| Mentored Paterson sixth-graders plan early for high school, college |
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| Saturday, 29 December 2007 | |
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By DANIELLE SHAPIRO PATERSON -- Before becoming a sixth-grader, Braunya Dungee didn't think much about college. In fact, she didn't even really want to go. Since September, however, when the 10-year-old student at the Martin Luther King Jr. Educational Complex started in the district's new mentoring and life skills program, Navigation 101, a lot has changed. Ask her now what she thinks about college and she'll tell you she definitely plans to go. Ask her what she wants to do and she's quick to tell you she aspires to become a pediatrician. "It's better to be more prepared now than later," she said on a recent Wednesday morning during her weekly Navigation 101 advisory meeting. "I learned that if you go to college, you'll get a better job than if you don't." If you think it's early for a sixth-grader to be thinking about career goals, what high school and college she wants to attend and how to get there, think again. Educators say that without thinking about her future, Braunya risks becoming another of the far too many students from Paterson and around the nation who won't finish high school. In Paterson, only about 47 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds are high school graduates, according to Census data from 2006.
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