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Problem: Some reports estimate that 25-30% of U.S. students drop out before completing high school. A study by Harvard University and the Urban Institute found that 31 per cent of the high school students in California fail to graduate on time. Source: "The Dropout State," Irvine Quarterly, Vol. 4, No. 13 (Winter 2005) -- http://www.irvine.org/publications/iq/youth.shtml. The Harvard-Urban Institute study found even lower on time graduation rates for African-American and Latino students. An earlier study reported that Cleveland has a graduation rate as low as 28 percent, Chicago, 48 percent; Dallas, 52 percent; and New York and Baltimore with graduation rates of only 54 percent. This study found that only "56 percent of African Americans nationwide and 54 percent of Latinos" complete high school. Source: Matthews, "Area Schools Rank High in Graduating Minorities," Washington Post, November 14, 2001, A1, A25, citing a study by Jay P. Greene, senior fellow at Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, conducted for the Black Alliance for Educational Options.

An August 2002 study by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, found that "Only 67% of all Washington State public school students from the class of 2001 graduated from high school. This is significantly lower than the 82% graduation rate suggested by official Washington State statistics." Jay P. Greene, "Graduation Rates in Washington State," Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, (2002).
The same study found that "Graduation rates are significantly lower for African-American students (53%), Latinos (47%) and Native Americans (47%)." It also found that "Graduation rates vary widely by school district. Looking at the results for fifteen districts, graduation rates range from a high of 82% in Bellingham and Lake Washington to a low of [51% in Tacoma, and] 46% in Pasco." Id.

Other reports, using a somewhat different measure, indicate that the percentage of 16-19 year olds who have dropped out of school averages from 9-10 percent and ranges from 5-17 percent statewide and higher still in high-poverty urban areas.

Dropping out of high school before graduation limits employability and earning potential and also increases susceptibility to serious illness. According to the Annie E. Casey Foundation, "The most recent data available from the Census Bureau’s Survey of income and Program Participation suggest that high school dropouts are about three times as likely to slip into poverty from one year to the next as those who have finished high school." Dropping out of school before graduating from high school also increases their susceptibility to a variety of personal and social risk factors.

Source: Michael A. Fletcher, "Progress on Dropout Rate Stalls," Washington Post, March 3, 2001, p. A1, A10:

"Nearly one quarter of the nation's students fail to graduate [high school] . . . . Now, as the national debate increasingly focuses on raising standards and tightening accountability, some experts say too little attention is being paid to the students who will leave school before they can even begin to reap the benefits of the education reform movement."
"'As states impose new standards and high-stakes tests for graduation and promotion, some predict that our dropout problem will only get more dire,' said Robert B. Schwartz, president of Achieve Inc., a consortium of state and corporate leaders that advocates higher academic standards. 'Our challenge is to raise academic standards for all students, while simultaneously ensuring that at-risk students receive the support they need to meet the standards and stay in school.'"
"In Philadelphia, nearly half the students who enter ninth grade do not graduate four years later."
"Dropouts are 50 percent more likely to be unemployed than high school graduates, according the National Center for Educational Statistics. When they are employed, high school dropouts earn about 25 percent less than high school graduates."
"Johns Hopkins University researchers have found that much of the problem is concentrated in a few hundred high schools in 35 of the nation's largest cities. The schools are typically poor and have large black and Hispanic populations. Generally, less than half their freshman classes graduate four years later."
"The problems that lead students to drop out often emerge as they enter ninth grade. By then, teachers traditionally have expected them to have mastered basic reading and math skills. But a survey conducted at 15 Philadelphia high schools showed that, on average, students come to the city's neighborhood high schools reading at the fifth grade level. The survey also found that more than 5 in 6 freshmen had been held back, enrolled in special education classes or had math and reading scores below the seventh-grade level."
"More often than not, academic weakness results in poor academic performance. Nearly half of the city's ninth-graders earn an average of D or F for their courses. A third fail three or more core academic subjects."
"Not surprisingly, half do not get promoted to the 10th grade--what researchers call the surest sign that a student will drop out, usually because he becomes discouraged about lack of progress."
"'To improve achievement among freshmen, you really have to do something radical,' said "Elizabeth Useem, a researcher for the Philadelphia Education Fund, a nonprofit organization that promotes school improvement strategies."

Source: "Across the USA: News from Every State -- Arizona," USA Today, June 28, 2001, 7A: "The dropout rate for high school students was 11.1%. The rates are almost unchanged from the previous year. Dropout rates have taken on added importance because they are being used to judge schools' performance."

Source: Gladwell, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Made a Big Difference, Boston: Back Bay Books (2002), says that "All epidemics [social as well infectious disease epidemics] have Tipping Points. Gladwell "cites the work of University of Illinois sociologist, Jonathan Crane, which "has looked at the effect of the number of role models in a community -- the professionals, managers, teachers whom the Census Bureau has defined as 'high status' -- has on the lives of teenagers in the same neighborhood." (pp. 12-13)

"He [Crane] found little difference in pregnancy rates or school drop-out rates in neighborhoods of between 40 percent and 5 percent of high-status workers. But when the number of professionals dropped below 5 percent, the problems exploded. For black schoolchildren, for example, as the percentage of high-status workers falls just 2.2 percent points -- from 5.6 percent to 3.4 percent -- drop-out rates more than double." (p. 13)
"We assume, intuitively, that neighborhoods and social problems decline in some kind of steady progression. But sometimes they may not decline steadily at all; at the Tipping Point, schools can lose control of their students, and family life can disintegrate all at once." (p. 13)
Note that the solutions that follow on this page do not focus on this important contextual factor affecting drop-out rates. As Gladwell argues persuasively elsewhere in his book, "One you understand that context matters [and] that relatively small elements in the environment can serve as Tipping Points, . . . defeatism [can be] turned upside down." (p. 167)

Solution: Some innovative programs are being developed to help students improve their academic performance, stay in school, and graduate.

"With financial help from the Philadelphia Education Fund, the [Philadelphia Strawberry Mansion high] school began a program that included segregating freshmen in one area of the building, assigning them a specially trained team of teachers and scheduling double periods of reading and math to address the students' academic shortcomings. The school also launched a late-afternoon program for disruptive students [including] 82 students who enrolled last year after being released from some type of incarceration." (Id.)
". . . with the help of this new program, 55 percent of Strawberry Mansion's freshmen passed their core subjects. And nearly two-thirds moved on to become sophomores last school year. The program, called Talent Development, yielded similar results at Thomas A. Edison/John C. Fareira High School, which is also in North Philadelphia. The program costs about $180,000 at each school." (Id.)
"'It's not easy. It's not cheap. It's not quick,' said James M. McPartland, director of the Center for the Social Organization of Schools at Johns Hopkins University, which developed the program. 'But it's possible to make improvements.'" (Id.)

Solutions: For additional information on innovative educational programs to help at risk students stay in school, obtain required knowledge and skills, and develop a sense of personal responsibility, see:

Prince George's County, MD's Juvenile Justice Alternative School in Bladensburg, which is intended to "to provide a 'last chance' to students who have been suspended or expelled from their public schools or sent to the alternative facility by a county judge." Prince George's expelled 283 students last year and suspended 10,047 students. The objectives of the alternative school are "to strengthen the students' behavioral and management skills; help them plot career options; teach them basics such as math and science; and push them toward a more positive approach to their lives." Stockwell, "Pr. George's 'Judge's School' Targets Troubled Students: Suspension and Expulsions to Be Served at New Facility," Washington Post, December 7, 2001, A5.
For information on Florida's Drop Out Prevention Program, see http://www.oppaga.state.fl.us/profiles/2020/01/.

Solutions:

Fairfax, VA school superintendent, Daniel A. Domenech, attributes some of the success of that school system in keeping students in school through graduation from high school to "the variety of programs we offer to fit the needs of every child . . . [including] alternative high schools, [and] evening high schools." Matthews, "Area Schools Rank High In Graduating Minorities," Washington Post, November 14, 2001, A1, A25. The study cited by this article found that "Fairfax [VA] and Montgomery [MD] counties [rank] first and second among the largest 50 districts in overall graduation rates. Prince George's was in eighth place. When just African American students were counted, Fairfax was No. 2, Prince George's was No. 3, and Montgomery, No. 4 -- with Boston ranked No. 1."
In Prince George's County, Mildred Perry, director of student services, cited several factors as contributing to reduced dropout rates, including "high schools' efforts to provide medical care for students and work with them on family problems. She said positive approaches to discipline also had an effect, with an 18 percent drop in suspensions and a 48 percent drop in expulsions in the past three years." Id.
For information on the Fort Wayne, IN program to reduce drop outs and improve student performance and satisfaction with their schools by use of regular student attitude surveys and follow up action plans, click here.

Solution: See also the school success programs and projects highlighted by the Annie E. Casey foundation.

Solutions: For more information on alternatives such as charter schools, vouchers, and other ways for improving the performance of public schools, see:

Cynthia Parsons, Seeds: Some Good Ways to Improve Our Schools, Santa Barbara, CA: Woodbridge Press (1985).
The 2002 Maryland educational finance legislation provides one model for how to generate more money for public educate it, improve funding for all schools, and target the greatest increase on the students who are most costly to educate: the poor, students with disabilities, and non-English speaking students. [more to come]

Click here for additional information on How the Public Schools Are Failing Our Children in Reading and Mathematics and Science.

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