In a recent NY Times article by Henry M Levin and Cecilia E Rouse entitled: “The True Cost of High School Dropouts,” the authors posit that if the dropout rate was cut in half, it would yield 700,000 new graduates. The addition of the new graduates would provide the public with nearly 90 billion dollars for each year of success in reducing the number of dropouts[i].
Levin and Rouse base their theory on the notion that the completion of high school is the most significant requirement for economic growth. They argue that while our high school completion and college graduation rate is declining, our economic competitors are increasing both. Evidence of their argument, can be seen in 1970 when the US had the world’s highest rate of high school and college graduation. Currently, the US is twenty-first in high school completion and fifteenth in college completion. Further exacerbating the problem is currently seven out ten ninth graders will obtain a high school diploma [ii].
In order to reverse this trend, Levin and Rouse argue that an ideological shift is needed to cut the dropout rate in half. They believe the country should focus its efforts on preschool children since preschools already utilize the interventions and strategies (small class size, small group learning, etc.) that are being considered to at the high school level.
The theories posited by Levin and Rouse are short sighted. First they ignore the fact there is a federally funded preschool program called Head Start, which has been in existence for over 40 years. Over the past several years, there have been attempts to improve upon Head Start by expanding it to a full day program and making it mandatory. However, these ideas have been rebuffed at both the federal and state level. It would have been better for Levin and Rouse to advocate for upgrading Head Start instead of trying to “reinvent the wheel.”
Second, Levin and Rouse fail discuss the lack of urgency at the sate and federal level when it comes to education. We are constantly told our educational system is a threat to “National Security,” but there is no sense of desperation at the federal and state level. In fact, it seems every election year Republicans attempt to dismantle the Department of Education. We have fallen behind because our competitors view the education of youth as source of national pride and a source of family honor.
Lastly, Levin and Rouse failed to address the how the growing economic gap across racial lines reinforces educational inequity. It is well documented schools on economically distressed communities have the worst infrastructure, a mediocre/poor teaching staff, and outdated materials. More importantly, these communities have the highest rate of unemployment and incarcerated individuals who are undereducated dropouts.
Until our country takes our educational crisis as serious as the War on Terror, we will continue to educationally fall behind our competitors in the global market. Our country spends billions of dollars rebuilding the educational systems of other countries in the name of democracy, but fails to take the same care of our educational system at home. That is the “True Cost of High School Dropouts.”
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