I need to preface this post by stating that everything that follows is all speculative. I have no solid evidence to back up my claims. I only have the anecdotal evidence presented below. I would also like to point out that the issues presented are likely no longer taking place today.
When I was attending Artesia High School, we appeared to have a very excessive drop out rate. When the school year started in 1979, there were more than 300 students in my sophomore class. When I graduated in 1982, there were less than 200 of us who received diplomas. That meant we lost more than one-third of our original class.
At the time, the Artesia school system had no qualms about holding back students a grade if they failed classes. Many of them did not move beyond 10th grade from the previous year, so this actually added to our number, which more than made up for those who were left behind in the ninth grade. Add to this that the age at which someone could drop out in New Mexico in the early 1980s was 16. A lot of students turn 16 during sophomore year. (I didn't turn 16 until the early part of my junior year. My birthday is in September.)
Why were so many students dropping out? When I went to school, it looked like some of the students weren't even trying to get a passing grade. Apparently, many of the boys were the sons of drop outs who worked at the refinery. They were probably told, once it was determined they were not going to be starters on the high school football team, that they didn't need to worry about making good grades in school or impressing the teachers. All they had to do was wait until they were 16, drop out and then work at the refinery. Right away, they would start making more money than the teachers.
Other drop outs went to work for the City of Artesia. I remember one student who couldn't add two plus two in class. Two weeks later, I saw him operating a backhoe on a city street. I can't operate a backhoe. How did he learn to do this when he couldn't learn simple math? (It boils down to being able to learn how to do something you're interested in. I guess he was far more interested in construction equipment.)
So, why the accusatory title of this post? Well, I suspect that school officials were actually encouraging students to drop out. I know one person in my class who came out of the guidance counselor's office one day. He said that he was told he didn't need to come back to school. He had cut several classes and had poor grades, so they said he might be able to work at the refinery and pointed him in the direction of the state employment office located next to the Circle K. (Everyone who works at the refinery has to go there to get a job because the refinery is on Federal land.)
This made me start to wonder if the school was getting some form of kickback from the refinery for referring our drop outs to go work there. Even though Artesia is a small town, the high school had a lot of nice facilities, including a bowl football stadium, natatorium and auditorium, all of which had been built in the previous 15 years. Even the larger schools in Roswell, Carlsbad and Hobbs had nowhere near the amenities that we had. Again, I don't have any proof, but it wouldn't surprise me to find out the school got money for every student they sent over to the refinery. There may have also been similar rewards for those students who wound up working for the City that were probably channeled from the refinery.
This, if true, would only be part of the scam. The other part would be falsifying attendance records. Since we were a school in a podunk town, it wouldn't be unusual for the state board of education to not pay attention to us. I didn't even think about this until I saw the movie "Pump Up the Volume." In that movie (Spoiler alert!), it is discovered that the principal was suspending students, but reporting them as present in order to receive more money from the state. Imagine my school telling the state that more than 100 students, most of whom were experiencing attendance issues beforehand, all started coming back to school every day until the end of the school year and then decided over the summer they weren't coming back. This is the part that seems implausible. However, I remember that outside the offices of the guidance counselors, they had these posters with cartoons that urged students to stay in school. But at the same time, as it appeared with the boy mentioned above, they were actively promoting dropping out as a viable option.
Regardless of whether there were scams associated with the school drop out rate, I have to admit that it was, in part, a good thing. Most of the potential drop outs had a tendency to be disruptive in class and took valuable time away from the teacher. By the time I was a senior, that issue practically disappeared.
However, I know of at least one drawback from when I was in school: In the tenth grade, we had to take a standardized test. We didn't get the results of that test until junior year. One of the things they found out was that the student from our class with the highest score had already dropped out of school. I'm guessing he skipped a lot of classes the year before and was "encouraged" to work at the refinery. I'd like to think that the school officials were kicking themselves because losing him as a student meant that the class average on future standardized tests would drop a little bit due to his absence. I'd also like to think that if he had known he was the top student, he would have been inspired to remain in school and become something else besides a drop out employee at the refinery.
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