May is the traditional month for high school graduation in Alabama. The state’s public high schools produced 37,389 graduates in 2008 and private schools produced 4,576 graduates in 2007, the most recent years for which official data is available.
Earning a high school diploma is an important milestone in a student’s career. According to a recent U.S. Census Bureau study, having a high school diploma adds more than $10,000 a year in income for the average worker. Furthermore completing high school is the gateway to college degrees that bring even more earning power.
The high school graduation rate is also important to a state, both economically and socially. States with better-educated workforces tend to attract jobs that call for higher skill levels and command better wages. This, in turn, creates the opportunity for educated young people to remain in a state rather than leave for better prospects elsewhere.
Alabama, like most Southern states, has many undereducated adults. The most recent Census Bureau survey indicates that almost 20 percent of adults in Alabama have no high school diploma. Only four other states have greater percentages. Improving the high school graduation rate is a key to overcoming this disadvantage.
Unfortunately Alabama’s public schools continue to produce graduates at below-average rates. The most recent data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) indicates that about 66 percent of Alabama students in the class of 2005 graduated on time with a regular or advanced diploma. This rate ranked 39th among the 48 states reporting; the national average was about 75 percent.
Calculations by the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama (PARCA) indicate that Alabama’s graduation rate has not improved in the three classes that have finished in the years since the NCES study.
Efforts are now under way to pinpoint early dropout indicators so that preventive steps can be taken years before a student decides to leave school. PARCA has worked with the Mobile County Public Schools to define a set of indicators that are now being used to develop intervention strategies. Presentations on this work are available on our Web site at http://parca.samford.edu/presentations.html.
EDITOR’S NOTE — Jim Williams is executive director for the nonprofit, nonpartisan Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama.
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