Highschool Dropouts Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Highschool Dropouts - Research Paper Example Timely solutions are necessary especially since there has not been a substantial improvement in the figures even after the education reforms of the past few decades. Consequently, this essay explores the extend of high school dropout rate while suggesting the possible reasons why many students do not stay in school until graduation in addition to providing possible solutions to end the cycle. Statistics notes the current annual high school dropout figure to be 3,030,000(Education Week, 2013). The high number of high school dropouts in US educational system has not gone unnoticed given the number of national policies that have been put in place over the years to reverse the cycle. The year 1990 recorded a change in the way the state and federal government handled the issue of high school dropouts through adoption of six national goals that were to be achieved by the year 2000. The second goal in the six national goals underlies the government’s commitment towards improving the high school graduation rate up to 90 percent in addition to an undertaking which would see the prevailing gap in high school graduation rates among minority and non-minority students eliminated. The six national goals for the reduction of high school dropout rate has had a significant impact as seen from the decreasing levels of drop outs from 1990s figures of 9 percent for whites, 13.2 percent for African American and 32.4 percent for Hispanic to the 2009 dropout figures of 5.2 percent for whites and 9.6 percent for African American and 17.6 percent for the Hispanic. During the same period, high school dropout rates across gender and race reduced from 12.1 percent to 8.1 (Education Week, 2013) The number of high school dropouts has a significant impact on the social, cultural, political and economic ambitions of a country. The future of any country literary depends on the education of the children since they are future citizens, professionals, and leaders therefore making education the major tool for empowerment of a country’s citizenry in addition to the guaranteed development of personal, economic, and social well-being of the people in a society. Therefore, high drop outs reduce the number of qualified human resource from varied social backgrounds that are necessary for making essential public policies both in political and professional positions. As a consequence, in undertaking the educational journey students should be encouraged to remain in schools up to the graduation time for them to increase their knowledge skills and attitude that will make them adapt to their social responsibility, healthy, and be contributing citizens (Greenberg et al., 2003). Economically, high school dropouts earn lower pays on average compared to those who graduated where male dropouts of ages 25 to 65 had an annual average earning of about $26,400 compared to the average of $35,000 that male high school graduates earn annually which is still lower compared to $40,000 that a male college graduate in the same age bracket earned (Lofstrom, 2008). The current vicious cycle of high school dropout can be explored under different levels considering the fact the statistics are not even across different sex where the percentage of male at 9.1% is more than that of female at 7%, race