This is a guest blog post by Paul Garza, Jr., a consultant working in high school education reform.
Before the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce on March 10 of this year, President Obama in an historic first announced a major policy initiative before a Latino organization. That announcement: education. Clearly the nation’s dropout epidemic was on his mind when he emphatically stated:
“. . . dropping out is not only quitting on yourself, it’s quitting on your country, and it’s not an option — not anymore. . . . . . Not when Latino students are dropping out faster than just about anyone else. It’s time for all of us, no matter what our backgrounds, to come together and solve this epidemic.”
The President directly targeted the high school dropout epidemic in Latino communities. It should be understood that high school dropouts are a problem in every ethnic and geographic group. At least 1.23 million students dropped out of high school in the United States in 2008. That represents about 1/3 of all students who should have graduated. In our Latino community, shamefully, it is much worse – at least 50%! That rate, though well hidden by the way states cleverly and disingenuously count high school dropouts, has been confirmed by a series of recent research studies.
What did the President mean when he said dropping out isn’t just quitting on yourself, it is quitting on your country? High school dropouts are very costly to all of us. Compared to high school graduates, they will on average:
• pay $139,000 less in taxes in their lifetime;
• are 40% more likely to receive public assistance;
• run up $26,200 criminal justice system costs;
• have $40,500 more health costs;
• are more likely to be unemployed, and
• have children at younger ages and more often be single parents.
Finally, high school dropouts are also unable to contribute to our economy that increasingly needs high skilled technicians to compete.
The problem may have been best captured by McKinsey and Company whose recent study revealed that “. . . educational gaps impose on the United States the economic equivalent of a permanent national recession.” This gap among minorities represents an annual loss of as much as $525 billion and 4% of national GDP.
There are a number of proposed solutions to begin fixing the high school dropout problem through the existing public school system. There is much promising work being done though it has yet to show significant results. There is one group of former students have been entirely forgotten: 16 -24 year olds who have dropped out or been ‘pushed out.’ The latter being a shameful practice that needs its own discussion.
The consequent lack of fundamental reading and math skills in our Nation’s 16-24 year old age population has been extensively covered by the media. The recent media attention related to this long-standing national tragedy has had little influence on shifting the measures of success – and high school graduation rates – for these young people. Once a student drops out of high school, there is scant effort to get him back to school, and even less effort to respond to needs through innovative educational program designs and services that will enable him to return to school while they struggle to manage their lives. Traditional education does almost nothing to respond to the needs of these16-24 year olds, yet their re-entry and acquisition of a high school diploma is vital to our national interest.
Simply put, these young people are abandoned by the existing public school system that does not offer them viable alternatives. They are the rejects produced by our industrialized public education system; one that largely insists that one size, one style, must fit all. This abandonment means they will be unable to adequately support themselves much less a family. It is not surprising they are subject to all of the social ills we can imagine – and, we are as well. Perhaps the most memorable fact is to recall that 83% of all those incarcerated in the US have educational attainment of less than a high school diploma.
What is the impact of this abandonment on our communities? McKinsey and Company make it clear: we stay in a permanent state of ‘recession.’
We need is a large scale effort at high school dropout ‘recovery’; literally bringing these young people off the streets and into programs that give them the education they need in a structure that works for them. Some of this includes Career and Technical Education options. One of the best public policy tools available to address the needs of this population is charter schools. These schools typically have substantial flexibility. Yet, very few charter schools take on this challenge. Frankly, states do not provide any incentive to serve this population. It could be argued that approach of most states is even punitive, a legacy of our good friends in the Bush Administration. These young people need time to build skills before they are subject to the No Child Left Behind high stakes testing; they need time to build skills before they will earn credits and make ‘adequate yearly progress.’
Alternative education and/or dropout recovery charter schools have the potential for the innovation and the flexibility required to address the needs of 16-24 year olds who have dropped out or will drop out. If the President and his Administration are serious, there are excellent program models that currently exist. These models can and should be grown to scale to increase high school completion rates among current high school dropouts. This is real ‘innovation’ and should be supported by the President’s Education Innovation Fund. The pay off for all of us is that increasing rates of completion will have substantial positive impact on future economic growth and could begin to end the ‘permanent recession’ in our communities.
Photo: North Dallas HS, one of the worst high schools in the Dallas Metropolitan area.
14 responses so far ↓
1 HispanicPundit // Jul 23, 2009 at 7:05 pm
First of all, kudos for supporting charter schools in your post. Whenever I read someone claiming to be concerned about minority education, I look closely to see if they mention charter schools and vouchers. It’s a good indicator to see if the author is sincere in supporting what works, instead of simply following the status quo and pleasing the teachers union.
With that said, I still disagree with your overall post. In a world with limited resources, where resources should be allocated to where they could do the most good, a focus on late teenage and early adults is almost a total waste. By that time the bad habits and behavioral issues have set in to where it’s nearly impossible to change them. James Heckman, economist with the University Of Chicago and Nobel Laureate in economics, has done extensive research on this and has shown it to be almost completely futile. See here and here.
I remember reading a study that showed that even temp agencies have largely given up on high school drop outs. This makes me think that Heckman is largely correct in this debate and those who think otherwise have alot of wishful thinking. After all, if even a private firm who has the incentive to make high school drop outs productive couldn’t do it on a large scale, what makes you think an impersonal largely inefficient program from government would do the trick?
If real effective reform is your goal early intervention is far better. But even there its tricky. As Heckman argues in the articles above, family structure and upbringing play a humongous role. How could any government program, short of taking kids out of their homes for large amount of time, compete with family environment? Even Head Start, the preschool and early childhood program that is specifically targeted to children in most need, shows ambiguous results – I would argue little to no results.
Which gets me back to charter schools and vouchers. Unlike traditional government programs where “failure” results in millions of tax dollars wasted, with charter schools and vouchers in particular, failure would mean, at the very least, a significantly cheaper public education system. An overall gain when compared against any other government effort to “fix” a problem.
2 Anna // Jul 23, 2009 at 7:41 pm
Why would you think that Obama is serious about education when he quietly ignores the fact that Arnold is pulling a Shock Doctrine on CA and decimating education in this state, the eighth largest economy in the world?
Obama is a fraud. Maybe if the schools changed their names to Merrill Lynch they’d get some funding.
3 Karl // Jul 24, 2009 at 12:16 pm
HispanicPundit, you were obviously never a U.S. Marine. Marines leave no one behind. Please do not try to help these students who voted with their feet. They need life rings, not anchors. Studies are great for lab rats, but we are dealing with people, and people do change for the better. The last time I heard of such nay saying was from those who said the leader of building the Hoover Dam would never do it with his ragtag workforce. Twain or Disreali again, there are lies, damned lies, and then there are statistics. We need to help all students.
4 HispanicPundit // Jul 24, 2009 at 10:05 pm
Karl,
You missed my point completely. I didn’t say not help them – on the contrary, I argued for the most efficient way to help them, namely vouchers and charter schools. If you are going to disagree with my post, disagree with that point.
5 Joe Citizen // Jul 26, 2009 at 1:25 pm
How about thier parents start helping out? Why is it up to the rest of society to do the heavy lifting after conception? Free breakfast, lunch and dinner(see Chino school district). Free after school and summer babysitting and what do we get for all of it?
6 HispanicPundit // Jul 26, 2009 at 4:38 pm
Joe Citizen,
Completely agree. In fact, there is considerable evidence that it is precisely the “we have to do something” mentality that has made things worse.
One can make a very strong argument that welfare and government programs in general have tended to exacerbate the problem instead of alleviate it. Which is why I focus on external sources most – vouchers and charter schools – instead of those closer to home.
7 Anna // Jul 26, 2009 at 4:39 pm
http://latinoenamerica.blogspot.com/
8 webmaster // Jul 26, 2009 at 4:58 pm
Anna,
If you are going to post links, please do so with some commentary. Otherwise, it looks like you are shilling for another site or just trying to drive traffic.
Now, I did go to that site, and while I’m impressed with Latino NASA scientists, I have a feeling that they do not necessarily want to be on TV. Their research and pursuit of knowledge is what drives them, not being on television or winning elections (popularity contests).
9 Anna // Jul 26, 2009 at 6:13 pm
They don’t have to give interviews, but I would like it if the media did stories about them. I have seen stories about Sally Ride, etc but never any Latino astronauts. I bet many Latinos do not even know they exist.
10 Anna // Jul 26, 2009 at 8:29 pm
Re: “I look closely to see if they mention charter schools and vouchers.”
Charter schools and vouchers in and of themselves don’t mean anything. What’s to stop the same problems from being transferred to a charter school or a voucher school? If the same people with the same limited outlook are running those schools, nothing will change.
I think a lot of people aren’t motivated because they don’t think their hard work will pay off. That’s where mentoring and career days can help. Children and teens need to be able to communicate with Latino doctors, lawyers, engineers, business owners, college students, etc. from an early age.
That being said, the state of CA has pretty much destroyed K-12 education. Institutional racism is real. Some of these inner city schools are huge and not equipped to graduate every student. They just house them. The kids who figure that out leave.
Why aren’t more Latinos demanding an end to the education cuts? People should be calling Arnold, Feinstien, Boxer and Obama over and over and demanding an end to it. They should stop stealing our tax dollars and giving them to corrupt Wall St. CEOs.
People need to wake up…
11 HispanicPundit // Jul 26, 2009 at 10:00 pm
What’s to stop the same problems from being transferred to a charter school or a voucher school? If the same people with the same limited outlook are running those schools, nothing will change.
Easy – competition. The fundamental difference between vouchers and charter schools vs your traditional public school system is competition.
With vouchers and charter schools come options and with options come power. Currently families in the ghetto have no options and the school system knows this. Vouchers fundamentally changes that.
Why aren’t more Latinos demanding an end to the education cuts?
Anna, where do you get the crazy idea that more funding for public education equals better results? That’s simply not true.
12 Anna // Jul 27, 2009 at 12:43 pm
You are going to have to be more specific when you say “competition.” Where do you think these thousands of inner city children are going to go with their vouchers? First of all, the vouchers wouldn’t be that big, as the whole point of vouchers is to eliminate what is left of education for inner city children. They will not cover the full cost of a private school.
These kids will end up at an online “school,” run by some campaign contributor who will get a big government contract.
As for the second part of your comment–it’s sad. Poor people are always brainwashed to believe that no money should be spent on them, and that they don’t deserve anything.
Also, people need to learn how to vote.
Who in their right mind would put a body builder in charge of the eighth largest economy in the world? Now everybody is shocked–shocked!–that he’s running the place into the ground.
13 HispanicPundit // Jul 27, 2009 at 10:16 pm
Anna,
First of all, there is no reason why a voucher shouldn’t cover the full cost of a private school. In fact, I argue for precisely that. Specifically, the poorer you are, the bigger should be your voucher.
With that said, try to imagine a situation where you live in the ghetto and you are forced, because of monetary constrains, to send your kid to the neighborhood school. If that school sucks – and I mean sucks, where basic concerns like security are lacking – what options do you have? Sure, you can complain to the principle, the teachers, and write letters to your congressmen…but really, what would that get you? Nothing. Ultimately, you would be forced to send your kid to a shitty school.
Vouchers changes all that. Vouchers would give you options. Now, that shitty public school would be under serious pressure to reform or else go out of business. Think of it this way: what provides you better service, Verizon Wireless or the DMV? The reason that Verizon Wireless provides you better service is because it knows that if you get pissed off enough, you can switch and go to AT&T. The DMV, on the other hand, is under no such pressure. If you don’t like the way they treat you – well, you have to go to them anyways.
Our public education system, especially the public education system in the ghetto, is essentially a government monopoly. And we all know how bad monopolies can be. Vouchers changes all that.
Regarding where these kids wind up, personally, I could careless. Whether that be a different public school, a private school, or even an online school. Who cares? So long as they get educated.
I’ve answered your questions, can you please answer mine: where do you get the crazy idea that more funding for public education equals better results?
14 Former teacher // Aug 28, 2009 at 10:04 am
People,
We are after solutions here. HispanicPundit makes an important point on how we can value an educational voucher as a “seat” that guarantees access to any school. That will not work unless all schools are required to accept any student up to their reasonable class size capacity. Where HispanicPundit loses relevance in this discussion is his apparent faith based belief in the invisible hand of the market to solve societal problems. There is ample proof that without oversight the market will be manipulated to the sole advantage of those who can and at the cost to everyone else. The list of examples are too long to discuss here. It is true that simply relying on government to solve the problem of high drop out rates is not working either. Charter schools and vouchers, properly executed can be of some relief. Do the vouchers include the cost of transportation if the local school is “shitty”? If not, perhaps we will not solve the problem with the issuance of vouchers. Neither charter schools nor vouchers address the roles and responsibilities of parents. Give the 40 years of wage stagnation, requiring dual parent employment to meet basic family needs, can we single out parents as being necessarily unresponsible?
The problem we are talking about is a symptom of a larger issue. It is the priorities of how we allocate our resources and our ability to understand the linkage between an educated citizenry and the restoration of democracy in this country. As it stands today, money is power and power controls how our government spends the tax dollars we citizens pay. Until the education of all Americans becomes a national priority over war, we will never have the resources to solve the problem. Until the country acts to take the money out of politics we will be stuck in this educational quagmire. We are all in this together. When we give up on a young person and worse a demographic sector of our population, the tax payer will still be on the hook for the cost to institutionalize them or provide them needed basics they will need to survive. If part of the answer is not to “throw money” at this problem, then tell me why the well off in this society seek to send their children to private schools that have smaller classes, individual instruction, computers, and the chance for students to learn in the way that works for them. We all learn differently. I doubt that HispanicPundit ever taught school. No child left behind’s attempt to standardize education is taking the magic out of learning and teaching.
One essential requirement to improve that “shitty” school is to reduce class size to allow teachers the opportunity for individual attention. If it requires more money, then provide it. If it requires better teachers, then give teachers the skills they need. Bashing teachers unions is a red herring and takes us away from solving our problem. Instead of ending tenure, change it so that teachers earn tenure through continuous educational achievements.
I am incredibly concerned that America is headed for a depression. Maybe not in technical terms, but a vast majority of our workforce lacks the skill sets needed by the very sectors of our economy that are globally competitive. So we are not simply talking about young people when we think of education. Sorry for the rant, and there are many more dots to connect when looking at our systemic problems. Leave your ideology at the door and maybe, just maybe, this discussion can produce some ideas and tactics that might work. Otherwise it is a waste of time.
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