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The Educational continuum: Trends in Secondary Education minority group background (although not often AsianLast month this page was dven to a brief outline of demographic trends that can he expected to impact strongly on all levels of the educational continuum. Those comments were drawn from Harold L. Hodekinson's recentlv released renort entitled "All One System: 6emographics of.ducation, indergarten through Graduate School". This month we summarize the section of that report addressing changes occurring a t the hieh school level. iclear anddirect pragmatic link exists on the state level between economic development and retention to high school graduation. A young person with a high school diploma has a high probability of getting a job and repaying the state the cost of hisher education through taxable income many times over. Thus, states that retain a high percentage of their youth to high school graduation have a distinct advantage in terms of economic development; their youth become a "net gain". In the same sense, young people who drop out before high school graduation are likely to he a "net loss" to their state. With lower-paying jobs, not only will they contribute less to the tax base, hut they are also unlikely to leave the state, hence becoming a more or less permanent economic burden. There can be no doubt, retention to high school graduation is a critical societal issue as well as being an individual human concern. The percentage of students retained to high s c h o ~gradul ation throuehout the llnited States ranees from a hieh of about 86% a low of about 62%. ~ e t e n t i o nis lower in states that have more ethnic diversity as well as more urban students. The surprising finding in Hodgkinson's study is that neither teacher salary nor the amount of money expended per pupil is a good indicator of a state's ability to retain students to high school graduation. Rather, the pupil-teacher ratio has the best predictive value for retention. This observation seems to he valid for comparisons between states, between large city and suburban school systems, and between elementary schools and high schools. Historicallv. " , secondarv school retention seems to narallel economic progress in our society. Great strides have been made in increasing the educational level of our citizenry since the turn of the century. For example, in 1900, only about 10%of the youth cohort graduated from high school. By 1950,25% of hlack youth and 56% of white were graduating, and in 1978 these figures had climbed to 75% for hlack youth and 85% for white youth. Higher education benefited doubly in the 1970's from this major increase in productivity of the high schools: from the increased numhers of the "Baby Boom" and from the fact that higher percentages of these students were graduating from high school. Today more than 50% of our youth will attend some form of post-secondary education, whereas only about 28% did in 1946. Put in another way, 13% of our entire population had high school diolomas in 1910. 24% in 1940. and 70% in 1981. Further. mHny of these high school graduates went on to college; one in four workers todav has a college degree. This more highlv educated adult pop;lation has contributed greatly to'the economic progress of this country. Should large numhers of our youth fail in school and in their jobs, the consequences will be severe for everyone. Statisticians have provided a rather detailed profile of high school drop-outs which gives useful insights into the problem of retention. High school drop-outs are usually from low-income or poverty settings and frequently from a
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American). They have low basic academic skills, especially in reading and math. Their parents did not complete high school and generally have little or no interest in the child's progress in school; there is no support system a t home to encourage academic progress. English is often not the maior language spoken in the home, and many drop-outs are children of single parents. Males drop out more frequently than females. ales tend to drop out of school to g e t a joh,which often turns out to he a failure; females tend to drop out to have a child. In general, drop-outs are bored in school and perceive themselves (accurately) as failures in the school culture:, thev tend to he verv alienated from school. A numher of states have attempted to institute "reforms" at the secondarv school level: however. most of the reforms have not reall; addressed the academic prohlems experienced hv ~ o t e n t i adrop-outs. l In effect, many of the reforms mandatk improved standards withoutprovfding the means for helping potential drop-outs overcome their prohlems. Clearly, if such standards are to he attained by all students, some will require more assistance than others. Benjamin Bloom, the noted psychologist, has demonstrated that among truly excellent performers in a wide range of fields from sDorts to music. natural talent is less of a factor than hard work and persistence. Potential drop-outs must somehow he helped to understand the realitv of this observation and its im&ications to them. Programs that deal successfullv with drop-outs have a number of common characteristici. A low student-teacher ratio encourages personalized attention to student needs. Often, successful programs employ materials and teaching formats that stress immediate and practical results, impress the student with the need for basic skills. and incoroorate consistent patterns of rewarding student achievement. A common and serious ~ r o h l e mwith estahlishine such programs is that often intervention is instituted too late in the course of a student's develooment. Certain Darts of the profile of a drop-out prone student may be visible as early a6 the third grade: to allow such problems to languish until the eleventh grade virtually giarantees that t i e student will drop out before finishing high school. The statisticians m a i h e a b l e to provide us with reasonably accurate estimates of drop-out rates for blacks, Hispanics;whites, etc.-male and female, but they cannot provide us with information on a specific child. Neither can they necessarily tell us how to improve on any or all of the dropout rates. There is no reason to believe that the drop-out rate for any ethnic group cannot he reduced to match the lower value of any other group, or that the drop-out rate for males cannot he reduced to that of females. There are a numher of positive actions that can he taken to improve retention by public schools, hut these need to he assembled into a coherknt framework a t the state and higher levels. Students involved in such retention programs potentially will enter higher education as they progress along the education continuum. Therefore, the higher education academic community needs to get involved in trying to improve retention rather than viewing these problems as a "spectator sport". To do so would he in evervone's best interests. in both the JJL short and long terms. Institute tor Educational Leadership. Inc.. 1001 Connecticut Ave., N.W.,Suite 310. Washington, DC 20036.
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Volume 63 Number 2
February 1966
95
