Thursday, November 05, 2009
In Our Schools - Dropouts!
The education system has high salaries, great benefits, better-than-average pensions, tenure, and often absolutely spectacular facilities, etc., etc. etc.
Americans have been throwing money at the education system for a zillion years now and gotten these results.
It's just NOT acceptable...
Americans have been throwing money at the education system for a zillion years now and gotten these results.
It's just NOT acceptable...
I found this in an article posted at WilmingtonJournal.com:
"According to the report, dropouts experience high levels of joblessness and low weekly earnings:
--More than half - 54 percent - of the nation's dropout's ages 16 to 24 were jobless on an average month during 2008.
--Black dropouts experienced the highest jobless rate at 69 percent, followed by Asians at 57 percent and Whites at 54 percent. Hispanic dropouts had the lowest jobless rates at 47 percent, reflecting the higher employment rate of young Hispanic immigrants. In sharp contrast, only about 13 percent of young adults with a college degree were jobless on average in the same time period.
--40 percent of all young dropouts in the country were jobless for the entire year.
--Without a high school diploma, you cannot earn enough money to make ends meet and certainly not enough to reach the American dream of raising a family and buying a home. The mean annual earnings of the nation's young people with a bachelor's or advanced degree were $24,797 in 2007, three times higher than the mean earnings for dropouts of $8,358. These figures include workers with zero earnings.
--The limited earnings potential of dropouts mean many never leave their parents' or relatives' homes to form independent households. Nearly 37 of every 100 dropouts live in poor or near-poor families.
--Over $292,000 is the cost incurred by taxpayers for each dropout over their lifetime in terms of lost earnings and therefore lower taxes paid and higher spending for social costs including incarceration, health care, and welfare.
The report also states that dropouts are more likely to be single mothers. "
