Six-state Initiative Tackles Dropout Crisis
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While efforts to get students more excited about science and technology are certainly needed, their outcome could be blunted if too many students fail to stay in school. Last year, a congressional committee heard that America faces a dropout crisis that puts its economic future at risk. Every day, 7,000 high school student opt to leave school before graduating, and only 70 percent of students leave school with a high school diploma. In the country’s 50 biggest cities, only 53 percent bother to stay on for the sheepskin.
Now the National Governor’s Association (NGA) has launched a two-year initiative to tackle the dropout problem in six states, Education Week reports. The six — Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Tennessee and West Virginia — will each receive $50,000 to devise strategies to implement a dropout prevention and recovery plan. The NGA will work with each state to help it come up with policies, legislation, executive orders and regulations aimed at curbing dropout rates. Tennessee, for instance, wants to develop an early-warning system that will help it identify students most at risk of quitting school before graduation.
Filed under: K-12 Education News
