Bob Wise and Bob Fulmer on Cutting the High School Dropout Rate

In a recent op-ed in The Huffington Post, Bob Wise, President of the Alliance and former governor of West Virginia, and Bob Fulmer, executive director of the Taco Bell Foundation for Teens, discuss the high school dropout crises:

How Cutting Teen Dropout Rates Could Stimulate the Economy

Recently, President Obama had this to say: “This is a problem we cannot afford to accept and we cannot afford to ignore. The stakes are too high — for our children, for our economy, and for our country.”

Was he talking about defense or national security? No. Was he talking about global economic recovery? No. Instead, he was highlighting the silent epidemic that is our national high school drop-out rate.
The sobering fact remains that three out of every 10 students in U.S. public schools still fail to finish high school with a diploma. That amounts to more than 1.2 million students lost from the graduation ceremonies every year, or about 7,000 students lost every day. And it gets worse for minorities. Just 55 percent of Latino, 51 percent of African-American, and 50 percent of Native American students finish high school with a diploma.

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