Makes Sense To Me

From Economist:
"OVER the weekend Bill White, the mayor of Houston, and a phalanx of officials went door to door looking for high-school dropouts. They found 64 students in the Houston Independent School District who promised to come back:

'Mayor Bill White asked [18-year-old Francisco Frias] why he hadn't been to class.
“I have to work,” the young man explained.
Houston ISD's new superintendent, Terry Grier, suggested that Frias consider attending Eagle Academy, a program recognized for its nontraditional offerings and flexible schedules.
“You can do this,” said Grier, whose father and grandfather were dropouts. “The thing that is true about all successful people is that they don't give up. They don't give up. That's what you have to do. You don't give up. … We're not going to give up on you.”

A great idea from the city of Houston. Since they started this "Reach Out to Dropouts Day" effort six years ago, they have had several thousand students re-enroll, and a dozen other cities in Texas have launched similar initiatives. The numbers may seem like small potatoes (in a neighbouring district, 100 volunteers reported promises from 18 students, according to the Houston Chronicle). And the individual interventions don't address the underlying factors that are driving the city, state, and country's troubling dropout rates (18.7% for Class of 2008 in Houston ISD, again per the Chronicle). But every student who re-enrolls is a student whose future prospects just took a big step forward. And this is a population, at-risk teenagers, that could surely use more attention.

As a side note, Mr White shines at this kind of hands-on, practical effort, and this is partly why many Texas Democrats wish he was running for governor, not senator."