Study finds high rate of imprisonment among dropouts

A new report suggests the picture for dropouts is increasingly bleak in a society where demands for low-skill workers is plunging, reports the New York Times. On any given day, about one in every 10 young male high school dropouts is in jail or juvenile detention, compared with one in 35 young male high school graduates, according to the study. The picture is even bleaker for African-Americans, with nearly one in four young black male dropouts incarcerated or otherwise institutionalized on an average day, the study said. That compares with about one in 14 young, male, white, Asian, or Hispanic dropouts. Researchers at Northeastern University used census and other government data to carry out the study, which tracks the employment, workplace, parenting, and criminal justice experiences of young high school dropouts. A coalition of civil rights and public education advocacy groups and a network of alternative schools in Chicago commissioned the report as part of a push for new educational opportunities for the nation's 6.2 million high school dropouts. "The dropout rate is driving the nation's increasing prison population, and it's a drag on America's economic competitiveness," said Marc H. Morial, the former New Orleans mayor who is president of the National Urban League, one of the groups that commissioned the report. "This report makes it clear that every American pays a cost when a young person leaves school without a diploma."

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