While the country has been debating health care, bailouts, birth certificates, and Cash for Clunkers, an even more dangerous crisis is happening: the education crisis. While educators and some policy makers are already well aware of the problems with the current education system, the severity of it is being buried beneath the chaos of town hall meetings and demands our president's proof of birth.
According to a report released last April, Cities in Crisis 2009: Closing the Graduation Gap, 1.2 million students drop out of school each year. This total averages 7,000 every school day or one every 26 seconds. Only about half of all young people in the nation’s 50 largest cities finds are graduating from high school on time. The numbers are dramatically lower for African-American and Hispanic children, and even more so for girls, especially Latinas.
One in four girls drop out of school every year. And 41 percent of Latinas do not graduate on time with a standard diploma. Recent reports from the National Women’s Law Center have shown that the crisis is becoming dire for girls, especially Latinas.
Also according to the Cities in Crisis report, 13 percent of the adult population is made up of high school dropouts, yet they earn less than six percent of all dollars earned in the U.S. The median income for high school graduates is $24,000. The median income for college graduates is $48,000. For high school dropouts it’s $14,000.
A recent report by Columbia University’s Center for Benefit-Cost Studies of Education at Teachers College found that cutting the dropout rate in half would yield $45 billion annually in new federal tax revenues or cost savings. It also states that if in 1998 minority student performance had matched that of white students, the GDP in 2009 would have been between $310 billion and $525 billion higher.
Based on the report, the continuing achievement gaps are like putting our country in a permanent recession. What can be done to stop this dangerous trend?
If the nation were to start putting more focus on keeping kids in school, many of the other problems facing the country could start to work themselves out. According to this report, more college graduates would mean a stronger economy, which would mean better jobs, better heath care, all in all a more productive society.
“Currently this Congress is grappling with massive economic problems. But the enormous cost of bailing out the banks, financial institutions, the auto industry, and AIG is still less than the economic cost of just five years of dropouts in the United States,” said Bob Wise, president, Alliance for Excellent Education and the former Governor of West Virginia. “That is why I believe that the ultimate economic stimulus package is a diploma.”
President Obama's planned speech for September 8, 2009, which will be streamed live from the White House that day to school students across the nation from Pre-K through high school is meant to encourage just this message and give kids the direct message that nothing is more important than their education and that they need to stay in school.
Hopefully this will be the stepping-stone into finally putting education on the front burner of American politics. The many educators and lawmakers who have already taken up this crusade will finally be given the platform they need to help launch the most crucial reform this country needs, education reform.
