Check where the second hand on your watch is right now (it’ll be important later). As we wind down another school year, many families are planning graduation parties and getting ready to send their kids off to college.
Many, that is, but not all. An unacceptable number of Atlanta students have long since dropped out of high school, making their prospects for the future far less promising.
A huge percentage of our young students — particularly low-income and minority kids — are still failing to graduate from high school and go on to college. A recent report shows graduation rates at their highest rates since 1974, but almost 22 percent of our students still fail to graduate. That’s far too high in what Secretary of Education Arne Duncan calls our “knowledge-based economy.”
The dropout numbers are twice as high for black and Hispanic students as for whites. Failure to graduate from high school has lifelong ramifications, including lower lifetime earning potential, a higher likelihood of incarceration, teen pregnancy and health problems. It’s not just one child that’s affected. All these factors contribute to a loss of positive economic impact on our communities.
When discussion turns to the high school dropout crisis, there’s a vision of 11th or 12th-grade students who decide not to finish that last year or two. But kids don’t make the decision to drop out of high school that late; it’s actually much earlier. In fact, the real decision moment for a high school dropout is in middle school, often by ninth grade.
Research from Johns Hopkins shows there are three indicators parents and teachers of a middle school student can look for: Poor attendance, negative behavior and low performance on selected courses.
If a sixth-grade child in a school in a high poverty area attends less than 80 percent of the time, receives an unsatisfactory behavior grade in a core course, or fails math or English, there is a 75 percent chance the child will later drop out of high school without some sort of effective support or intervention.
Negative behavior often indicates a student who is becoming frustrated with school.
Grade-level reading ability by the fourth grade is key. A low reading ability in elementary and lower-middle school years is a strong indicator that a student will have problems with schoolwork and drop out.
There are two other key factors that influence academic success. If kids have positive role models and adults who care about their success, and if they realize that they have the potential to succeed, they are more likely to graduate. At the Boys & Girls Clubs, staff work to provide this type of encouragement and support to our members — and we’re making progress.
But there are often family or cultural reasons that contribute to middle school dropouts. Many low-income families look to their children to assist with the family business or otherwise contribute to the family’s income. They see the short-term need for money to support the family and not the long-term benefits of education.
This is a crisis that has a solution. At Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Atlanta, our 2020 goal is to have 90 percent of the children in our clubs graduate on time by providing valuable out-of-school programs, including reading, math and science tutoring, homework assistance programs, college and career prep programs and technology education.
These programs aren’t a cure-all. They support what our kids are learning in school and what parents are teaching them at home. But it is clear that many parents lack the time and resources to help their kids, so community organizations are working to support them.
Now, check your watch. Statistics show a child drops out of high school every 26 seconds of every school day in this country. That’s four or five kids who’ve dropped out in the time it took you to read this.
Missy Dugan is president and CEO, Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Atlanta.
