Choice Bus shows students value of education

Sept. 24--ROBSTOWN -- ROBSTOWN -- The ninth-grade class from Robstown High School didn't expect to end up in jail Tuesday. Especially one on wheels.

But as they stepped onto the Choice Bus, the students looked in awe at the simulated prison cell inside the dark, converted school bus. The Choice Bus serves as a tool of the nonprofit Mattie Stewart Foundation to prevent students from dropping out of high school.

According to the foundation, 75 percent of prison inmates never finished high school. Dropping out, foundation officials said, could lead to bad consequences like serving time in prison.

"There is no privacy ever. Someone watches you all day, even when you use the toilet, you're out in front of everybody," said Chet Pennock of the Mattie Stewart Foundation.

The bus, traveling around the Coastal Bend through Friday, is one of three created by the foundation, which is devoted to helping reduce U.S. dropout rates.

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A college graduate will earn $1 million more in his or her lifetime more than someone who never graduated from high school, officials said. And high school dropouts are six times more likely than high school graduates to commit crimes and be incarcerated.

"Sometimes life gets tough and you can't make the money you need to live. You might make a bad choice," Pennock said.

The bus has been to 21 states, including Mississippi, Alabama, Pennsylvania, New York, and Georgia, Stewart said.

Seventh and eighth students at Alcorn Central Middle School in Glen, Mississippi, visited the bus at their school last week. Assistant Principal Travis Smith praised the program and said it was effective in preventing students from dropping out.

"I heard some of the kids talking afterward, and they said they were going to stay in school," Smith said.

Some experts have their doubts about how well programs such as the Choice Bus work at keeping kids in school, like Deborah Fowler, deputy director of Texas Appleseed, a national nonprofit legal advocacy group.

"They need to target if this approach works. This makes assumptions for the reasons they drop out," Fowler said.

Students can drop out of high school for any number of reasons, including the need to work or becoming a parent, she said. Fowler said from research she has seen, a welcoming school climate with plenty of student support works best in preventing students from dropping out.

Communities in Schools of the Coastal Bend, a national non profit organization, is partnering with the foundation and State Farm Insurance to bring the bus to the area.

Sometimes, the life a student lives at home can interfere with school life, said Cassandra Duenez, site coordinator for Communities in Schools of the Coastal Bend. Her organization brings resources to help students manage those aspects of their lives, she said.

"Because our primary population is at risk for dropping out, we can show students the lifetime consequences of not staying in school," Duenez said.

Since 2008, the bus has visited more than 2 million students in 21 states, according to a news release. Sherri Stewart, executive director of the foundation, said in an email there were no statistics on the efficacy of the Choice Bus program.

"We do have a 100 percent ask-back rate for every school we have ever visited," she said

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