Community is crucial to reducing dropout rate
There’s no denying it: Des Moines has an increasing number of students dropping out, not graduating from high school. Who cares if 710 metro-area kids didn’t make it across the stage in 2008? Everyone should care, that’s who.
That’s because those 710 kids are more likely to need public assistance or land in jail, have long-term health issues, higher mortality and suicide rates, and higher rates of admission to mental-health programs. More than 700 students dropped out in just one year from Iowa’s largest school district. Now do the math. Five years, 10 years, more; the larger the numbers, the more it begins to mean to the taxpayers paying for those services.
Des Moines is not alone. Take a quick check of the most recently reported data from Iowa’s other urban school districts, and here’s what you’ll find: Burlington’s and Sioux City’s numbers more than doubled; Waterloo saw almost a 2.3 percent increase.
Widen the lens to what’s happening nationwide and the statistics are staggering. According to Bill Milliken, nationally-renowned author of “The Last Dropout: Stop the Epidemic!” and founder of the Communities in Schools organization, a March 2006 study from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation reported that, “About one-third of all young people and 50 percent of poor and minority youth fail to graduate with their peers.” The economic impact is enormous. Again, according to Milliken, “The combined income and tax losses from a single year’s dropouts is about $192 billion – 1.6 percent of the gross domestic product.”
Consider this reality: High school dropouts create the equivalent of a permanent national economic recession. Bring that back to the local level: Every dropout is projected to earn a lifetime income $648,000 lower than someone who graduates from high school. The bottom line – and now you should realize it really is a bottom line – is that students who drop out are everyone’s problem. Everyone should care.
The good news, if there is any, is that community and school leaders recognize the problem and are taking vigorous action to combat Des Moines’ dropout trend. United Way of Central Iowa, along with many other representatives from higher education, business, and social and human services, have teamed with Des Moines public schools to analyze, strategize and mobilize to reverse the slide. In fact, United Way and the community have announced a goal to increase the number of central Iowa students who graduate on time by 475 by the year 2020.
It’s not going to be easy. Ask any expert and they’ll tell you that as many dropouts as we have, there are that many different reasons why those kids failed to make it to graduation. Dropping out is a process, not an event. The reasons can be dramatic or mundane, not always because of academics, but the result is always the same. The reasons are varied and many, which means the solutions have to be varied and many, too.
Des Moines public schools and United Way are spearheading Destination Graduation, a citywide initiative to increase graduation rates. We know there is no silver bullet, but the efforts have begun in earnest. This school year, the school district has established the early indicator system to identify and deal with at-risk students as young as kindergarten. Communities in Schools, the nation’s largest dropout-prevention organization, is now established in our district, funded by United Way, bringing the much needed connection of social and human community resources into our schools to help youth who are struggling with situations that might lead to their dropping out. There is a new Middle School Alternative Education Center, designed to address the behaviors of at-risk youth to keep them in school. These efforts are in addition to existing programs like Future Pathways, Scavo Alternative High School, the Project Connect mentoring program, SUCCESS case managers and services, GEAR UP! and much more.
Tomorrow, nearly 300 community and school volunteers will hold the first-ever Reach Out to Dropouts event. The volunteers will be walking door to door to visit with youth who didn’t show up the first couple weeks of school to tell them personally, “We want you back,” and assist them in the re-enrollment process.
Join us in being a part of the solution, won’t you? Everyone should care.
Original article taken from DesMoinesRegister.com
Written by Nancy Sebring and Shannon Cofield.
Sept. 25, 2009
Tags: Bill and Melinda Gates, communities in schools, Des Moines, Destination Graduation, Dropout rate, Reach Out to Dropouts, united way, Waterloo
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