Published: October 03, 2008 10:49 am            

America's Promise: Dropout rates drain nation’s future

Editor’s note: This is the second installment in an ongoing Princeton Times series called “Keeping Mercer’s Promise,” dedicated to exploring the issues identified during the America’s Promise 100 Best Communities for Young People National Forum and the initiatives that made Mercer County one among that honored group. This week, we focus on the high school dropout rate on a local and national level.



PRINCETON — Every 26 seconds, a young person drops out of school and diminishes their chance of succeeding in a world that constantly demands more education and more skills to succeed.

Each day, 7,000 American teens leave their classes forever and call it quits on much more than a high school career. Over a year, that amounts to 1.1 million young people who walked away from school without a diploma and with extremely diminished opportunities for employment. Approximately 30 percent of students will never see high school graduation, and the numbers are higher among minorities.

An estimated 40 percent of Hispanic students and 50 percent of African-Americans drop out of school.

The statistics are daunting, but the America’s Promise Alliance and communities coast to coast are joining forces to reverse the trend and improve the lives of 15 million young people over the next five years. The startling dropout rate and activities that could stem it were among many themes that resonated recently during the 100 Best Communities National Forum in Washington, D.C.

“Our young people are, literally, our future ... Today, we are a dropout nation, but we must become a graduation nation,” Alliance CEO Marguerite Kondracke announced during the Forum that included delegations from Mercer and Monroe counties. “...It is more than the schools. It will take the entire community working together.”

As startling as the dropout rate is, Kondracke said there’s also a workforce readiness crisis looming, as more and more potential employees hit the streets with bare resumes and few marketable skills.

That’s why the America’s Promise Alliance and its myriad partners nationwide have outlined three strategies to serve families and slice the dropout rate in coming years. Those initiatives are:

• All Kids Covered, aiming to provide health care coverage to all children, ensuring they can think clearly and function well because their bodies are taken care of.

• Where the Kids Are, taking support to the young people, rather than expecting families to find the services they need.

• Ready for the Real World, targeting middle schoolers to engage them in service-based learning and activities that interest them in order to make them active partners in their own education.

•••

“Like all school systems, Mercer County is concerned about the dropout rate,” Mercer County Schools’ Information Specialist Kellan Sarles said this week. “Last year, our adjusted dropout rate was 3.9 percent.”

The adjusted dropout rate does not include students who left Mercer County public schools to enroll somewhere else or completed the GED exam.

“Our graduation rate, based upon the percentage of ninth-grade students who complete in four years all requirements for graduation, was 82.4 percent, with that rate varying from year to year and from school to school,” she reported.

Like the rest of the nation, Mercer education officials have long studied dropout trends and worked to apply that knowledge to local initiatives.

There are as many reasons for dropping out as there are students who drop out, but Sarles said several reasons ranked high when former students were asked why they left school.

The single strongest school-related predictor was retention of one or more grades. Nine out of 10 dropouts were retained at least one year.

Sarles said poverty also plays a role. Her data revealed that young adults living in families in the lowest 20 percent with regard to income were seven times more likely to drop out of school than their classmates whose families earned among the top 20 percent.

Limited English proficiency, ethnicity and pregnancy also ranked high among the reasons for dropping out.

In Mercer County, Sarles said trend data indicate that the most oft-given reasons for quitting school are:

• Past history of absenteeism

• Falling behind or failing classes

• Lack of motivation

• Dislike of school rules, schedule, and expectations

• Personality conflicts with teachers

• Falling behind on attendance.

While America’s Promise surveys reveal many communities have long targeted youth in the mid to late teens with a stay-in-school message, that’s really too late. Recent studies showed that youth nationwide make the decision to drop out of school in about the sixth grade. They start actually doing it in the ninth grade.

Mercer’s numbers are slightly different.

“In Mercer County, more students drop out in their 11th grade year than during any other year of school,” Sarles said.

•••

Both the local and national dropout numbers prompted the Mercer County delegation in attendance at the 100 Best Communities National Forum to pledge to work harder to keep kids in school. And, they said the effort must be more than an a call to action; it must be a concerted effort to change lives.

United Way of the Virginias Executive Director Michelle Williams attended the 100 Best forum and reminded members of the Creating Opportunities for Youth Coalition of the shocking numbers Tuesday.

“The dropout rate in this country is completely unacceptable ...” she said. “If we’re a coalition that creates opportunities for youth, one of those opportunities has to be graduating from high school.”

There are programs and projects in place to reach out to students who are considering dropping out, or who have already made that decision.

Sarles listed an emphasis on research-based strategies for teaching reading at the elementary level and tiered programs to offer additional assistance for elementary students at risk of falling behind early in their education. Summer academies, projects to engage entire families in school activities, conflict resolution programs, and dual enrollment programs that offer students opportunities to acquire high school and college credits have all aimed to expand students’ and parents’ participation in education.

The Second Chance program offers students who previously dropped out the option of finishing their studies on weekends and through supervised online courses, while initiatives like Choices target ninth-graders in an effort to show them just how much of their destinies they control through self, time and money management practices.

And, a Mercer County Technical Education Center hospitality training system offers students real-world experiences to prepare them for the post-graduation job market.

Like Mercer County, the America's Promise Alliance is committed to mobilizing the vast resources of states and local communities to address their dropout challenges. The group aims to serve as a catalyst for action, recognizing that states and communities themselves must drive, and sustain, the actions that are necessary to make high school graduation and college readiness a reality for all of youth.

“We’re going to wrap our arms around them and do whatever we can to see those children succeed,” Kondracke said.

— Contact Tammie Toler at ttoler@ptonline.net.

        

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