have no high school diploma 10 years from now, according to the Alaska Commission on Postsecondary Education.

• Alaska ranks 50th, or last, in the number of ninth-graders who will likely have a bachelor’s degree in 10 years, according to the commission.

Statistics from the Anchorage Daily News

While I don’t think it’s fair to blame Gov. Palin for this clearly entrenched issue, I do think it’s telling that instead of bellying up to the Alaska Dropout Prevention Summit as the state’s governor, she skipped it to attend the Republican Governors’ annual meeting in toastier Miami, FL, where, apart from hogging the limelight as much as possible, Sarah Palin, John McCain and the Republican party’s Vice Presidential candidate, was deemed unnecessary in any GOP leadership capacity.

BUT, she did manage a couple of Mai Tais and a tan. A lateral strategy the Dogood sisters cannot help but embrace!

The Dogood sisters heartily endorse this sort of telecommuting!

However, as the mother of two high school dropouts, and the future mother-in-law of another, perhaps Gov Palin knows more about this thorny issue than we do?

In an interview with NBC’s Matt Lauer, younger daughter, Piper, describes how much school she has missed, thanks to the campaign, and agrees that it’s going to be hard to catch up. Piper is that self-aware and she is EIGHT. It seems odd that the Palins managed to fit in a country music band, specifically, the John Rich Band (hat tip: Celtic Diva), yet there was no tutor to keep the kids up with their lessons?

It appears Gov Palin skipped the Alaska Dropout Prevention Summit to head to Miami, FL to promote herself and not, it seems, the interests of Alaskans. Our children may not be learning, but Gov Palin sure is, just all the wrong things, unless you’re Niccolo Machiavelli.