ALEXANDRIA, VA – Yesterday, Senator Bingaman (D-NM), Senator Richard Burr (R-NC), and Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) introduced bipartisan legislation that will improve high schools and curb the dropout rate of students. The Graduation Promise Act (GPA) will provide grants to states and community organizations to reform low-performing high schools, bolster policies aimed at raising graduation rates, and to develop school models aimed at assisting struggling students and dropouts.
“Each year, three out of every ten public high school students do not graduate, and the impact on communities is alarming. Statistics show that students who drop out are more likely to commit crimes, be unemployed, and are less likely to care for their families financially and emotionally,” said Bruce Lesley, President of First Focus. “The passage of the Graduation Promise Act would give states the resources to assess the performance of their schools and design a plan of action for improvement. By identifying specific factors related to school dropouts, the reforms implemented will allow the school to better combat the specific factors that are deterring kids from earning a diploma,” Lesley continued.
The legislation would authorize three types of grants designed to improve student learning. First, grants would be provided to states to strengthen the capacities of State educational agencies (SEAs) for the development of a strategy to improve high schools. Subgrants will be provided to local educational agencies (LEAs) to implement locally developed interventions to address the specific needs of high schools. The SEAs will develop a set of school performance indicators to be used by the LEAs to analyze school performance and determine the assistance a school shall receive. Student attendance rates, the percentage of students failing core courses, the percentage of students taking rigorous courses, and college enrollment will be among the criteria.
In addition, the legislation provides a procedure for assessing progress and ensuring school improvement. If a school has not made adequate yearly progress for two consecutive years, the school will be placed in one of three improvement categories to sufficiently remedy the problems. Through school improvement teams, community leaders and LEAs will assess the issues and lead the implementation of school improvement plans. Targeted interventions and/or whole school reforms will be put into practice and, when necessary, high schools can be replaced. .
Secondly, competitive grants will be made available for LEAs, nonprofits, institutions of higher education, and partnerships among them, to develop and implement secondary school models for dropouts and students who are not making sufficient progress toward graduation, have been retained a grade level, are under-credited, or those who have limited proficiency in English.
Finally, competitive grants will also be awarded to states to design state policies in a way that will facilitate innovation. States may use the funds to adjust policies around innovative finance models, data improvement, support systems for high need schools, and additional secondary school options including alternate models for struggling students and dropouts.
Background:
Research shows that nearly three out of every ten public high school students – and nearly one half of all African Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans – fail to graduate from public high school with their class. Furthermore, approximately 2,000 high schools in the U.S. have low graduation rates, and in more than 20 cities, 75 percent or more of students attend public high schools where graduating is less than a 60 percent proposition.
The impact of dropping out is felt throughout all aspects of society. 68 percent of all state prison inmates did not receive a high school diploma, and a dropout is more than eight times more likely to be in jail or prison than a person who has graduated high school. More than three times as many sigh school dropouts are likely to be unemployed than college graduates. With these diminishing well-paying employment opportunities, high school dropouts are less able to take care of their families financially and also in terms of emotional support and involvement. Each young person who fails to finish high school and goes on to a life of crime costs the nation between $1.7 and $2.3 million. Cutting the number of high school dropouts in half from just one school year would provide the government with an estimated $45 billion in extra tax revenues and decreased costs in public health, crime, justice and welfare payments over a lifetime.