The laws of probability allow even a blind hen to occasionally find a kernel, and the right-wing Cascade Policy Institute to occasionally produce a valuable piece of research.
The institute has come out with a study titled “Oregon’s High School Dropouts: Examining the Economic and Social Costs” that lays out some startling and disturbing facts about the heavy toll the state pays because as many as one-third of its high school seniors fail to graduate.
Among other things, the study found that:
- The unemployment rate of high school dropouts in Oregon is roughly twice that of high school graduates.
- On average, dropouts earn $10,000 less per year than high school graduates and far less than college graduates. Their lower earning power translates into about $173 million in lost state income tax revenue per year.
- More than 40% of high school dropouts receive Medicaid benefits, costing the state another $200 million a year.
- High school dropouts are twice as likely to be incarcerated as graduates. If the high school graduation rate was 100% the state’s prison population could be cut in half.
The study was authored by Emily House and released jointly by Cascade Policy Institute and the Foundation for Educational Choice, an organization originally established in 1996 by conservative economist Milton Friedman and his wife Rose “to promote school choice as the most effective and equitable way to improve the quality of K-12 education in America.”
The report itself makes no specific suggestions for lowering the dropout rate, though considering the ideology of its sponsors it’s pretty easy to guess that if it did make any they’d involve “school choice” – i.e., vouchers.
But you don’t have to agree with the prescription to be alarmed by the diagnosis – and to understand that Oregon urgently needs to come up with a cure.
This article appears in Mar 11-17, 2010.
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No news here. This has been well known and documented over the years. Just as troublesome is the future gap between college and trade school grads against those with only a HS education. Unless we do something to deal with the increasing cost of post HS education, there will be fewer highly educated and/or skilled talent to enter the workforce, and those that do will face mountains of debt.
“No news here. This has been well known and documented over the years.”
It’s not news that high school dropouts earn less and are more likely to need assistance from programs like Medicaid, but this is the first time I’ve seen a study that puts actual dollar figures to it.
So if my math is right, the state spends and/or otherwise foregoes some $373 million a year (not counting costs of incarceration, for which there is no figure) due to this problem…it would seem to make a good case for increased state spending on dropout prevention programs. Of course, all those tax hating right wingers typically stomp and stutter at spending more money, but maybe with some figures to back it up and show the financially beneficial outcome, it might get some buy-in. Probably not, but one can always hope…especially when the figures come from a conservative source.
As for the school vouchers thing, I am hazy on why progressives don’t like it. Any enlightenment would be appreciated.
Northwesthippie.wordpress.com (otherwise known as Slacker)
Millers typical hair brain garbage put down anyone who doesnt see it his far far left side. i Guess just to much dreaming of doing LSD with timothy Leary. Peace goofy.
Ralph!!
WTF!!
Why is it I sometimes feel like I’m at the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party? For the life of me, I’m at a loss. I read the blog four times–it’s short, so not much time was needed. When I read it the third time, I thought I saw a glimmer of HB’s far far left light shining through–but it was extinguished when I reread it again. Couldn’t see the unavoidable, drug flashback induced put down.
Ralph, was your post a result of substance abuse or a general inability to appear coherent?
so just what are you trying to say. its all about revenue that people can produce?? or is it about putting some one in lower or higher class??
Ralphie, Ralphie, Ralphie. Did you graduate from high school? You do know that it’s spelled “hare-brained” because it refers to the brain of a rabbit, don’t you?
After you’ve sorted that bit out, explain what part of Miller’s post is far left. If you disagree with the Cascade Policy Institute’s findings then I urge you to read their report, check their research methods, and contact them with your corrections. I’m sure they’ll appreciate your help.
Gosh Ralph, the first typical hair brain garbage put down is… yours!
and what is the demographics for this study, were is the most and lest drop outs?
hey try this site, maybe yours was out dated. or maybe you are conditioning people for more taxes. link below.
http://www.oregonlive.com/education/index.ssf/2009/04/oregon_high_school_dropout_rat_1.ht
looks like things a picking up. but i do think that Portland area needs to step up there program.
personally i think this is a good study, but the issues go deeper then just economics and education.
what is amazing though is i barely made it through high school, and i make more then the folks that have a masters( phd ) from the charts. but then what do i know.
Ass-tonishing! The blog is about the REAL DOLLAR COSTS to all of us, to the drop outs themselves, and social costs in general, of people who fail to get a basic high school education. The source is a fairly conservative think tank–but then some readers probably think Milton Friedman is a far-left liberal pushing a socialist agenda. And no matter how the HBM haters spin it, I think he was trying to inform.
ATSF3751 is right about one thing–there has always been wide spread agreement that drop outs don’t do as well as grads, and people, on the average, do better as their educational back ground deepens and improves. As someone who for years has interviewed applicants for both my own business and the businesses of others, there is no doubt that educational achievers are looked at more favorably then those who lack an equal education.
We have a broken educational system and addressing the problem and a solution doesn’t involve partisan rhetoric.
“what is amazing though is i barely made it through high school”
Gosh, we never would have guessed.
“and i make more then the folks that have a masters( phd ) from the charts”
The income figures, of course, are averages. There will always be outliers at either end.
yes i know that they are averages. yes i agree with cramer very good info.
HBM please don’t judge me by my spelling or grammar or lack of the ability to structure a sentence properly.
“We have a broken educational system and addressing the problem and a solution doesn’t involve partisan rhetoric.”
so tell us Cramer, which part of the educational system is broken, so we all can start pointing fingers?
is it money?
is it because there are always going to be some that don’t want to finish school?
is it the teachers?
is it the curriculum being used?
is it money? Partly, both the quantity and how it is spent. I grew up in one of the best public education systems in the US–Iowa in the 50’s and 60’s. It is a shadow of what it once was.
is it because there are always going to be some that don’t want to finish school? This has nothing to do with the educational system–people who think education is not important are a product of their family and culture. They look at the exceptions and think that they can do it, too. They are allowed to make life decisions when they absolutely lack the tools to do so. Of course, the people who should be helping them make these decisions lack the tools, too.
is it the teachers? Partly. But it’s too easy to lay the responsibility at their feet. If parents don’t care, if the cultural influences belittle hard working intelligent people, if the system doesn’t reward the best over the rest and offer incentives, who is at fault, really. When was the last time you or I attended a school board meeting? For me it was just after my son graduated fifteen years ago. My bad! I’m like a lot of others–I write the check and then bitch if they don’t spend it the way I want when I don’t offer them any input beyond slogans and truisms.
is it the curriculum being used? Partly. But the curriculum is the one we demand they teach–driven by the need to pass tests, not necessarily impart knowledge or learning skills. For some it’s reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmatic. Add a healthy dose of creationism as science. For others it’s pass and no-fail, positive reinforcement bullshit that ignores the results and focuses on process.
So, mister, I really have to point fingers just about everywhere–including at myself. Like the health system, we all know there is a problem but we keep looking for a simple one-size-fits-all answer that makes us feel good and is never implemented.
Conservatives blame the unions and point at ‘waste’ and ‘bloated’ school districts. Liberals point at class size and low wages and call for more spending. None of them are right and none of them are wrong. Neither wants to acknowledge that there are problems that go beyond their narrow agenda and dogma driven positions. And parents and grandparents and students pretend that they are all just victims and don’t do their part–accept their responsibility in this drama–have a share in this, too.
Probably not the answer you expected or wanted, but it is what it is. A big, multifaceted problem with no easy and cheap single solution.
Well put, Stephen. I would only add that the problem is being compounded by a conservative culture that increasingly derides advanced education as some sort of cultural elitism that should be shunned. It amazes me that anyone would criticize someone else for pursuing intellectual growth, but it happens all the time in right wing circles and is reflected in their penchant to put education funding on the chopping block whenever budgets get slim. Of course, it is always couched in the whole “teachers unions are ruining the system” thing and general grouching about how teachers get paid too much. The thing is, the pay an average k-12 teacher receives is still fairly low compared to other positions these people could find. If we want to get the most highly qualified and effective teachers in our schools, we will have to pay them more. And for that to happen, the value to society of having an educated populace needs to be understood and widely agreed upon. Right now, it isn’t.
“For others it’s pass and no-fail, positive reinforcement bullshit that ignores the results and focuses on process.”
Amen. The obsession with burnishing kids’ “self-esteem” is, I believe, one of the main reasons for the failure of American public education, which used to be the envy of the world. If anything, kids today (harrummph!) have too damn much self-esteem. No matter how mediocre their performance, everybody tells them they’re terrific because to do otherwise might damage their tender self-esteem.
Also, in a culture that’s obsessed with “being positive” at all times, offering any kind of criticism is denounced as “being negative.” Well, damn it, when a kid does lousy work a teacher NEEDS to be negative. When that kid gets out in the real world he/she is going to discover that bosses have no qualms whatsoever about “being negative.”
Slacker
Pay the teachers all you want, but when you drop them into a tub of crap they are going to either get out as fast as they can or end up smelling like s–t! Certainly a culture that belittles education and learning doesn’t help. It is not just a ‘conservative’ point of view, though. Talk to the smart inner-city youth who has to hide his light under a basket or be persecuted as ‘trying to be white.’ This isn’t a myth–it happens. Liberal degrees in ‘Cultural Studies’ and other such curricula have cheapened the idea of a college education. If you teach or instruct, the emphasis is NOT on learning. The dreaded refrain: “Is this going to be on the test” is the signal that someone is about to turn off their brain–and go texting, probably. A Liberal Arts degree used to mean something–a well-rounded graduate with exposure to the Great Ideas and the world around him or her. Now we want Business or Engineering–or Teaching degrees.
Now education is a career track, from grade school on. Students become premature pragmatists–of what value or use is this knowledge to my future career and wage earning capabilities? Ask someone who teaches history how many times they are asked of what value is learning about the past. And the past accelerates every day. Ancient history used to be about Egyptians and Romans and Greeks. Now its about Marin Luther King, the Vietnam War and Watergate–nothing to be learned there.
What happened to phonics, rote math drills, and grammar? I know I am going to sound like an old fart now, harrumph, harrumph, but graduating from my public high school in the mid-1960’s required–REQUIRED!!!–two years of grammar, a year of American Literature, a year of World (ie European) literature. We learned to read and write. It required a year of Social Studies, a year of Geography, a year of American History and a year of World (ie European and South American) History. We were required to take a year of ‘Government.’ Everyone had a year of basic science followed by a year of Biology. By the time we went to high school, basic competence was required in arithmetic, so everyone took what was known as Algebra 1. Periods during which one did not attend classes were spent in mandatory physical education or the library which was quiet, orderly and where most students studied.
I was and am pretty proud of the education I got. I started collecting old text books in the 1970’s, though, and was in awe of what students were expected to learn and know a hundred years ago. Latin and Greek were commonly taught in high school. Their math skills were the stuff of legend. How many of us can or even learned how to extrapolate a cube root? The most impressive thing, though, is their vocabulary, reading, and writing skills. If anything suffers in our age of electronic information sharing, it is language. We have coarsened and dumbed down the language to a point where most people write and speak a pidgin English that our great-grandparents would never recognize. Get an 1898 issue of Popular Science(available on line, now) and TRY to read and understand an article. This was a time when science was a method of investigation and understanding. We have turned it into a body of knowledge.
All of this didn’t happen overnight–it was a matter of incrementalism. Somewhere along the way we as a society got the idea that knowledge and education was a commodity–and since a value can be placed on a commodity, some was worth more and some was worth less. It ceased to be a base for society and culture. It became, in many cases, an impediment. What does an engineer need to know about literature and art and politics? What does a business executive need to know about history or science? Oh, you have a degree in English(or History or Philosophy)? Well, you can always teach. (Which tells you what people really think of teachers, regardless of the ‘importance’ they place on the profession.)
Yeah, I’m pissed off that we have wasted two generations and are in the process of wasting a third. We are becoming a society of economic, political, business elites that really doesn’t care what happens to others as long as their little corner isn’t tampered with.
Too long–too bitter–too true–
you all have just confirmed everything. young folks today can push a few buttons on the keyboards and find everything they want to know. there is no self explanatory methods so they can learn more! thank you CRAMER for what you said in your long winded script! it all reverts back to when morality and family structure and society changed for the worst. but i disagree with you on this upcoming third generation, they are smarter then you are giving them credit for!! and they aren’t the dope heads the baby BOOMERS were that got us in this mess! and i think you are a baby boomer, so you should take some blame,