One Third of a Nation:
The Dropout Challenge and Strategies to Reconnect Youth

A Forum — June 24, 2005

Multiple recent studies have found that the U.S. high school dropout rate has increased to about one-third.  This forum served to present the findings of one such report published by Educational Testing Service.  One Third of a Nation analyzes the increasing dropout rate and provides examples of resources and programs successful at increasing retention and completion, but which suffer from lack of funding and institutional supports.  In response to the dropout problem, a coalition of youth-focused organizations developed a “Memo on Reconnecting Our Youth” to share with President Bush and national policymakers.  The memo responds to current challenges with policy recommendations, many of which can be implemented within existing statutory and budget authority, in order to provide strategies to address problems facing the nation’s youth. 

Paul E. Barton, Senior Associate in the Policy Information Center at Educational Testing Service, provided an overview of his recent report One Third of a Nation: Rising Dropout Rates and Declining Opportunities.  He said that contrary to U.S. census accounts, the high school dropout rate has risen over the past three decades from about 23 percent to 30 percent.  The report also found that youth tend to drop out in the 9th and 10th grades rather than in the 11th and 12th.  When youth leave school at an earlier age they are even more vulnerable in the labor market than older youth.  Policymakers are also taking note of a phenomenon referred to as the “Grade 9 Bulge” which describes the largest group of students that leave school after repeating 9th grade. 

Barton further analyzed the dropout rate and General Accounting Office research as to what factors contribute to a student dropping out of school.  He concluded that the combination of three factors—(1) parents’ socioeconomic status, (2) having one parent, and (3) frequently changing schools—could explain about 60 percent of the variation among the states in the level of their high school completion rates. 

In addition to presenting the statistics on the dropout problem, Barton discussed alternative educational options that serve students who are at a high-risk of dropping out or who have already left school.  He noted that while alternative schools have grown in number to 11,000 and serve about 1.3 percent of the public school population, their success is difficult to evaluate on a national scale.  Barton highlighted The Talent Development High School, Communities in Schools, Maryland’s Tomorrow and The Quantum Opportunities Program as programs that have proved effective in improving retention and completion rates.  He also added that community college programs may provide opportunities for students. 

Barton identified three other factors that can contribute to the high dropout rate.  First, although guidance counseling can be effective in retaining at-risk students, it has been deemphasized in reform efforts.  The ratio of counselors to students in high schools is on average only 284 to 1, and in schools with greater minority enrollments or whose students are not college-bound, the ratios are higher.  Furthermore, guidance counselors spend much of their time on other duties such as administration and discipline rather than promoting retention and completion.  Second, there exist fewer second-chance opportunities for dropouts than in previous years.  Federal investment in constant dollars has decreased from $15 billion in 1979 to less than $3 billion in 2000, with approximately 100,000 opportunities for individual students.  However, a number of programs such as  The Job Corps, YouthBuild USA, The Center for Employment and Training and The Youth Corps remain effective.  Third, it is increasingly possible for students of high school age to obtain a GED—in fact the percentage of 16-year-olds who have done so has increased nine percent since 1994.  But, research has shown this track does not provide the same advantages as a high school diploma. 

There are a number of individual and collective consequences for increased dropout rates.  These include (1) unemployment, (2) ever-declining wages, and (3) economic and social costs, such as welfare, incarceration and the loss educated workers the economy needs.  Full-time earnings for males without a high school diploma aged 24 to 35 fell from $35,000 in 1971 to $23,000 in 2002 (in constant dollars) while the earnings for females fell from just under $20,000 to just under $16,000.  The figures for out-of-school youth who have children is even worse, with the majority subsisting on earnings just around the poverty level.  Barton pointed to these figures to highlight the significance and urgency of the dropout problem.

Following the overview of the scale of the dropout problem Sally Prouty, President of the National Association of Service and Conservation Corps (NASCC) and Linda Harris, Senior Policy Analyst at the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP), shared the “Memo for Reconnecting our Youth,” which was developed by the Campaign for Youth, a coalition of youth-focused organizations, and shared with President Bush and national policymakers.  It responds to the challenge set forth by One-Third of a Nation and lays out a series of recommendations to help the nation’s young people develop into successful, self-sufficient adults.

Prouty explained how nearly 250 organizations have come together to create “A Coalition of Voices from the Field” to draft the “Memo on Reconnecting Our Youth” and to work with the President, his administration and the Congress to advance an agenda that will restore hope and promise for youth.  The Memo’s signatories hope to (1) establish a dialogue with stakeholders, (2) get youth issues resonating at all levels of government and community, (3) create a collective voice, consensus issues and recommendations, and (4) impact policy and stimulate action.  She reemphasized the low graduation rate and noted that urban dropout rates can be as high as 70 percent.  The teen employment rate is also at its lowest point in 57 years; 5.4 million youth are neither in school nor employed.  The graduation rate problem manifests itself in other areas of society: 65 percent of incarcerated adults are dropouts.

Harris then detailed many of the recommendations set forth by the memo. They include:

1. Use the Presidential “bully pulpit” to set a national goal to Reach Out and Reconnect our youth,
2. Establish an interagency National Youth Development Council, as recommended by the White House Task Force Report for Disadvantaged Youth,
3. Improve youth services through better outcomes evaluation and accountability,
4. Establish flexibility in public education funds for disadvantaged youth, to enable enrollment in the most appropriate educational environments,
5. Use the reauthorization of key federal programs to strengthen supports for youth transitioning to adulthood,
6. Expand opportunities for youth to engage in community service and work experience, and
7. Provide incentives and technical support to increase employer participation in developing internships, pipelines and intermediaries.

Prouty and Harris explained that the Memo’s signatories will continue to expand the coalition, elevate the issues, focus attention, advance the recommendations and inspire action.

During the subsequent dialogue panelists and others discussed successful alternative education programs, particularly those emphasizing achievement in grade 9, as well as why graduation rates may be falling and the importance of knowledge development.  The consensus among the forum attendees was that the coalition should look to expand and engage a broader cross-section of the education community. 

Copies of One-Third of Nation: Rising Dropout Rates and Declining Opportunities are available online at http://www.ets.org/research/pic/onethird.pdf. 

Copies of “Memo on Reconnecting Our Youth” are available online at http://www.nyec.org/Memo_on_Reconnecting_Our_Youth.pdf. 

Speaker Bios

Paul E. Barton received a B.A. in social science from Hiram College in 1953 and an M.A. in public affairs from Princeton University in 1957. He is currently a senior associate in the Research & Development Division at Educational Testing Service in Princeton, NJ, and an independent education consultant and writer. He was the director of the Policy Information Center at Educational Testing Service and has held the title of associate director of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). His responsibilities with NAEP have included governance, oversight of NAEP advisory committees, and participation in the internal management of NAEP.

Prior to employment at ETS, he was president of the National Institute for Work and Learning. He has served on the Secretary of Labor's Policy Planning Staff and in the Office of Management and Budget in the Executive Office of the President.

His areas of experience and publications include education policy educational testing, unemployment insurance, retraining, adult education, labor market policy, the school-to-work transition, vocational education, welfare reform, labor statistics and program/planning/budgeting systems. From 1980 to 1982, he was a consultant in the foundation-funded NAEP evaluation “Measuring the Quality of Education.” From 1976 to 1977, he assisted Willard Wirtz in his duties as chair of the blue ribbon panel that published On Further Examination: Report of the Advisory Panel on the Scholastic Aptitude Test Score Decline.

He had done consulting and advising work and commissioned papers for the National Education Goals Panel; the National Assessment Governing Board; the Work in America Institute; the Committee for Economic Development; the National Commission for Employment Policy; the American Vocational Association; the National Institute of Education; the Center for Corporate Social Responsibility; the American Council on Life Insurance; the Office of Technology Assessment; Ohio State Center for Research in Vocational Education; Educational Testing Service; the William T. Grant Foundation Commission on Work, Family and Citizenship; the National Alliance of Business; Jobs for the Future; the American Youth Policy Forum; the Southern Regional Education Board; Public Private Ventures; the Center on Education Policy; and the American Federation of Teachers.

He has testified before committees of the U.S. Congress on higher education, youth unemployment, career education, recession employment policy, literacy (twice on behalf of NAEP), and welfare indicators. He has served on the executive committee of the National Coalition for Youth Employment, as trustee of Hiram College, and as trustee of the National Institute for Work and Learning. He is a member of the Business Policy Council of the National Alliance of Business, serves on the advisory council of Jobs for the Future as a director of the American Youth Policy Forum, and is a member of the Advisory Board on Welfare Indicators.

Linda Harris is a Senior Policy Analyst at the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) in the area of at-risk youth policy. She has over 25 years of experience in the youth development and workforce development arena.  She joined CLASP in 2003 and has focused her attention on advancing policies and practice that promote cross system solutions to the disconnected youth problem in distressed communities.  Her recent activities have included the survey of administrators and youth in 21 high poverty communities that received Youth Opportunity Grants to highlight lessons learned in building delivery capacity in distressed communities and co-chairing, for the Campaign for Youth, a consensus effort at the National policy level to advance a set of recommendations for reconnecting youth.

For 15 years, she served as Director of the Baltimore City Mayor’s Office of Employment Development and as Administrator for the Baltimore City Private Industry Council. She attracted over $70 million in discretionary and demonstration funds to Baltimore and under her leadership Baltimore achieved a national reputation for system building and innovation in Workforce Development. She has 10 years of experience in program development, research and evaluation at the Mayor’s Office of Manpower Resources, in Baltimore, and at the National Planning Association in Washington, D. C. doing econometric modeling of the impact of unemployment rates, crime rates, and poverty rates on the projected manpower needs in the criminal justice system.

Ms. Harris was instrumental in the establishment of the Maryland Institute for Employment and Training Professionals to advance professional development and certification for the staff in the workforce field in Maryland.  As a consultant she provided technical support and guidance to a number of local workforce areas on WIA transition and start-up of Youth Opportunity and Young Offender grants.

She has served on the Governor’s Employment and Training Council, the Mayor’s Human Services Cabinet, the Governor’s Advisory Council on Family Preservation, the Board of Trustees of the Conference of Mayors’ Workforce Development Council, The National Association of Workforce Development Professionals’ Board, and the Baltimore Empowerment Zone Board.

Ms. Harris is a native of Baltimore with a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from Morgan State University and a Masters of Science from Carnegie-Mellon University in Urban and Public Affairs.

As President of the National Association of Service and Conservation Corps (NASCC), Sally Prouty serves as an advocate for its 108 member Corps enrolling over 23,000 young men and women annually.  NASCC Corps revitalize communities, preserve and restore the environment, prepare young people for responsible, productive lives and build civic spirit through service.  NASCC provides program assessment, training and technical assistance, assures quality projects locally, administers national projects, builds partnerships in support of  corps and provides a collective voice for corps in Washington, DC.    

Prior to her appointment in July 2002, Sally served four years as Deputy Director, Ohio Department of Natural Resources and seven years as Director of the Ohio Civilian Conservation Corps (OCCC), a division of ODNR.  Modeled after the federal program of the 1930s and 40s, and operating two residential and six non-residential programs, OCCC provided unemployed young men and women the opportunity to gain valuable life skills, advance educationally, and develop marketable work skills while also providing quality conservation services in the State of Ohio.  While working with the Ohio Corps, Sally cooperated in the development of the NASCC Corps to Career program model.

In addition to 30 years work experience in the public and private sectors, Sally has nearly an equal number of years of experience in volunteer non-profit positions at the local, state, national and international levels.  These experiences include serving on a public school Board of Education and on the founding board of a faith based Charter School. 

A Registered Nurse, Sally also holds a degree in Organizational Communication from Capital University in Columbus, Ohio.

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