High School Dropouts

High School Dropouts

Introduction

The following paper based on one of the most important contemporary issue of American society and this is the High School Dropouts. As America changed throughout its history, the nature and purpose of education changed. However, as the nation became more industrialized and less agrarian, the importance of formal education grew steadily, and graduation from high school increased apace from 1900 to 1970. However, graduation rates have leveled off or even declined in the last four decades (Kaufman, 2001). The national averaged freshman graduation rate had increased from 71.7% in 2000-2001 to 73.9% in 2006-2007, but decreased to 73.4% in 2005-2006 (Aud et al., 2010). Concern over the flat or declining graduation rate has appeared in many forms, and the dropout phenomenon has become the subject of much investigation and debate. Unfortunately, disagreement over the true graduation rate has also arisen, with different sources reporting widely disparate estimates of dropout numbers.

The dropout rate of high school students continues to be a global concern. In the United States, the Institute of Education Science reported that preventing students from leaving school early and academic school failure continue to be two of the most significant problems facing the American education system. This chapter is arranged in the following sequence: a) impact of dropping out on individuals, b) impact of dropouts on the communities, c) personal factors related to dropping out-low student achievement, d) absenteeism, e) alienation and disengagement, f) retention, g) teenage pregnancy, h) behavior, i) social factors related to student dropout, k) family influence on dropouts, and l) student teacher relationship and its influence on dropouts.

Background

In 2006, the American Youth Policy Forum (AYPF) reported that one student leaves America's high schools every nine seconds. In 2009, the CDF stated that 20,715 students left American high schools every day; some returned to school, but 2,222 of each day's exodus did not. Sweeten, Bushway, and Paternoster (2009) reported that approximately 7,000 students drop out of the nation's high schools every day. The difference between the CDF (2009) figure and that of Sweeten et al. (2009) highlighted the confusion surrounding this issue; however it is worth nothing that The American Alliance for Excellent Education (AAEE) in 2009 also reported that nearly 7,000 students drop out every day. Sweeten et al. (2009) estimated the total number of dropouts stood between 1.2 and 1.3 million students every year. Kennelly and Monrad (2007) concluded that 1.3 million students failed to graduate from high school in 2004, and the AAEE (2009) reported that 1.3 million students dropped out in 2009.

The dropout rate varies across the nation. Unfortunately, some of America's largest school districts reported high dropout rates throughout the last decade. In 2007, the United States Department of Education, reported that dropout rates in the nation's 100 largest school districts stood near 31% (Rycik, 2007). In over 20 large cities in 2007, 75% of all high school students attended schools where graduation rates fell below 60% (Bridgeland et al., ...