After several pages of discouraging news about poor performance in local schools, we should step back and remind ourselves that Indianapolis is not alone. The “dropout crisis” is a national problem. The scope of the crisis is clear in a March 2006 report titled “The Silent Epidemic: Perspectives of High School Dropouts.”

Nationally, research puts the graduation rate between 68 percent and 71 percent, which means that almost a third of public high school students in America fail to graduate. The rate at which minority students (black, Hispanic or Native American) finish public high school with a regular diploma declines to about 50 percent. Graduation rates for whites and Asians hover around 75 percent to 77 percent, respectively, with about a quarter of these students failing to graduate. On average, female students graduate at slightly higher rates. Graduation and dropout rates vary considerably by state and region of the country, sometimes by as much as 30 percentage points. And the dropout problem radiates beyond cities to suburbs, towns and rural areas.⁵

The national report tells us a lot about school dropouts, and some of what we learn is encouraging. For instance, solving the dropout crisis won’t require any amazing improvements in educational methods: 88 percent of dropouts in the report’s survey were passing all their classes when they dropped out, and 62 percent were earning average or better than average grades. Other findings from the report:

• 58 percent dropped out with two years or less to complete high school
• 66 percent would have worked harder if expectations were higher
• 70 percent were confident they could have graduated from high school
• 81 percent recognized that graduating from high school was vital to their success
• 74 percent would have stayed in school if they had it to do over again
• 51 percent accepted personal responsibility for not graduating
• Only 23 percent blamed the school alone.

These findings add up to a conclusion that dropping out of school often is done without much forethought or conviction, and can therefore be reversed with the right kinds of intervention. The reasons for dropping out, too, are significant but not insurmountable:

• 47 percent said classes were not interesting. One respondent added, “They make you take classes in school that you’re never going to use in life.”
• 66 percent said they would have worked harder if more had been demanded of them. Said one, “The work wasn’t even hard.”
• 65 percent dropped out after developing a pattern of “refusing to wake up, missing school, skipping class and taking three-hour lunches.”

Some dropped-out students were affected by more intractable problems, but they were fewer.

• 35 percent were failing at school
• 33 percent of the young women who quit did so because they had a baby
• 32 percent left to get a job.

These findings from the national report suggest that the solutions to the current dropout crisis are urgently needed, but won’t require massive investment or retooling. And there is evidence that Indianapolis schools are moving in the right direction. Greater discipline was one of the top recommendations in the national report. In an opinion piece that ran in The Indianapolis Star Sept. 16, 2007, IPS Superintendent Eugene G. White explained his thinking about the new district dress code and wrote, “If we can get our students to dress and behave better, we will be able to get them to learn better. Discipline in small things can build into big successes.”

5 “The Silent Epidemic: Perspectives of High School Dropouts,” a report by Civic Enterprises in association with Peter D. Hart Research Associates for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; by John M. Bridgeland, John J. DiIulio Jr. and Karen Burke Morison, March 2006.