Today's Date: December 10, 2023
Applicants Wanted: The Fighting and Managing Wildfire in a Changing Climate Program - Training Fund   •   Scrum Alliance Launches New Agile Skills Certification Focused on Scaling   •   Statement to mark the end of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence   •   SUSTAINABLE MARKETS INITIATIVE AGRIBUSINESS TASK FORCE LAUNCHES BLENDED FINANCE FRAMEWORK TO MAKE REGENERATIVE FARMING MAINSTREA   •   "MET GALA" FOR LATINOS GATHERED THE MOST IMPORTANT 500+ LATINOS IN THE COUNTRY   •   Statement by the Prime Minister on the selection of the new premier of the Northwest Territories   •   Southwestern Law School Adds YuJa Enterprise Video Platform to Its Suite of Ed-Tech Tools   •   Air Force's Trey Taylor Named 2023 Paycom Jim Thorpe Award Winner   •   Revolutionizing Water Stewardship – The City of Dire Dawa and Nedamco Africa Unveil Cutting-Edge Water Management Platform   •   Evolus Reports Inducement Grants Under Nasdaq Listing Rule 5635(c)(4)   •   Wells Fargo Names Darlene Goins Head of Philanthropy and Community Impact, President of Wells Fargo Foundation   •   SAMARITAN'S PURSE DEPLOYS ASSESSMENT TEAM TO TENNESSEE AFTER DEADLY TORNADOES   •   Santa Claus Arrives via Helicopter and Rappels Down at the 34th Annual Luskin Orthopaedic Institute for Children Toys & Joy   •   International Center for Biosaline Agriculture & Schneider Electric Advance Youth & Women Roles in Sustainability at COP   •   Statement - The Government of Canada marks the 35th anniversary of United Nations Peacekeeping Forces receiving Nobel Peace Priz   •   Belgian, Port Houston and Partners Sign Memorandum of Understanding on Energy Transition Cooperation   •   Lomi™ Helps the High Alert Institute Meet the White House-HHS Health Sector Climate Pledge   •   AYA Platform of Enjinstarter Granted Virtual Asset Service Provider Licence by Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority   •   Metropolitan Issues Statement on Release of Final Environmental Impact Report for Delta Conveyance Project   •   Empowering the Season of Giving: Annual Holiday Canteen Drive Brings Aid to Incarcerated Women
Bookmark and Share

Progress Made On Drop-Out Rates

By The EditorsCarib News

WASHINGTON -  In the last decade, a coalition of public school educators, parents and civic activists across the country have charted substantial progress in deterring tens of thousands of students from dropping out of high school, according to a newly-published study.

Among other things, that produced 120,000 more high school graduates in 2008 than in 2001 (holding population constant) – a result fueled by overall graduation rate increases in 29 states and significant graduation rate increases among African-American, Latino-American and Native-American pupils.

It also resulted in the closing of more than 200 "dropout factories" – high schools that fail to graduate 40 percent or more of their students, giving the 400,000 students who would have attended them a better chance to earn a diploma.

These successes in pushing the national high school graduation rate from 72 percent in 2001 to 75 percent in 2008 show that the United States "is turning a corner on meeting the high school dropout epidemic," write Colin and Alma Powell in introducing the report, Building a Grad Nation: Progress and Challenge in Ending the High School Dropout Epidemic.

The detailed, 88-page document is the latest in a series of studies from the Powells' organization, America's Promise Alliance, which has sought to build a broad-based coalition to eliminate the dropout crisis of American public high schools. Today, according to the report, more than a million public high school students each year don't graduate with the class in which they entered high school; many of them have dropped out. Taken together, nearly 40 percent of minority high school students don't graduate with their entering class.

Earlier America's Promise reports determined that while dropping out is a widespread phenomenon, the dropout epidemic is concentrated in a relatively small number of urban, suburban and rural high schools that over time have become dropout factories. A decade ago, they numbered about 2,000. Now, through strategies that ranged from transforming individual schools to closing individual schools, the report declares the number has been pared to 1,746.

Nonetheless, the report warns that despite the successes, "the rate of progress over the last decade is too slow to reach the national goal of having 90 percent of students graduate from high school and obtain at least one year of post-secondary schooling or training by 2020." It goes on to match on a one-to-one basis the "progress" made since 2001 with the "challenges" in that area that remain to be overcome.

For example, while 400,000 fewer pupils attend dropout factories, there are yet 2.2 million high school youth in the dropout factories that still exist. And while the Class of 2008 graduated 120,000 more students than the Class of 2001, the Class of 2020 needs to graduate 600,000 more students than the Class of 2008 (holding population constant) in order to reach the goal of a 90 percent national graduation rate.

The report concludes by noting that "while the results of the past decade have been mixed, with progress in some areas and limited improvement in others, these efforts have laid the groundwork for more rapid and systematic progress in the next decade."

Those future initiatives, however, could be significantly undermined by something the report does not discuss:  the impact of budget deficits at the federal, state and local level on funds available for public school initiatives.

 


STORY TAGS: BLACK NEWS, AFRICAN AMERICAN NEWS, MINORITY NEWS, CIVIL RIGHTS NEWS, DISCRIMINATION, RACISM, RACIAL EQUALITY, BIAS, EQUALITY, AFRO AMERICAN NEWS, HISPANIC NEWS, LATINO NEWS, MEXICAN NEWS, MINORITY NEWS, CIVIL RIGHTS, DISCRIMINATION, RACISM, DIVERSITY, LATINA, RACIAL EQUALITY, BIAS, EQUALITY

Video

White House Live Stream
LIVE VIDEO EVERY SATURDAY
alsharpton Rev. Al Sharpton
9 to 11 am EST
jjackson Rev. Jesse Jackson
10 to noon CST


Video

LIVE BROADCASTS
Sounds Make the News ®
WAOK-Urban
Atlanta - WAOK-Urban
KPFA-Progressive
Berkley / San Francisco - KPFA-Progressive
WVON-Urban
Chicago - WVON-Urban
KJLH - Urban
Los Angeles - KJLH - Urban
WKDM-Mandarin Chinese
New York - WKDM-Mandarin Chinese
WADO-Spanish
New York - WADO-Spanish
WBAI - Progressive
New York - WBAI - Progressive
WOL-Urban
Washington - WOL-Urban

Listen to United Natiosns News