I firmly believe that we, as a nation, need to address the national high school dropout crisis, an issue about which I am not only passionate but one which will largely define our nation’s long-term competitiveness and the well-being of our citizens. I’ve had the great honor of serving on the board of the National Dropout Prevention Center/Network (www.dropoutprevention.org) for the past six years and effective this January, am now serving as Chairman.
While the NDPC/N’s fifteen effective strategies for reducing dropouts have been embraced by thousands of educators across the nation, we still have a very long way to go. Only 7 in 10 high school students graduate with their peer class, nationally yielding half a million dropouts per year. Said another way by the NDPC/N, imagine 12,000 school buses per year leaving our nation’s school parking lots to carry home students who never return.
The costs are staggering at both the individual and aggregate levels. According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census (www.census.gov), high school dropouts can expect to earn almost $10,000 less per year than high school graduates, obviously impacting quality of life for individuals and their families in significant and measurable ways. In aggregate, the federal government and our states not only lose billions of dollars worth of tax receipts each year, but simultaneously become further saddled with skyrocketing costs of social services and incarceration.
An enormous problem … yet so many of our school reforms don’t seem to move the ed needle in any meaningful and measurable way.. So where do we go from here?
Contributing Blogger: Stuart Udell, CEO of Penn Foster
Did you know?
• An estimated 1.1 million students drop out of American high schools each year. That means every 29 seconds, another student quits high school.
• Nearly one-third of all high school students fail to graduate with their class.
• Students in low income families drop out at six times the rate of students in high income families.
These numbers seem staggering. But until recently, this “silent epidemic” went unnoticed. Thanks to the National Dropout Prevention Center, this problem has gained nation attention. The Center’s mission is to help at-risk students receive the quality education and services they require to increase their chances of graduating from high school. The center has identified 15 core strategies that have had success in increasing graduation rates. Here are just a few of them.
• Alternative schools, such as online high schools and career schools, have been proven to help students graduate by empowering them to guide their own learning. For students who have dropped out of a traditional public high school, putting them back in the same schools, with the same teachers, and with the same instructional delivery will not work. Online high schools give students a fresh start and take some control over their future.
• Integrating educational technology has been proven to increase graduation rates by promoting greater student learning and interaction. Research shows that this technology increases student motivation and helps them succeed outside of the classroom.
• Career and technical education has been proven to reduce dropout rates by making high school more relevant to the students.
It is the hope and goal of the National Dropout Prevention Center to find a solution to this epidemic and make a real and measurable impact in students’ lives.
Contributing blogger: Stuart Udell, CEO of Penn Foster and Vice Chairman of the National Dropout Prevention Center