Locating and Preventing the Dropout Crisis How to Target and Transform High Schools Which Produce The Nation’s Dropouts Robert Balfanz & Nettie Legters Center for Social Organization of Schools Johns Hopkins University Prepared for the National High School Center Summer Institute June 11, 2007

Why Transform Low Performing High Schools?

Dropout Crisis 1.2 million students drop out of high school each year 7,000/day, 12 million over the next decade Half of the nation’s dropouts attended a dropout factory

Where Did All The Freshmen Go? 12th Graders 197 11th Graders 259 10th Graders 327 9th Graders 484 Number of 9th Graders in 1996/97 = 669 % Fewer 12th graders in 1999/2000 than 9th graders 1996/97 = 71%

How Many Dropout Factories Are There?

Where Are The Nation’s Dropout Factories Located? About Half are Located in Northern, Midwestern and Western Cities The rest are primarily found throughout the South and Southwest

About Half are Located in Northern, Midwestern and Western Cities The rest are primarily found throughout the South and Southwest Counties with 1 or more weak promoting power high schools (gray shading) and counties with 5 or more weak promoting power high schools (black shading), 2003-04

Who Attends Dropout Factories? Students who live in Poverty Minority Students

Dropout Factories and Minority Concentration

Percent of Minority Students Attending Dropout Factories

Poverty and Dropout Factories

Consequences of Dropping Out A new high school dropout in 2000 had less than a 50% chance of getting a job That job earned less than ½ of what the same job earned 20 years ago Lack of education is ever more strongly correlated with welfare dependency and incarceration Some U.S. jobs cannot be filled by U.S. trained skilled employees Three reasons why we should care about this: Social and economic justice—50 years after Brown vs Board, we still have what amounts to educational apartheid. Worse in todays economy (slide) Over the last decade, prison enrollments tripled, with largest increases for high school dropouts Funding for jails increased 600% while funding for schools increased 25% More than 50% of inmates are illiterate 40% of juvenile offenders have learning disabilities never identified in school Incarceration and other dropout costs pose a large fiscal burden on the nation Squandering the potential and severely limiting life chances of too many young people. Better educating our nation’s young people, especially those from poverty and minority backgrounds, is simply the right thing to do. It is what we must do to raise the quality of life and elicit the best from our youth, ourselves, and our nation as a whole.

It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way

Is It Possible… to create systems of high schools that create success and opportunity for all students, regardless of color, creed, or socio-economic status? to create organizations that are so open, so responsive, so resourced, so skillful, that movement toward that ideal is inevitable?

What Does This System Look Like? Essential Elements

The Yoga of High School Reform High standards AND relevance AND personalization Organization AND Instruction Literacy AND Math New small schools AND Large School Conversions Prescription AND Participation The Tortoise AND The Hare

How Do We Create These Systems?

Identify Schools and Students Implement System of Comprehensive, Targeted, and Intensive Interventions Models and Evidence States as Brokers of Diversified Portfolio of High Schools

Challenges Transforming low performing high schools and systems is not easy, fast, or cheap

Not Easy Need comprehensive and systemic approach to avoid isolated efforts that exacerbate inequity Consider multiple approaches as appropriate to context Develop and scale-up technical and human supports for transformation Align federal, state, district, and school-based efforts

Not Fast “The trick is how to sustain interest in a reform that requires a generation to complete.” Debbie Meyer NCLB & States must acknowledge reality and progress using multiple indicators

Not Cheap Continue and expand public and private funding Institutionalize targeted resources Title I Perkins Dedicated Fund for Low Performing High Schools

Benefits > Costs A recent study finds that our nation can recoup 45 billion dollars in lost tax revenues, health care expenditures, and social service outlays if we cut the number of high school dropouts in half (Levin et. al, 2007). If we cut the number by 20%, eminently doable, we recoup 18million. Looking at now a 2billion investment—18:1 return. These are funds that could be put toward reducing the national deficit and reinvested in ways that secure, strengthen, and extend our economy and civil society.

Coming Soon… Graduation Promise Act (GPA) $2.5 Billion High School Reform/Dropout Reduction Bill co-sponsored by Senators Bingaman (D-NM) and Burr (R-NC)

What Would You Do With $40 Million?

If We Act Now… We Can Transform the Nation’s Dropout Factories and Grad Gap High Schools In So Doing we can Transform the Nation

The Last Slide The Center for Social Organization of Schools Johns Hopkins University 3003 N. Charles St., Ste. 200 Baltimore, MD 21218 410-516-8800 www.csos.jhu.edu