A recent report indicates that America suffers from a high school dropout crisis of epic proportions.  Today, kids are less likely than their parents to graduate high school.  Yes, you read that correctly.  Think about it.  How is this really possible?  In an era where a college diploma is required for so many entry level jobs, how can we put millions of kids in such jeopardy by not even graduating high school?  How can we allow one-third of our minority population to dropout?

Some may say that if a child chooses to leave school without graduating, that is his or her choice.  This is America, land of free choice right?  But that seems a complete copout.  We live together as a community, and our community survival hinges on our children becoming better educated than we.  We spend so much time criticizing the educational system about quality, but this bottom line result is truly criminal, and we must do something about it.  Now.

High school is a rite of passage and graduation is the capstone ceremony.  One cannot have the rite without actually passing, yes?  We must pass laws that mandate high school graduation as a condition of obtaining a driver’s license past the age of 19.  If someone is over 21 and has not graduated high school without a documented medical reason, that person should be guilty of a crime.  Yes, the incentives must be so high because the cost is unbelievable — what type of life can a person who lacks a high school education expect in this world today?  Employment and earnings at the lowest level.  Poor access to other resources like health and wellness.  The probability of becoming either a virtual ward of the social welfare system or the criminal justice system is staggering.  High school is a pivotal, critcal access point.  We must take drastic measures to avoid losing generations of people to lives of poverty.  We owe that to each other as a community.  And if you want to think selfishly, if you want to shrink the crime rate and the drain on Medicaid and “welfare” draws, put everyone at least through high school.  What a national tragedy.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 23rd, 2008 at 5:31 pm and is filed under For Educators, For Parents, For Students. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.