Youth Insight

Education

School Dropout Rates Adds To Fiscal Burden
NPR – July 24, 2011
Nearly 1 million kids who start high school every year don’t make it to graduation. At a time when federal and state budgets are tight, dropouts costs taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars in lost revenue, health care, welfare and incarceration costs.

Beating the Odds: High School ‘Dropouts’ Earn Diploma At East LA Program Facing Big Cuts
EGP News, East Los Angeles, CA – July 21, 2011
While the 2011 season for pomp and circumstance has already wrapped up at Los Angeles area schools, not until last week did nearly three-dozen students at an East Los Angeles-based academy finally received their diplomas. It was a privilege they thought they forfeited when they dropped out of high school, and one which may not be available to as many students in the future due to federal funding cuts. Twenty-one-year-old Luz Avila struggled in high school. She attended Garfield High School, Garfield Adult school, another program, and then Cesar Chavez Continuation, but on July 14, she received her high school diploma through LA CAUSA YouthBuild, a non-profit organization and charter school she says allowed her to experience high school, go to grad night, volunteer; everything “without the drama,”

» Read more: This Week’s News: Youth in Transition