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By Samir
For some families, education is everything because it falls through the family. For others, there’s no motivation or no point of learning what you’re not going to use in life. The usual question being asked is “what’s the point of learning this if I’m not going to use it in life.” According to ”Mercury News” Oakland high schools had dropout rates in the 40 percent range. The question is why. What pushes high school students as far as to dropping out? And in doing so, what do they expect out of it or is there plan b? I’ve heard it a million times from former friends and classmates of mine. Their usual response is, ‘well I’m going to be a rapper or a basketball player.” But what they don’t know is that in order to be a rapper, you need a college degree unless you make it by luck like Wiz Khalifa because of his well-known “Taylor Gang” brand.
Believe it or not, Lil Wayne graduated from the University of Houston where he studied psychology and later took online classes because of touring. Ludicrous attended Georgia State University where he graduated with a degree in music management. Other music artists who graduated college include P Diddy, David banner, and M.I.A. the same goes for basketball players but they all need college degrees. Overall, you need a college degree to make it where you want to go unless it’s something that falls into a high school dropout category. But why do most of Oakland’s dropouts think their going to have these opportunities over the ones who finished high school and have college degrees. Stay tuned as we have Lili 16 years old, Xavier 15, and Theresa 17 answer a couple of opinionated questions for us on this topic.
1) Why do you think Oakland’s dropout rate is in the 30% and higher?
2) What are some things people end up doing after dropping out?
3) Do you think Oakland’s one of the worst cities because of the dropout rates?
4) Do you know of any dropouts and what do they do now?
5) Do you see hope for the future of OUSD?
6) If you had a friend who was considering of dropping out, how would you advise them?