Anyone who has taken an interest in the fate of our nation's children is well aware of some of the more troubling statistics on the numbers of youth who do not succeed in school. Over a million young people drop out of high school each year, dropout rates are as high as 50% for low-income and minority children... and little progress has been made, if any, to reverse the trends.

Educators in schools serving the most at-risk students face a difficult Catch-22 when confronted with these statistics and the realities of the classroom. On the one hand, any attempt to reduce the dropout rate and increase the chances of success for all students must begin with a commitment to provide each and every child with the education they need. Unfortunately, not every student is as open to instruction as the next; there are some who display such difficult behavior in class that they make it harder for their teachers (and consequently, their peer students) to teach effectively.

The reasons why some of these "problem" students act out in class are countless, and many of them are indeed well-justified. Some of my 8th grade students who persistently talk out during lessons, walk around the room, tease other students, and distract the entire class face severe challenges in their home lives and have incredible responsibilities that no middle schooler should ever have to face (one student, for instance, is responsible every day for taking care of three little siblings while his mother works the evening shift... at the age of 13). But the fact remains that a commitment to educating these difficult students may actually reduce our effectiveness with educating their classmates. As a colleague I respect a great deal in my school has told me, sometimes you to help the majority of our students, we have to let go of the few who come to school the least in learning.

That is the case, of course, if we insist on educating them all in the confines of the same kind of classroom that we have taken to be the standard in K-12 education: a teacher-directed, 20 to 30 student room with 50 minute or block schedules. Perhaps there are pro-active ways to provide more individualized instruction to the problem students in settings where they are more focused on learning, and less interested in entertaining their peers. To be certain, our school (and most schools) is using reactive measures to try and deal with these students, like in-school suspensions. ISS's are helpful for teaches insofar as they pull poorly-behaved students out of the classroom so that everyone else can move forward. But they do nothing for the troubled students themselves, since sitting quietly in a room for seven hours doing busy-work is not likely to make them love learning, and not likely to make them change the behavior issues that got them there in the first-place.

What could a pro-active solution to dealing with these students look like? Perhaps a requirement for students that teachers identify as having serious behavior problems to stay after school and work with the teachers on key curricular items. I've found that a lot of my students who act out the most are disguising low-reading levels; perhaps if we can help them improve those skills they would have the ability (and new motive) to participate in class. I'd be curious to know if there are better ideas - my interest in education policy has for too long been centered on broad state-wide or national ideas, and not enough on the day-to-day problems facing students and schools.