As we reach the final days of Hispanic Heritage Month, a recent government study points out in stark relief the astronomically high drop out rate among Latino high school youth. Looking ahead, this phenomenon poses perhaps the greatest threat to our region’s future economic prosperity. Local policy makers must confront head-on how the educational status quo is failing the most vulnerable segment of students and press for innovative solutions and new approaches to reverse the disastrous drop out rate.
The need for urgent action could not be any clearer. While economists often hedge their predictive bets, there is strong consensus that educational achievement is going to play an even greater role in determining whether or not individuals succeed in the 21st century U.S. economy. However, according to a September report from the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics, nearly one out of four Latino youth have dropped out of high school. This is more than three times the rate of 16 to 24 year old Caucasians, and roughly double the dropout rate of African Americans. Moreover, when researchers looked just at native-born Latinos, they continued to find that drop out rates were higher than those of any other major population grouping.
Nowhere else does this distressing and depressing fact have a greater impact than in the Golden State, where the 47.6% of high school students are Hispanic. According to the California Department of Education, more than 39,000 Latino students dropped out of public high school statewide in 2005-06, a figure that has increased by more than 50% since 2001. In San Diego County in 2005-2006, more than 2,770 students of Hispanic origin dropped out of school, half of all total dropouts that school year.
The underlying reasons behind this classroom crisis are wide-ranging and complex. But one of the central culprits is how the public educational bureaucracy is failing our kids. In a 2005 report, the Pew Hispanic Center noted that the great majority of Latino students in America attend “mega schools” – the 10% of the country’s largest public high schools that exceed student populations of 1,830. Latino students are also more likely to generally attend poorer public schools with a worse student to teacher ratio than Caucasian and African-American pupils. The common experience of too many Latino youth is to have less personalized teacher interaction and inferior resources.
Thankfully, there is reason for optimism. Under the hands-on leadership of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and with critical financial support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, New York City has quickly become a national model in showing how things can be done differently. There, 12 large public high schools with persistently high dropout rates were reopened in 2002 as 47 small schools. As the New York Times reported this summer, the results are in, and all schools in 2007 saw a 38% average increase in the graduation rates, with some schools more than doubling their 2002 graduation rates. Eight schools graduated more than 90% of their students, which is a stunning turn-around in the fight against failure. This “experiment” is proving what seems like common sense – when kids receive attention from adults, they thrive. When kids fall through the cracks and become simply names to be checked on an attendance sheet, we set them up to fail.
Officials at San Diego Unified have taken some promising steps towards reducing high school dropout rates. With support from the Gates Foundation, three historically larger schools within The San Diego Unified School District - San Diego High, Kearny High and Crawford High - were divided into fourteen smaller schools in 2004. Additionally, Lincoln High was opened earlier this year, reorganized and rebuilt into four themed academies. Charter schools like High Tech High and the Press School have also demonstrated how unshackling schools from the mindless bureaucracy of the state’s education code and empowering principals can create the kind of learning environment in which the most “at-risk” kids can thrive and succeed.
But that is just the first step. As San Diego Unified searches for a new Superintendent, district officials should focus their search on finding a leader that has experience in the small school movement and who embraces public-private partnerships and parental choice. Suburban school districts should also consider how they can break up mega-schools and create environments conducive to the formation of charters. Municipal leaders, who for too long have thought of public education as “someone else’s problem,” must adopt policies which support local educational leaders who are committed to innovation and change, and who will prioritize this issue.
Such attention is demanded because if this trend is not reversed it will have a profoundly negative effect on the economy, resulting in reduced productivity, lower wages, and a diminished quality of life. Nor are the consequences just economic. Federal data suggests that dropouts as adults are also more likely to be poor, unemployed, have poorer health, and be processed through the corrections system than graduates – adding greater demand and costs for government social services. Taxpayers also suffer when students fail to achieve a high school diploma, as the thousands of dropouts in San Diego County annually forfeit millions of taxpayer dollars allocated for their public education to maintain schools and pay teachers and administrative staff. This jeopardizes the future of our community, which is reliant upon the cultivation of local top talent and emerging entrepreneurship so critical for the region to successfully compete in the 21st century.
As Jaime Escalante, the famed Latino mathematics teacher of East Los Angeles said, “the day someone quits school he is condemning himself to a future of poverty.” Policymakers must respond boldly and effectively to this crisis or we will find ourselves living in a community that is impoverished and diminished, having wasted the precious opportunities to be all that our region can be.
Reader Feedback
Glenn Younger Says:
The dire need to keep young males involved through high school is a critical issue. Critical because without a high school diploma most can not enter the legitimate economy, and will often spend their lives in the underground economy, using government services but not paying taxes. Males in our state who do not have a high school diploma or GED also are also 80% more likely to be incarcerated. So we must make high school relevant to our young men.
Most high school curriculums are college prep in their makeup. Nothing wrong with that until you consider that 75% of the jobs in California do not require a college degree or higher. The answer is not to try and drive more high school students toward college, but to make high school years interesting and keep more students involved. Auto shop, metal shop, welding, wood shop and all those things that were called vocational education are largely gone, yet that is the type of training for employment that is sorely needed. Career Tech
October 11, 2007 at 3:13 PM
Gretchen Pelletier Says:
Excellent, excellent article. The question for many of us as individuals is, what can I do? Zeroing in on the author's comment, "This “experiment” is proving what seems like common sense – when kids receive attention from adults, they thrive," I would challenge every adult in San Diego to consider mentoring a young person. The Preuss School has a thriving mentor program, and it is one of the school's keys to success. Mentor a kid in your neighborhood; start by asking a few questions about how they're doing. Be interested. It's not an easy thing, but it's proven to be effective. As Kim Eurich, an outreach specialist at Point Loma High School once summarized it, "Every kid needs someone to learn life skills from."
October 12, 2007 at 10:29 AM
commonsense Says:
Another more money - "the public educational bureaucracy is failing our kids" mantra. This article presents some stunning data. Although correct, it fails in looking at the real culprits in the failure of the education of our youths (whether they are hispanic, black, indian, or martian!) - PARENTS. I concur, that smaller venues (schools), high-tech resources, lower teacher:student ratios do have a positive impact on learner acheivement (regardless of age). But these material aspects pale in comparison to the impact that parents can/should have on their child's education. Take a look at the Pruess-UCSD charter school report - social scientists found that students of in-city SD families that went through the rigorous school acceptance process, but were denied acceptance, acheived on par academically with those students who were accepted to and graduated from Pruess. The study authors pointed to the significant impact of the Parents.
Let's get real in our analyses and solutions!
October 15, 2007 at 6:17 AM
commonsence 2 Says:
thanks commonsense and glenn younger, though admirable, how much will 'money' play a role in our society and education. yes, it is important and vital to life in these united states, but if we continue to partner with, advertise and lean toward folks with 'monetary' power, we place outselves in the dangerous position of compromising our democratic ideals. I totally agree that education is the key to a democratic society, but isn't it a paradox when that goal is being reached through private philanthropies that may in the long run create unintentional results such as the ones glenn younger speaks of? What happens when all the extra money is no longer available? How will the parental accountability that commnonsense speaks of handle the situation?
November 10, 2007 at 10:41 AM
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The dire need to keep young males involved through high school is a critical issue. Critical because without a high school diploma most can not enter the legitimate economy, and will often spend their lives in the underground economy, using government services but not paying taxes. Males in our state who do not have a high school diploma or GED also are also 80% more likely to be incarcerated. So we must make high school relevant to our young men.
Most high school curriculums are college prep in their makeup. Nothing wrong with that until you consider that 75% of the jobs in California do not require a college degree or higher. The answer is not to try and drive more high school students toward college, but to make high school years interesting and keep more students involved. Auto shop, metal shop, welding, wood shop and all those things that were called vocational education are largely gone, yet that is the type of training for employment that is sorely needed. Career Tech
Excellent, excellent article. The question for many of us as individuals is, what can I do? Zeroing in on the author's comment, "This “experiment” is proving what seems like common sense – when kids receive attention from adults, they thrive," I would challenge every adult in San Diego to consider mentoring a young person. The Preuss School has a thriving mentor program, and it is one of the school's keys to success. Mentor a kid in your neighborhood; start by asking a few questions about how they're doing. Be interested. It's not an easy thing, but it's proven to be effective. As Kim Eurich, an outreach specialist at Point Loma High School once summarized it, "Every kid needs someone to learn life skills from."
Another more money - "the public educational bureaucracy is failing our kids" mantra. This article presents some stunning data. Although correct, it fails in looking at the real culprits in the failure of the education of our youths (whether they are hispanic, black, indian, or martian!) - PARENTS. I concur, that smaller venues (schools), high-tech resources, lower teacher:student ratios do have a positive impact on learner acheivement (regardless of age). But these material aspects pale in comparison to the impact that parents can/should have on their child's education. Take a look at the Pruess-UCSD charter school report - social scientists found that students of in-city SD families that went through the rigorous school acceptance process, but were denied acceptance, acheived on par academically with those students who were accepted to and graduated from Pruess. The study authors pointed to the significant impact of the Parents.
Let's get real in our analyses and solutions!
thanks commonsense and glenn younger,
though admirable, how much will 'money' play a role in our society and education. yes, it is important and vital to life in these united states, but if we continue to partner with, advertise and lean toward folks with 'monetary' power, we place outselves in the dangerous position of compromising our democratic ideals. I totally agree that education is the key to a democratic society, but isn't it a paradox when that goal is being reached through private philanthropies that may in the long run create unintentional results such as the ones glenn younger speaks of? What happens when all the extra money is no longer available? How will the parental accountability that commnonsense speaks of handle the situation?