U.S. high school dropout rate improves – and still sucks!
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With one in four U.S. public school students dropping out of high school before graduation, America continues to face a dropout epidemic. Building a Grad Nation: Progress and Challenge in Ending the High School Dropout Epidemic…shows that we can end the dropout epidemic, even in schools from lower-income, urban and rural districts that many previously thought were hopeless…
The U.S. graduation rate increased from 72 percent in 2002 to 75 percent in 2008. The report reveals that the number of “dropout factory” high schools fell by 13 percent – from 2,007 in 2002 to 1,746 in 2008. While these schools represent a small fraction of all public high schools in America, they account for about half of all high school dropouts each year. Experts say targeting these high schools for improvement is a critical part of turning around the nation’s dropout rate.
More than half of all states – 29 in total – increased their statewide graduation rate from 2002 to 2008.
The state of Tennessee and New York City led the nation by boosting graduation rates 15 percent and 10 percent, respectively.
Most of the decline in dropout factories – 216 of the 261 – occurred in the South.
Just as Secretary of State George C. Marshall launched a plan to rebuild Europe after World War II, we must rebuild our broken school system. We are launching a “Civic Marshall Plan,” comprising policymakers, educators, business leaders, community allies, parents and students to address the dropout epidemic by focusing on the dropout factory high schools and their feeder elementary and middle schools. In tune with the call from President Obama and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan earlier this year to increase the U.S. graduation rate to 90 percent by 2020, we are working to mobilize Americans to quicken the pace. To reach these national goals, the graduation rate must rise by an average of 1.5 percentage points per year over the next decade. The Civic Marshall Plan outlines the benchmarks to ensure the attainment of those goals, and focuses on the strategic deployment of human resources to help school districts and states accelerate improvement.
Please, please read the report [.pdf]. There is little hope for improvement in any and all aspects of life in this land without leadership from an educated citizenry.
The creeps marching at the front of rightwing mobs will badmouth General Powell, whine about the cost of decent schooling – but, then, they would do so, regardless of the conclusions and methods endorsed by this work.
For a nation that once was at the forefront of freedom to learn we have come long way down towards incompetence. It’s been 45 years or more since first I bumped into the decline and included the struggle for better education into the panoply of civil rights and needs worth fighting for. Little enough has been accomplished.
Time to get off your rusty dusties, folks.
Compare this to acceptable schooling in the Great White North:
http://eideard.wordpress.com/2010/11/03/canadas-high-school-dropout-rate-cut-in-half-since-1990/
god
December 1, 2010 at 5:14 am
The biggest problem with education is the “one size fits all” concept. Not everyone learns well in the current mode. Those districts that have added different venues and teaching methods for students are where the improvements are.
PLUS, schools are only one part of a child’s education. So many different environmental factors come into play, it is impossible to just isolate schools. Or just the parents, or teachers, or socio-economic background, or housing, or genes.
Mr. Fusion
December 2, 2010 at 6:09 am