For most teachers and parents, it's terrible news hearing a student plans to drop out. But father Donald E. Heller encouraged and supported his daughter's decision to leave school.

In his EducationWeek commentary piece "Why I Encouraged My Child to Drop Out of High School," Heller said his daughter approached him because she was "dissatisfied" with her high school education. Her high school is ranked as one of the best in Michigan, he said. 

"Our daughter is a strong performer, at least as indicated by the measures we use today to assess how well the students are doing in school," said Heller. "She scored well on the state tests, as well as the SAT. Her grades during her first two years of high school, however, did not seem to mirror her performance on the assessments. And she knew that she was not engaged in learning in ways that she had been in other schools she attended."

Heller's daughter plans to attend an early-college program instead of attending her public high school. 

"Our daughter will never earn a high school diploma, and she will never experience the joy of hundreds of her classmates in tossing their caps into the air after being told they are high school graduates," he said. 

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Article by Kassondra Granata, EducationWorld Contributor