High School Education - A Moral Issue
The inherent worth and dignity of every person is the first principle of Unitarian Universalist’s beliefs. We are committed to anti racism and anti classism. We recognize that a cruel inequity in our society exists in our public school system where the lives of children are in the making. We agree with Mitchell Chester Commissioner, (Department of Elementary & Secondary Education 2010) – “We have a moral and a fiscal imperative to increase our high school graduation rate….”
Nationally, a little more than 4 million students enter 9th grade each year(1), and more than a million fail to graduate with their peers(2). 71% of our students graduate on time with a regular high school diploma(3). This shows that over 10 years, we have 10 million young people under 30 years of age who cannot be socially productive citizens. Instead each costs the taxpayer a lifelong average of $250,000(4) . As compared with high school graduates, dropouts may suffer:
§ **poor health with no health insurance, **intermittent dependence upon public assistance , **higher percentage of unemployment, and **an average lifetime annual income of $23,000(5).
§ **high risk of incarceration.(6)
Who are these unlucky students who drop out? The Alliance for Excellent Education Fact Sheet (2009) points out that about half of them are Caucasian citizens. Sadly, the rest are students of color and immigrant students, and they represent a higher proportion of dropouts than their proportion in our general population. Most students dropping out come from families earning in the lowest quartile of family income. Most live in very poor urban and rural areas where the drop out rate may be 50% or more. Half of our high school students drop out of two thousand of our high schools(7).
What can we do to prevent this catastrophe? Let’s figure this out. This is a moral imperative, and fiscal common sense. Why rely on prisons and the juvenile justice system to raise children? We can avoid this. We must support at-risk students so they can be productive citizens. If students remain in high school, their tuition continues to be paid, improving school budgets. If students graduate from high school, with or without additional training, they can earn on average at least $42,000 yearly.
What works? Some traditional public schools, charter schools and private schools are successful in graduating their at-risk students from High School. They must be recognized. The Rennie Center in Boston has published a Policy Brief entitled Meeting the Challenge(8). They show success in reducing drop out rates in Massachusetts public schools by – § identifying at-risk students early on in their education
§ supporting students transitioning from 8th to 9th grade
§ providing 1 on 1 social and emotional support by trained mentors
§ programming for lost class credits
§ focusing on college and career readiness
1. http://www.betterhighschools.org Quick Fact Sheet
2. http://www.all4ed.org Alliance for Excellent Education Fact Sheet updated 2/2009
3.Ibid
4. http://www.clms.neu.edu Ctr. for Labor Market Studies No. Eastern University Boston, MA
5. Ibid
6. Ibid
7. http://www.all4ed.org/ The Alliance for Excellent Education Fact Sheet updated 2/2009
8. http://www.renniecenter.org/ Meeting the Challenge: Fiscal Implications of Dropout Prevention in Massachusetts
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