Rates in Dropouts Increase

Dropouts have rapidly increased over the years. The latest five-year graduation rate is 73.5 percent (recorded September, 5, 2016). “I feel like they should’ve stayed in school to get a better education,” said Shiontae Kizer. People drop out due to peer pressure or just from problems at home sometimes. “Cause most males want to be rappers and don't want to major in nothing at school,” said Kizer. And that's true; most kid’s dropout of school for a musical career or just because they're plain lazy! “No, first of all if the kid wants to dropout that doesn't mean it's the parents fault. Just because you live in a bad environment doesn't mean you have to live up to it,” said Kizer. People always say it’s impossible to ‘make it out of the hood’ but Kizer feels that if you try your hardest to achieve and make it to where you have to go, nothing should be able to hold you back. Dropping out can sometimes be caused because the environment someone lives in or because of the problems they at home. It can be due to peer pressure or be due to something gang or drug related. “I know some people who graduated high-school and didn’t go to college because of peer pressure or because of something gang related,” Usually kids do drop out and get involved in drug dealing simply because they surrounded themselves in the wrong crowd. “I know of this boy in Harvey; he’s 16 and he doesn’t go to school. I was shocked because he’s 16. He has so much ahead of him; that’s crazy,” said Shanyce Kizer. A lot of kids have a future ahead of them but choose the wrong path. Sometimes the parents don’t have a say so and some just let their kids do whatever they want. “First of all, there’s only so much a parent can do; they can do as much as they can then eventually give up. After that they let the kid make the decisions on their own,” said Arielle Moore. “Sometimes it can be what's best for them. You can't judge someone for what they want to do,” said Moore. Some people feel like rappers that rap about dropping out influence the kids. “A lot of teens have made their future job as becoming a rapper now. I don’t feel like it was a good idea for them to do that because that isn’t really a good future job,” said Kizer. Rappers they probably would look up to are Drake, JayZ, Lil Wayne, and other community rappers that rap about gun violence. “I also feel that dropping out does lead to gang relation in that’s where the innocent killings come in. These people need to stop recruiting teens for drug dealing and gang affiliation,” said Kizer.