ASU Research E-Magazine: Saving Students

Arizona has a big problem. More high school students leave the classroom and never come back in Arizona than in any other state. For example, during any given year, approximately 700 freshmen enroll at Camelback High School in Phoenix. Four years later, less than half will graduate. Some will transfer to other schools, some will drop out, and some will simply disappear.

Many high schools throughout the state and across the nation struggle—just like Camelback—to hold on to their students. What is causing America’s teens to give up on their education? And what is the best way to solve this serious social ill?

A select group of students from the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University believe they have found an answer—and they found it by talking to Camelback’s at-risk students.

Each year, the Rodel Community Scholars Program assembles three ASU consultant teams comprised of six to eight business honors students. The teams are paired with teens at three Phoenix-area high schools. The goal is to find out what factors influence the teens’ educational decisions. The younger students are sophomores and have been identified as academically talented, though potentially at-risk for cutting their education short, either by dropping out of high school or skipping college.

The Rodel teams spend an entire semester doing on-site research. They use their findings to formulate comprehensive, customized business plans. The plans are designed to improve student retention rates at each high school. The teams then present those plans to an advisory council made up of local business leaders, public school administrators, and foundation representatives.

The program was born when philanthropist and retired businessman Don Budinger offered the support of the Rodel Foundation. The objectives are twofold: to develop viable business plans to help improve high school student retention and to encourage interest in civic leadership among ASU’s business students. The Rodel program began in 2001. It already has generated several viable business plans that are being implemented either in part or in full at the pilot high schools, including Camelback.

Raul Cardenas is director of the program. “When we first launched the program, I never thought that these business plans would receive so much attention and so much credibility,” he says. “I thought of this more as an opportunity to engage some college students in helping high-risk teens; as a way for the college students to learn about the impact that dropouts have on the community. I didn’t envision that they’d actually create a potential solution to a piece of the retention problem.”

The concept of solving complicated social problems with proven business applications is unique, especially in the area of high school student retention. But it makes perfect sense. Professor Bob Cardy is the Camelback team’s faculty advisor. He says that many business models in areas such as human resources and customer service have the potential to work effectively in an educational setting.

“For example, an approach found to help reduce employee turnover might also help to reduce student dropouts,” Cardy explains. “Obviously these are students and not employees, but you’re still challenged by the same types of issues such as performance, retention, communication, and motivation.”

Others seem to agree. The Rodel program is gaining attention not only within the local business and education communities, but also from outside Arizona. The Southwestern Business Deans’ Association recently awarded the program its “Innovative Achievement Award.”

A significant portion of the program’s success—and much of its magic—can be attributed to the relationships that form between the college students and their younger counterparts at Camelback. Each of the past two years, an ASU team worked primarily with one class, visiting the high school once or twice a week throughout the fall and spring semesters.

Teams developed a rapport with students and a clear picture of the school’s most critical issues. To find answers, they used a process of written surveys, focus groups, one-on-one interviews, interactive activities, and other research techniques.

“That’s when everything really started to take off, when we got in the classroom with the students,” says Andrew Bain, an ASU graduate and Rodel scholar at Camelback in 2001-2002. “Significant portions of our gains were from simply speaking with these students like peers and fellow adults. It was not something that many of them were used to, and they really responded to it in a positive way.”

Each Rodel team worked with a different group of teens and approached their projects from a different business angle. But the raw data they collected at the school was fairly consistent. In fact, both teams uncovered a handful of underlying issues that contribute to the dropout problem and the generally negative image students have of the school. The teens frequently expressed that their classes were boring. They also thought that much of what they were learning in class was not relevant to their lives.

“They told us that teachers who constantly lecture throughout a class period or keep opinionated discussion completely out of the lesson plan were boring,” says Elizabeth Edwards, a Rodel scholar who participated in the second team at Camelback. “Many of the students wanted to be challenged—instead of lectured—through group work, discussion, and debate.”

“The strongest message we got from the students was that they wanted more input into their education. They didn’t want to be told what to do all the time,” says Edwards. “They felt that they had no voice.”

Armed with this new insight, the Rodel teams faced with the task of developing business plans that would help alleviate at least a portion of the problems plaguing the school. In addition, the plans needed to be embraced by the school’s teachers and administrative staff.

The first Rodel team found its young students to be largely unmotivated. One of the biggest reasons for that lack of motivation, they determined, is the students’ focus on day-to-day issues and their inability to see the future rewards of performing well in high school. Many view college as a waste of four years—time during which they could be making money instead of paying tuition.

One sophomore in the pilot class bragged about a friend who had dropped out and was making $10 an hour as a day-laborer. In the minds of most 16-year-olds, that’s huge—$10 an hour, cash-in-hand. They don’t understand that the young man will be hard-pressed to support himself on such an income in the long-term—to buy a home or new car, or to someday raise a family.

“There’s a big disconnect between what they expect to be able to earn without a high school diploma and what kind of lifestyle they envision for themselves in the future,” says Bain.

To combat these issues, the Rodel team borrowed from several accepted business theories and behavioral models. They looked at causal attribution theory, hierarchy of needs, and the expectancy theory of motivation. The team proposed a new three-course program in which students could be dually enrolled in both high school and college mathematics and English courses.

Mathematics and English were chosen because they are fundamental to every other subject and have historically given Camelback students the most trouble. The third course would offer tutoring and college preparatory material, as well as instruction in goal setting and study skills.

The program goal was to challenge students intellectually, prepare them for college, and introduce them to the long-term benefits of education. The team’s plan was accepted by the advisory council and partially implemented during the 2002-2003 school year.

“We had to make sure we came up with something that would be cost effective,” Bain says. “It had to essentially pay for itself or be so persuasive that we could find outside sources of funding.”

The proposal suggested the use of existing facilities and state-funded instructors who required only minimal stipends. Other program components included marketing strategies to parents, students and teachers, as well as performance tracking and evaluation.

It may take years to see measurable improvements at the participating Rodel high schools, but many individual victories are visible today. One Camelback teen who participated in the program quickly realized he was behind in school. That summer, he enrolled at Phoenix Community College and is now on track to graduate.

“He took the initiative himself because of what he learned in the Rodel program. He got himself back on track,” says Bain, pausing to reflect. “I could give lots of examples, times when you can see an impact—either with an individual student, or in the school or class that we worked with. Just having people from ASU there is changing things for a lot of these kids.” —Jessica McCann