High School Policy Reform: A Plan for Success (California)
The California dropout crisis has reached epidemic proportions, which is reflective of national trends. Ten percent of California’s high schools are considered dropout factories—schools where more than 60 percent of the freshman class fails to graduate in four years. And while 70 percent of all California students graduate, two out of every five African American and Latino students do not, and more than 50 percent of California’s Cambodian, Laotian, and Hmong students did not graduate in 2000 according to the California Department of Education. Nationwide, only 50 percent of American Indian and Alaska Native, 55 percent of African American, and 57 percent of Latino students graduate from high school each year compared to more than 75 percent of white students.
According to the Alliance for Excellent Education, the nearly 162,000 non-graduates from California’s class of 2008 will forgo more than $40 billion in lifetime earnings. If California can raise the graduation and college enrollment rates of students of color to the levels of their white peers by 2020, the state would see more than $101 billion injected into its economy. Nationally, the same increase in graduation rates would add, conservatively, more than $310.4 billion to the U.S. economy.
The Campaign for High School Equity (CHSE) has created High School Policy Reform: A Plan for Success, which describes the state of high school education in California and the steps that must be taken so that all young people graduate from high school ready to work, ready for college, and ready to be knowledgeable citizens.