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.

A lack of educated workers isn't the only problem with a high dropout rate. 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.

The economic costs to our community and society are tremendous.

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.
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.

Learn more about how low education and literacy rates will affect employer's abilities to hire qualified workers. Watch these brief Perfect Labor Storm videos now:

Permission is granted to consultants, managers, business owners and HR professionals to reproduce content from this newsletter for your internal publications, or to distribute copies to your workforce, on the condition that you reproduce the credits and contact information as follows: "Reprinted with permission from Ira S Wolfe and Success Performance Solutions. Copyright 2007 Ira S Wolfe." We also hope you will forward the newsletter in its entirety and recommend to others that they subscribe.

Ira S. Wolfe Copyright 2007 - All Rights Reserved. Reprints and other distribution by permission

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