Just The Facts
- Youth of black and Hispanic origins are the most likely to drop out of high school. As of 2004, Hispanics between the ages of 16-24 made up the highest portion of high school dropouts. (about 24%) In second were the Non-Hispanic blacks (12%). Non-Hispanic whites made up 7% while those of Asian descent are the least likely of any ethnicity to drop out.
- Males are more likely to drop out than females. Between the age range of 16-24, they equal about 57% of the drop out population.
- Foreigners make up 28% of the 16-24 dropout population.
http://www.childtrendsdatabank.org/indicators/1HighSchoolDropout.cfm
Demographics
Overall, it seems anyone can turn out to be a high school dropout if a handful of conditions are met whether at home or in school itself. The personality of the student also plays a factor.
Children who are raised in families with low levels of communication are more probable to drop out of high school.
The high school completion rate for the U.S. has increased only slightly over the last quarter of a century. A promising area of focus for dropout prevention efforts may be found in research that assesses how messages about educational attainment may affect school completion rates. The supportive communication framework is used to address how communication in the home and in school may affect student educational attainment. An extensive search of the student dropout literature was followed by standard meta-analytic procedures. The average weighted effect for communication in the home on high school completion was r=.21, and the effect for communication in school on high school completion was r=.14. The age of subjects and region of the country in which subjects lived were addressed as possible moderators of the relationship between communication in the home and school and educational attainment. No evidence that these variables moderated the relationship was found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Citation: Communication Education Oct2007, Vol. 56 Issue 4, p433-452
Pregnancy Dropout Rates
According to this article based around, pregnant women of any age are 11.4 times as likely to drop out of school as non-pregnant women of the same age. The pregnant girls also did NOT seem to drop out solely because of their impending motherhood.
http://www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/dps/pdfs/dp102793.pdf
Living Environments
As for living environments, students who live in big cities are two times as likely to drop out of school as non-urban young adults. 12% of the drop out population are runaways. And not only are there the students who choose to drop out on their own, but some numbers seem to include those who are put on some kind of school punishment, such as expulsion. Maybe there can be a few encouraging words to dissuade troublemaking. There are also a lot of reasons for dropping out listed here that we can discuss.
http://www.focusas.com/Dropouts.html
In July 2008, the Indianapolis Star reported that "Males falter in IPS, study says. 19% graduated in 2005-06, report finds; superintendent says changes helping." The story goes on to report that "The study, based on the 2005-06 school year, pegged the graduation rate for black males in Indianapolis Public Schools at 19 percent -- the lowest among 63 urban districts in the study. The rate for white males was also 19 percent, which was better than only Detroit."
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080726/LOCAL18/807260429/1013/NEWS04
In April 2008, CNN and ABC reported that “seventeen of the nation's 50 largest cities had high school graduation rates lower than 50 percent, with the lowest graduation rates reported in Detroit, Michigan; Indianapolis, Indiana and Cleveland, Ohio.” According to this report students who live in the suburbs and are in rural public high schools are more likely to graduate then students who attend urban public high schools. “Nationally, about 70 percent of U.S. students graduate on time with a regular diploma and about 1.2 million students drop out annually.”
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/04/01/school.grad.rates.ap/index.html http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=4566292&page=1
Dropout Factory
A “dropout factory” is a nickname given to a high school where no more than 60% of the starting class makes it to their fourth year. This term applies to one in every ten schools across America. Some of this is due to transferring students, but the vast majority is due to dropping out.
1,700 regular or vocational high schools (12%) nationwide can be labeled as dropout factories. These schools tend to be located in the large cities and high-poverty rural areas in the south/southwestern portions of the country and contain high proportions of minority students who face non-academic problems such as needing social service or working jobs.
Utah is the only state without a dropout factory.
Florida and South Carolina have the most as more than half of the schools in these two state can be considered factories.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/29/national/main3425857.shtml
Top 5 Dropout States
- Georgia
- South Carolina
- North Carolina
- Florida
- Texas
