Urban high schools not making grade
Jesse Muhammad/Special to the NNPA from the Final Call
Issue date: 5/5/08 Section: Cover
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His statement of urgency came during a press conference announcing the release of a study that details why nearly one in three U.S. high school students drops out before graduating and how his group plans to reverse the downward spiral of retention.
"Our economic and national security is at risk when we fail to educate the leaders and the workforce of the future," added Powell, whose wife Alma Powell serves as the chair of the Alliance.
"Cities in Crisis: A Special Analytic Report on High School Graduation," prepared by Editorial Projects in Education Research Center, was released last month.
The study found urban schools in metropolitan areas surrounding 35 of the nation's largest cities have lower graduation rates than schools in nearby suburban communities. Disparities in urban-suburban graduation rates had gaps as large as 35 percentage points in many cases. Approximately 1.2 million students drop out each year - about 7,000 every school day, or one every 26 seconds. Nearly half of all Black and Native American students are expected not to graduate with their classes, while less than six in 10 Hispanic students will.
"… Just conferring a diploma is not enough," said Alma Powell. "Students today must graduate with the knowledge and skills necessary for success in college, work and life. We must invest in the whole child, and that means finding solutions that involve the family, the school and the community."
According to interviews conducted with high school dropouts by Civic Enterprises, nearly half of dropouts said the main reason they left school was because classes were not interesting. Nearly 70 percent said they were not motivated to work hard and two-thirds would have worked harder if more were demanded of them.
Approximately one-third left for personal reasons (to get a job, become a parent, or care for a family member) and one-third cited "failing in school" as a major factor. Seventy percent were confident they could have graduated, including a majority with low GPAs, the study found. More than 80 percent said their chances of staying in school would have increased if classes were more interesting and provided opportunities for real-world learning. The majority said higher expectations from teachers and parents and improved supervision in the classroom would have helped keep them in school.
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