Making high school work

According to the Alliance for Excellent Education (all4ed.org) each high school dropout cost an average of $18,500 in annual lost wages and taxes to the country per year.  In Washington, DC in 2008 the HS Graduation Rate was only 57.6% and the estimated number of dropouts was 1,937.  According to the DC State Education Office, the dropout rate is anywhere between 32% and 50%.  HS dropouts earn approximately $9,200 less per year than HS graduates; they are 3 times more likely to be unemployed than college graduates; and the rates of high-risk behaviors such as early pregnancy, crime, violence, alcohol and drug abuse and suicide are significantly higher among dropouts (www.stepupdc.net).  According to www.ednet.ns.ca, the key to keeping students in school is making schools more relevant.

Four schools that served “special needs” and “high risk” students closed between 2006 and 2009.  In addition to the high costs of running intense programs, serving pregnant and parenting teens, runaways, and overaged/undercredited students = truancy problems often with students who are already 18 and cannot be compelled to attend school and for whom regular attendance during specific hours is a challenge.  Their problem is then compounded by their inability to develop 21^st Century skills thereby furthering the digital divide and driving these students further and further away from higher educational and occupational attainment.  The solution lies in an educational system that has adapted to the real life of high school students in which each student follows an individual educational program and where attendance is tracked by hours on task rather than by a tardy bell.  High school then becomes more relevant, more accessible and much more like the training pad it should be for the working world.