AQualityHighSchoolEducationforAll-PublicAgenda.pdfVIP

A Quality High School Education for All Addressing the Dropout Challenge in Our Community A Quality High School Education for All Addressing the Dropout Challenge in Our Community Introduction In today’s world, a high school diploma is not just a good enable them to succeed in college or the workforce, idea, it’s essential. It’s essential for individuals and their whichever they choose. We also realize that as hard futures. In fact, over their lifetimes, high school dropouts as we may try, there will probably always be a few earn roughly $200,000 less than high school graduates young people who drop out and that it will be necessary and about $1.4 million less than college graduates. to make sure they have good opportunities to get GEDs. It’s essential for our community as well. We need an educated workforce if we want to attract new But we’re going to put that part of the issue aside for employers and produce local entrepreneurs who today and focus specifically on dropout prevention. can create homegrown businesses. And we need an educated citizenry if we want our local democracy to What do we know about why students drop out? While function as it should. Finally, it’s essential for our the reasons may vary somewhat in different communi- country. America is no longer the leader it once was ties and schools, research suggests that kids are more in educating its citizens, and we’ll have a hard time at risk for dropping out if: keeping up economically if we don’t do a better job. ? They are struggling academically and falling behind Unfortunately, we’re graduating too few students and in their classes. producing too many dropouts—more than most people think: