About a hundred young people drop out of high school everyday in Massachusetts; that adds up to 3.8% of Bay State kids who never graduate. Governor Patrick wants to slash that number by a quarter within two years, but there’s little agreement on how to do it.
Some policy makers advocate raising the minimum dropout age from 16 to 18, but others say that would just criminalize behavior without curbing it. Still others say expanding vocational education can be a big part of the solution. Alternative schools, anti-truancy programs, and new approaches to bilingual education have all resulted in varying degrees of success across the Commonwealth.
On this week’s Radio Boston, we examine what works, what doesn’t, and what has yet to be tried. It’s all part of the joint WBUR/WGBH series Project Dropout. Tune in this Friday @ 1pm to hear it live, or catch it again @ 1pm on Saturday.
During an episode that aired tonight, a claim was made that because high school dropouts are more likely to be unemployed and be on public assistance, a great deal of money could be saved if the dropout rate were cut. I’m going to play devil’s advocate for a moment and argue that this may not be the case. Consider this:
Suppose you have a community with 1000 people looking for work, but only 500 jobs are available. Also suppose that the dropout rate in this town is 50%, so 500 job seekers are high school graduates, and 500 are dropouts. Its a safe bet that the 500 graduates are going to get the 500 jobs, and the 500 dropouts will be unemployed.
Now, suppose you send the dropouts back to school to get their diplomas. You still have 1000 people looking for work, and only 500 jobs available. There will still be 500 unemployed people in the town.
Competing school gives individuals a competitive edge, but it does not address the main cause of unemployment – the shortage of jobs!