The Achievement through Commitment to Education scholarship program, offered to Caprock and Palo Duro high school students, virtually pays for a college education if the students meet three relatively easy requirements: 95 percent attendance for all four years of high school; at least an 80 grade-point average; and proper behavior.
This year, ACE has expanded into the Tascosa Cluster. In the past, administrators started talking up ACE in the middle schools, but the habits, like coming to school and on time, have to be ingrained earlier, so the elementary schools in the clusters have started focusing on the ACE requirements.
Because I talk to teachers so often -- and my wife is an elementary school teacher -- I've come to the conclusion that parents are a big problem for at-risk students. If the parents don't get their kids up, dressed and out the door to get to school on time, the kids often don't have the incentive to do it themselves. If parents, many of whom dropped out before receiving their high school diplomas, don't make their kids' education a priority, how do we expect to break the chain of poverty and an under-educated workforce?
What's the answer? Who knows? You can't force parents to do the right thing by their children and you can't shame them.
I guess all you can do is pound it into their heads over and over, at every opportunity. Maybe reinforce the necessity of a college education on the kids themselves. "Do you want to live the way your parents are living? Don't you want to do better?"
It breaks my heart to see students who are bright and willing to learn but their parents can't be bothered to get out of bed to get them to school on time.