Managing Editor
An independent study found that 41 percent of metro Jacksonville’s public high school students did not graduate on time or with a regular diploma in 2008.
The Alliance for Excellent Education, through a research firm, also reports that an estimated 7,700 students dropped out of the Class of 2008 in Baker, Clay, Duval, Nassau and St. Johns Counties.
“We hear about the economy, TARP and auto companies’ bailouts. Bailouts are important, but cutting the dropout rate will get you a far greater return,” said Bob Wise, president of the Alliance since 2005 and former governor of West Virginia. TARP is the federal Troubled Asset Relief Program to shore up troubled financial institutions.
“We should be doing this not only because it is the right thing to do, but is the right thing to do economically,” he said.
Wise is scheduled to explain those statistics and their economic impact Wednesday at the Graduation Now event sponsored by United Way of Northeast Florida and America’s Promise Alliance, a national dropout prevention effort.
Haskell CEO Steve Halverson will host the summit, targeted at business leaders. America’s Promise is supported by retired Gen. and Mrs. Colin Powell.
The Alliance, based in Washington, D.C., is a national policy and advocacy organization formed in 2001 to improve student graduation and success rates.
Wise provided an analysis of Jacksonville as one of 45 metropolitan areas. The study was sponsored by State Farm Insurance and the economic model was developed by Economic Modeling Specialists Inc., an Idaho economics firm.
For the five-county Jacksonville area, it found that reducing the number of the 7,700 dropouts by half would result in significant contributions:
• The “new graduates” would earn as much as $48 million combined in the average year compared to their likely earnings without having earned a diploma.
• Those increased earnings would allow them to spend another $36 million and invest another $13 million during the average year.
• By the midpoint of their careers, the graduates would likely buy homes totaling a value of as much as $113 million more than they would have spent without a diploma.
• They also would spend another $4 million on car purchases each year.
• The additional spending and investment would support 400 new jobs and increase the gross regional product by up to $65 million by the midpoint of their careers.
• Because of the increased wages and higher spending, state and local tax revenues in the region would grow by up to $3 million a year.
• And after earning a high school diploma, 62 percent of the new graduates would pursue post-secondary education.
Wise said that dropouts are tax consumers, not taxpayers. Preventing students from dropping out would save money.
“It’s also saving significant dollars in taxpayer-paid health care, incarcerations and in a number of other areas as well,” said Wise.
He said the single greatest factor to prevent dropping out is a student’s ability to read and comprehend.
“Kids don’t wake up one morning and say, ‘I am going to drop out.’ You can determine early warning indicators, which are absences, behavioral problems, discipline problems and failure of at least one course,” said Wise.
He said the key is immediate intervention. While many school districts have programs to do so, he advocates consistency.
“There are 15,000 school districts in this country,” he said.
“Too many districts have a salvation du jour, so a superintendent comes in and he or she begins implementing it and is gone two years later,” he said.
The Alliance advises increased focus on students in middle and high schools, considering that there already is emphasis on pre-K and the early years.
Wise said that 62 percent of the workforce has at least some college education, compared to the workforce of 40 years ago, when “there were enough good paying jobs going around that a high-school diploma was all you needed.”
The Alliance reports that the Jacksonville metro area had 33 public high schools, and 15 are considered “dropout factories” where fewer than 60 percent of the freshmen progressed to their senior year on time.
Those are the schools to target for intervention, he said.
“We used to have the luxury of saying we don’t need all kids to succeed,” he said. “Today, it’s the right thing to do, but our society doesn’t succeed without them. They need us and we desperately need them.”
The Graduation Now event is Wednesday at the Hyatt. It begins with a CEO Breakfast from 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m., followed by the Business Leaders Workshop and Luncheon from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
For information, call 390-3256 or visit www.uwnefl.org.
356-2466