This week, NPR has run a special series on the national dropout crisis by sharing stories from the lives of 5 people, some students at-risk of dropping out and the rest adults who are struggling with the consequences of never completing high school.
I caught up with the report on Tuesday as I was driving in to work and was struck by both the familiarity of the problem and how difficult it is to address.
The stories are heartbreaking. If nothing else it reminds me of what’s really at stake when we discuss education policies. According to the report:
"The unemployment rate for people without a high school diploma is nearly twice that of the general population.
- Over a lifetime, a high school dropout will earn $200,000 less than a high school graduate and almost $1 million less than a college graduate.
- Dropouts are more likely to commit crimes, abuse drugs and alcohol, become teenage parents, live in poverty and commit suicide.
- Dropouts cost federal and state governments hundreds of billions of dollars in lost earnings, welfare and medical costs, and billions more for dropouts who end up in prison."
It’s clear that we have to act now to change the course of current policies and practices that result in a dropout rate of 27 - 37% for African American and Latino Students in California. Whatever we can do to keep our young people in school, we need to do it. And, no, I don’t think that includes arresting parents of truant schoolchildren. I think it means coordinating more between schools, government agencies and nonprofits to meet student needs. It also means that we take a good long look at how we reintegrate students who’ve dropped out back into class through teaching methods that build on their assets, and inspire them to learn more. It can be done.
Great examples of this can be seen through an partnership between Alameda County Probation, Alameda County Health Department and a community organization called Bay EMT to provide medical training to youth offenders attending Camp Sweeney. Another excellent example highlighting the arts.
Unfortunately, the alarming dropout rates are only part of the problem, as it seems there are significant hurdles for students of color who do manage to graduate from high school. According to a study by College Board, nearly half of young men of color ages 15 – 24 who graduate from high school in the U.S. will end up unemployed, incarcerated, or dead (emphasis mine).
I’m sure that the dropout crisis and the racial opportunity gap will be covered at the SOS conference. Readers, what do you think? Did you hear the report? What are your thoughts about how we address the dropout crisis?
I've been following these NPR reports online also. They are making it seem very depressing and without hope. Eugene Rodriguez, director of Los Cenzontles Mexican Arts Center in Richmond, outlines his concept of an education ecosystem on Barry's Blog http://blog.westaf.org/ I think it applies here--linking all of the education "partners" - school, home, community resources -- as a way of engaging and empowering students as active players in their education. In that same blog space Chike Nwoffiah, director Oriki Theatre in Mountain View, thinking along the same lines, beautifully quotes Langston Hughes: “Thus the dream becomes not one man’s dream alone, but a community dream, not my dream alone, but our dream, not my world alone, but your world and my world belonging to all the hands who build.”
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