As Published in Business 2 Business, October 2007

High School Dropouts

A Silent Epidemic

By Ira S Wolfe

Pennsylvania’s schools are continuing to make progress toward ensuring that every child receives the high-quality education they deserve,” Education Secretary Gerald L. Zahorchak said recently following the release of a new report on the quality of education in our state.

I guess that’s one point of view.

According to the report by Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children, 44.6 percent of high graduates statewide scored less than proficient in both math and reading.

Zahorchak’s progress report – as well as other government officials and administrators who agree– see this as a glass half-full bit of news.  But graduating a class with just slightly more than half the students meeting minimum proficiency requirements seems to me a standard set with an incredibly low bar.  It’s like a doctor diagnosing a patient with terminal cancer and telling him the only problem is they might feel a little uncomfortable in a few weeks.

To be fair, Zahorchak did follow up his comments on the report with this:  “the report is another wake-up call on how far we still have to go before we reach the goal” of ensuring success for all high school graduates. But the target date set for ensuring all students acquire the skills they need is 2014.  Could you imagine a business still being in existence 7 years from now if they had a 50 percent failure rate and announced a 7-year plan to correct the problem?

Like every state, in order to compete in a 21st century global economy, Pennsylvania needs a highly-educated and proficient workforce. To prepare this workforce, all youth must have a sound academic background and the highly-developed soft skills (communication, thinking and problem-solving) that are required to be successful in the new economy.

High school students who plan to directly enter the workforce or pursue workforce training after they graduate need skills similar to those needed by students planning to enter college. These findings, according to a new study conducted by ACT, Inc., the developer of tests for college admissions and workplace readiness skills, suggest that the math and reading skills needed to be ready for success in workforce training programs are comparable to those needed for success in the first year of college. 

The problem is too many young people graduate from high school lacking these necessary academic skills required to be successful in postsecondary education and the workforce.  A dramatic shift from unskilled to skilled jobs has occurred over the years. Jobs for high school graduates, without any postsecondary education, are disappearing and those that remain do not pay family-sustaining wages. The reality is that a high school diploma is not enough anymore to meet the demands of the workplace. It’s not even enough to earn a decent income that can support a family.

The college readiness rate of high school seniors is distressing. The dropout rates are staggering.  A high school diploma should be a ticket to success in college and the workforce, but this recent report is another wake-up call on how far the United States, and especially PA, has to go in preparing for The Perfect Labor Storm.

Sidebar #1

High dropout rates are a silent epidemic afflicting our nation’s high schools.

There are nearly 2,000 high schools in the U.S. where 40 percent of the typical freshman class leaves school by its senior year.

Of public high school students who entered 9th grade in Pennsylvania during the 2001-02 school year, 22 percent failed to graduate four years later.   And Pennsylvania did better than many states.

Nationally, research puts the graduation rate between 68 and 71 percent, which means that almost one-third of all public high school students in America fail to graduate. 

Breaking it down even further, every 29 seconds another student gives up on school, resulting in more than one million American high school students who drop out every year. 

Nearly one-third of all public high school students—and nearly one half of all African Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans—fail to graduate from public high school with their class.

The dropout problem is likely to increase substantially through 2020 unless significant improvements are made.

Sidebar #2

• Dropouts are more likely than high school graduates to be unemployed, in poor health, living in poverty, on public assistance, and single parents with children who drop out of high school.
• Millions of young people find themselves out of school and lacking employment, without the skills or opportunities necessary to get back on track.  In Pennsylvania alone, one in eleven 16-to-21-year-olds is not working and not in school.
• Four out of every 10 young adults (ages 16 – 24) lacking a high school diploma received some type of government assistance in 2001.
• A dropout is more than eight times as likely to be in jail or prison as a person with at least a high school diploma.
• Studies show that the lifetime cost to the nation for each youth who drops out of school and later moves into a life of crime and drugs ranges from $1.7 to $2.3 million.
• Dropouts earn $9,200 less per year than high school graduates and more than $1 million less over a lifetime than college graduates.
• Dropouts are more than eight times as likely to be in jail or prison as high school graduates.
• Dropouts are four times less likely to volunteer than college graduates, twice less likely to vote or participate in community projects, and represent only 3 percent of actively engaged citizens in the U.S. today.
• The government would reap $45 billion in extra tax revenues and reduced costs in public health, crime, and welfare payments if the number of high school dropouts among 20-year olds in the U.S. today, which numbers more than 700,000 individuals, were cut in half.

Sidebar #3

"Many schools in America can't tell us on any given day who's in school and who's not, nor in any given year how many students have successfully made it through their four years of schooling to graduate and how many have dropped out."

The Silent Epidemic (PDF)

Sidebar #4

National studies indicate that 48 percent of college instructors are dissatisfied with the job public high schools are doing in preparing students for college.  In Pennsylvania, only 41percent of high school graduates are deemed “college-ready” as outlined by the Manhattan Institute, and this is better than over half the rest of the states.

Businesses aren’t much happier.  Only 25 percent of employers indicate that most recent high school graduates with no further education are extremely or well prepared for typical jobs in their company, compared to 75 percent of employers who say most 4-year college graduates are extremely or well prepared.