Earning a high school diploma yields obvious rewards for an individual receiving it. Failure to graduate, however, saddles taxpayers with unwanted expenses, a study concludes.
Public schools in North Carolina graduated 76,456 students in the 2007-08 school year, according to the N.C. Department of Public Instruction in a report issued in July. That equates to a 70 percent graduation rate — and a 30 percent dropout rate. The total number of students eligible for graduation in 2007-08 was 109,163 students.
According to gender, females graduated at a higher rate than males — 74.3 percent for females, and 65.9 percent for males. According to race, 12.8 percent more white students graduated than did black students from high schools. A total of 75.3 percent white students graduated, while 62.5 percent black students graduated.
Of the state’s three largest school systems, Guilford County Schools reported the highest graduation rate, at 79.5 percent. Coming in second was Forsyth County Schools, at 70.8 percent, followed by Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, at 66.6 percent. Of the larger school systems, Chapel Hill-Carrboro Schools claimed the highest graduation rate, at 87.9 percent.
Gov. Mike Easley dubbed one week in September “Graduation Awareness Week,” in which the top schools making the most academic progress of graduating seniors were acknowledged by state Superintendent June Atkinson.
The top 10 school districts in order by graduation rate were: Elkin City Schools, 89.4 percent; Chapel Hill-Carrboro Schools, 87.9 percent; Pamlico County Schools, 85.5 percent; Dare County Schools, 85.3 percent; Camden County Schools, 81.8 percent; Alleghany County Schools, 81.6 percent; Catawba County Schools, 81.2 percent; Newton-Conover Schools, 81 percent; Mount Airy City Schools, 81 percent; and Ashe County Schools, 80.9 percent.
Eight schools heralded a 100 percent graduation rate, according to DPI. They were: Burke Middle College in Burke County, Nantahala School in Macon County, Weaver Education Center in Guilford County, Greensboro Middle College in Guilford County, Early College at Guilford in Guilford County, Highland School of Technology in Gaston County, Reid Ross Classical in Cumberland County, and Cape Hatteras Secondary in Dare County.
“High school graduation is a minimum goal today. It’s the basic level of education that adults need, but too many of our young people are not getting that minimum. My message to students is simple. Graduate from high school, and be ready to chart the course you want for your life,” Atkinson said in a news conference.
But that message isn’t so clearly heard by all students who walk the halls of the more than 2,000 public schools in North Carolina. A study prepared by Brian J. Gottlob released in October 2007 pinpointed several areas where the graduation, as well as dropout rates, highly affect society in the future. Gottlob wrote in the study, “Across the nation states are acknowledging a crisis in high school graduation rates.”
Many individuals who do not graduate from high school probably will not contribute to society, the study noted. Gottlob detailed that dropouts reduce annual earnings in North Carolina by $7.5 billion; dropouts decrease state tax revenues by at least $712 million annually; dropouts are more likely to rely on Medicaid, increasing the state’s Medicaid costs by $155 million each year; and dropouts are twice as likely to be incarcerated.
Advocates trying to find the answer of boosting the entire state’s graduation rate are opting toward creating a more competitive environment between public schools and private schools.
A study done by Thomas Dee, associate professor of economics at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, found that most studies of the relationship between competition and public school graduation rates “dramatically underestimate the effect of competition from private schools on the rate of high school completion in public schools.”
His results indicate that an increase in the “percentage of students enrolled in private schools equal to one standard deviation, or about 3.9 percentage points of total enrollment in North Carolina, is associated with a 1.7 percentage-point decline in public school dropout rate overall and a 3.4 percentage-rate decline in public school districts where at least 20 percent of students are non-white.”
Only 7 percent of N.C. students are in private schools, according to DPI. The percentage is relatively low compared to other states. The study written by Gottlob states that even a “modest school choice program [educational voucher] would reduce North Carolina dropouts by up to 5,483 each year, saving up to $25 million annually.”
Gottlob reported that “most states and school districts significantly understate the problem of students failing to graduate from high school. Until recently, independent estimates by several educational institutes noted the large discrepancy – as high as 33 percentage points — between North Carolina’s official dropout rate and independent calculations of its dropout rate.”
“The independent estimates of high school dropouts in North Carolina placed the state’s overall graduation rate between 64 percent and 71 percent,” Gottlob reported.
Graduating from high school is not just something to think about, it’s something to strive to achieve, Atkinson said.
“That message to students is only one part of the equation. Schools and communities need to ensure that they are supporting students and their families and eliminating barriers to school success. Research shows that students benefit from smaller learning environments, opportunities to build relationships with their teachers and adult leaders in their schools, rigorous and focused academics and support that helps them overcome setbacks in their school career,” Atkinson said in a press release.
Jana Benscoter is a contributing editor of Carolina Journal.