Look for reasonsbehind stagnantgraduation rates
Complacency is the biggest obstacle to overcoming high school graduation rates that have slipped or grown stagnant.
People tend to see the close-up snapshot from their own school district and consider it good enough to be better than the state or national average.
Granted, it can be hard to turn attention to something that does not appear to be broken. A lot of school districts would do anything they could to have Schuyler or Scott counties’ 90 percent graduation rate. Even Brown County at 89 percent, Jersey County at 86 percent or Morgan County at 85 are enviable compared to the state average of 82 percent and the national average of 80 percent.
Most of the other school districts were at or below the state average.
Beyond the simple numbers, however, lie several issues.
First, although there have been some ups and downs in the numbers over the years, many school districts are seeing little change in graduation rates.
Second, cultural changes are molding the numerous reasons teenagers are already leaving school. The questionable economic climate in which even a college degree offers little assurance of good-paying work compounds the potential for more students to give up in the years ahead.
There is an intertwining relationship at play, as well. Businesses will look at individual school district accomplishments when considering where to locate, but often take a regional approach when it comes to determining whether there is a qualified and educated workforce available.
What they often see in Illinois is a state in which on average, about one in every five students in Illinois does not graduate, according to a new report titled Building a Grad Nation.
“If we keep having communities where 20, 30, 40 percent of the kids aren’t graduating from high school, it’s going to be very hard for the community to continue to succeed as a community,”co-author Robert Balfanz told the Illinois News Connection. “Because if there’s no work it’s hard to be a successful adult.”
By focusing less on an overall single number and more on the reason teens leave before graduating, it would become possible to create opportunities to keep them in school.
A 2014 study by GradNation and The Center for Promise at Tufts University scratched the surface of those reasons on a national level. It found peer pressure, absentee parents, family health concerns were high on the list. The study also found 30 percent of those who left school were victims of some form of abuse. Others were homeless or were in jail themselves or had a parent in jail. Still others reported being in fear for their safety either getting to and from school or while in class.
The disparity is also clear among financial and racial lines. Middle- and higher-income families saw graduation rates at 90 percent or higher on average, while the percentage of minority or low-income students dropped significantly.
Not surprisingly, many dropouts recognize the importance of a diploma or an equivalency degree years down the road. Some return to school and many others seen a GED.
If we can extrapolate some of the reasons for not graduating and address them in a proactive manner, we could see some real long-lasting results that would bring benefits beyond school district boundaries.