The numbers make the importance of high school clear. Those with qualifications or a diploma progress, earn more with time; those without either tend to slide further into poverty.

Yet the numbers also show that programs designed to keep students in school often fail and, despite the proliferation of drop-out prevention efforts, relatively high numbers of poor and minority students in the US continue to leave high school before graduating.

Ask students what the problem is and they’ll probably say the teachers. Ask teachers the same question and they’ll probably say the students, their parents and the administration. This is what a team of Kansas researchers found when they conducted a case study of a single public US high school.

For insight into why it is so difficult for many students to stay in school Jean A. Patterson of Witchita State University and her colleagues interviewed low, average, and high achieving students as well as parents and teachers in the school of about 1,600 where there was a large percentage of low-income African American and Hispanic students.

They found that students preferred teachers who cared for them personally, set high academic expectations and then actively helped them to meet them. They didn’t like teachers who simply lectured and then left students to sink or swim.

And teachers in general seemed to want more time for one-on-one interactions with students, but felt harried by the many demands on their time and the large numbers they taught. The teachers most prone to blaming students’ difficulties on their lack of motivation were the ones whose classes many students described as boring.

The authors encourage educators to rethink high school. Instituting remedial programs and smaller class sizes isn’t enough, in their opinion. Educators should consider approaches that allow for more interaction between teachers and students during class time, build curricula to take advantage of students’ bilingualism and varied cultural backgrounds, and that move beyond stereotypes of uncaring parents by identifying the obstacles to parents becoming more involved with their children’s schools.

• Summary of “Cultural Contradictions and School Leaving: A Case Study of an Urban High School” by Jean A. Patterson, Dalia Hale, and Martin Stessman in High School Journal, Volume 91 Issue 2, pp 1-15.