Asheville’s Erwin High School has been labeled a “drop out factory” by a recent Johns Hopkins study. The school has a 43% dropout rate (for the 9th-11th grades) and is one of 1700 in the nation to earn the classification. Erwin was the only high school in the Buncombe County School System to be rated as such.

While people are pointing their fingers and counting colors, I would like to state that in my personal experience there is a night-and-day difference between Erwin and North Buncombe High. I worked at McDonald’s with kids from both. In Erwin’s district, five kids would stand around the counter and cuss and flirt. They would all run outside when the dealer came. One guy got promoted to management after beating up a kid. After transferring to North Buncombe’s district, I kept tripping over kids because I had become accustomed to having to cover for everybody else. These kids said thank you and please, and my parents would have been proud to own any of them.

I also taught a Sunday school class with kids from both schools. The difference was obvious. I remember one kid in particular who, in answer to any gospel question would say, “I’d beat him up.” He told me once that one could find drugs anywhere, anytime in the middle school. This kid came from a good home. His mom was a teacher, and his dad was in the military and quite the gentleman.

After I got certified to teach, I substitute taught in the Detroit Metro Area. Livonia had two high schools just a few miles apart with no visible difference in income levels. At Franklin, the kids would go out of their way to greet me and ask where I would be working and if they could be helpful. At Churchill, the kids roamed the halls like zombies. In one class, kids were given a reading assignment, but two clowns kept putting gummy bears in their mouths to get them good and sticky before throwing them at the good kids. Unable to get the clowns to stop, I sent them to the principal’s office, and the principal sent them right back.

There was a man who was a guidance counselor for both schools, so I asked him one day why the schools were so different. He said without hesitation, “The administration.”