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November 2008 – High School Drop-Outs
December 2, 2008 | | 1 Comment
November 2008
High School Drop-Outs
Many of us understand the importance of graduating and obtaining a high school diploma, but statistics in our region show that some students fall through the cracks and drop out. Even though regional statistics may not be as bad as the national statistics, there are still areas that need to be considered. Data always helps to understand the importance of obtaining a high school diploma.
I would like to review with you some information that I received after attending the Pennsylvania Drop-Out Prevention Summit. During this Summit, several individuals presented statistics that reinforced that the local communities need to spend time and money on programs to keep potential drop-outs and at-risk students enrolled in programs in order to succeed outside of school.
One of the statistics shared from Paul Harrington, Associate Director for the Center for Labor Market Statistics from Northeastern University, was that nationally 1 in 3 individuals do not graduate from high school. In Pennsylvania, 21% of the student population dropped out in the 2003-2004 school year. In Pennsylvania, there is an 89% completion rate for students who graduate from high school.
Dr. Harrington also reported that, in today’s market, there are no longer blue-collar or white-collar jobs; there is what are called “gold-collar” jobs. These require a high school diploma and some college education. Researchers are saying students cannot just walk out of high school anymore and go to a place of employment. They would need some sort of a college program, whether it is an associate or bachelor program, or so many credits showing that they are working toward a college degree. The way it was explained by the panel was, individuals coming out of college may not be able to find jobs and would bump down into lower paying jobs. That trickledown effect with the college graduates coming in would bump out the high school diploma people who would then go to jobs that would bump out individuals who have dropped-out. This would cause a trickledown effect.
Coming from the Alliance for Excellence in Education, it showed that in 2005 the average income earned by educational attainment: For a high school dropout, the salary was $17,299.00; students with a high school diploma earned $26,933.00; with an associate’s degree, the salary was $36,645.00; and with a bachelor’s degree, it was $52,671.00. The source of this information comes from the U.S. Bureau of Census in 2006.
If we look at the number of drop outs, the graduation rate in 04-05 in Pennsylvania was 80.4%. The projected number of non-graduates for the Class of 2006 in the state of Pennsylvania is 30,578. This leads to a total lifetime additional income if dropouts in that group had graduated of $7,950,162,188.00. If those kids would have stayed in school, that would have been the additional income they would have received.
One thing that school districts do know is that a diploma cannot be just a piece of paper. There must be some academic rigor to go along with that. By working the curriculum alignment to the state standards and local industries in business partnerships, that is critical to develop a gateway program for those students.
The next presenter was Adria Steinberg, Association Vice President of Jobs for the Future. She stated for every 100 low income students who enter high school, only 65 will graduate, 41 will enroll in college, and only 11 will graduate from college. The Milton Area School District has a free/reduced lunch count average rate of 42%, which means that this could be a potential problem area in the future. For every 100 low income high school graduate, 34 are at least minimally prepared for college, 11 are very prepared for college. One of the burning questions from the panel was “What if school districts identified 50% of the future drop-outs between 6th and 8th grade and got 80% of them back on track for graduation?” The statistics that were shared would show then that for every 100 drop-outs, we would gain 40 additional graduates.
The Milton Area School District has developed a Middle School Auxiliary program for students to cycle in and out to receive academic remediation. At the High School level, students encountering difficulities can enroll in the Milton Auxiliary High School which will allow them to do academic recovery and graduate on time. Through the Milton High School Auxiliary program the district dropout rate has been cut in half. Since the Auxiliary Middle School program is only one year old, the benefits are yet to be determined.
Looking at the statistics and the programs that are currently available in the Milton Area School District, the district needs to continue to support the efforts of the teacher and administration in these programs to allow the opportunities for students to succeed in the future and not become a statistic in a negative manner.
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[...] These require a high school diploma and some college education . Researchers are saying students cannot just walk out of high school anymore and go to a place of employment Original post [...]