A Plan to Cut the High School Dropout Rate

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/26/nyregion/new-jersey/26educnj.html?_r=1&ref=education&oref=slogin

While coming across this article i found it to be important in that there is a major problem with the high school dropout rate. What i learned from reading it is that high school graduation rates are universally seen as a barometer of success, or failure, in education. Parents, college admissions officers, even real estate agents rely on  statistic to tell them if a school is any good.

But just as it takes a village to raise a child, graduation rates in New Jersey and elsewhere have also become a measure of the larger community outside the school and whether its politicians, civic leaders, business executives and even police officers are all doing their job as well.

Last week, Gov.Corzine and state officials announced a yearlong, multiagency initiative to boost the state’s graduation rates. Called the New Jersey High School Graduation Campaign, it will be led not by the state’s Department of Education but by the state attorney general’s office, with funds from businesses like Verizon and Prudential, among others.

The idea is to keep young people in school not just for their own good, but also as a pre-emptive strike against violence and gang activity.

As Governor Corzine put it in a news release, “the aim is to ensure that kids are headed in the right direction and not falling into the trap of a life of crime. Staying in school is one of our best crime prevention tools, and it requires the collaborative efforts of all of us to make it happen.”

New Jersey has one of the lowest dropout rates in the nation, with 2 percent of the high school population reported as dropping out of school in 2007, according to the State Education Department. Even so, that leaves thousands of students every year who do not finish school.

The New Jersey campaign, which is expected to cost about $150,000, will be financed entirely by donations and grants from a cross-section of foundations, businesses and civic groups. Verizon gave $35,000; other supporters include P.S.E.&G., Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield, State Farm Insurance, Prudential and the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce.

“What the suburbs don’t understand about their success is that it is the whole community that’s making their school successful,” she said. “They have a lot of involved parents, and they have parks and recreational programs. Urban students are dependent on their schools to deliver things that are delivered by others in the suburbs.”

This article was interesting in that the aim is to build the community around the school that will in turn help booste the high school percentage of graduation rate. The suburbs do usually have an advantage in that they are a closer knit society that helps thier students excell. If the trickle up effect would grow to the cities, the rates in turn would become more successful.