Dropout Nation

Photo courtesy of The Notebook

Certainly President Barack Obama isn’t pleased by this morning’s news that the nation’s unemployment rate slightly increased in May. After all, the news brings more focus on the weakest aspect of his campaign for re-election: The failed efforts on the economic front to use federal dollars for half-baked stimulus efforts such as the “shovel-ready” public construction projects funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the $100 billion or so poured into traditional districts in order to keep teachers on the payroll.

But for those more-concerned about America’s role as the leading superpower in an increasingly knowledge-based economy, the latest job numbers once again serve as a reminder of why we must overhaul American public education: In an age in which what you know is more-important than what can be done with one’s hands, the prospects are bleak for high school dropouts and those who could once count on employment in increasingly low-skilled manual labor jobs. And their slide into economic and social despair will further weigh down on the nation’s future.

Although May’s unemployment rate of 13 percent for dropouts aged 25 and over is two points lower than it was at the same period last year, the rate has been on an upswing since March of this year. More importantly, the unemployment rate for those dropouts who are working (and less than half of all dropouts are in the workforce in the first place) is five points higher than that of high school graduates and those with some college education, and three times higher than the unemployment rate for those with a baccalaureate or graduate degree (whose levels of unemployment have been consistently been on the decline over the past year). Given that 43 percent of all unemployed workers filing claims have been out of work for 27 weeks (or nearly seven months) or more, it is quite likely than most dropouts will struggle to find any kind of work suited to their marginal skills. And this is especially true for dropouts aged 16-to-24, whose lack of strong literacy, numeracy, and science skills are exacerbated by their lack of experience in the working world.

At the same time, there is little job growth in the sectors which have been the go-to employers for dropouts. Twenty-eight thousand fewer people worked in the construction sector last month than in April; while construction firms are no longer shedding as many jobs now as it was in 2011, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that few jobs were added in the past 14 months. The transportation and warehousing sectors did add 36,000 more jobs between April and May, but the sector has added few jobs overall within the past year. Meanwhile there has been little growth in the leisure and hospitality or in the food stores side of the retail industry. The sectors in which there has been strong growth (and offer middle-class wages) such as manufacturing, healthcare, and professional and business services all require employees to have at least some college education in order to get through the door.

So dropouts who are unemployed or under-employed are likely to remain that way. This is especially true for young men — especially young black and poor white men — who could once count on getting a job in construction or on an assembly line in order to earn family-sustaining incomes. They will have to seek out income in the informal economy, either having to work odd jobs that don’t pay much (and offer no benefits) or engage in the kind of illicit activity that lands so many young men and women into prison. The cost of their lack of education in turn, is costly to the nation. Federal and state governments will likely spend $186 billion on unemployment subsidies (including contributions to unemployment trust funds) in the 2011-2012 fiscal year and another $131 billion on other welfare costs for families and children; this comes as the nation is struggling with long-term fiscal burdens that include $1.1 trillion in teachers’ pensions and retired teacher healthcare obligations that remain unfunded. And this is all before the high costs of incarcerating dropouts who have landed in prison; we end up spending  $228 billion on criminal justice badly largely because we spend $591 billion on education abysmally.

There’s little hope for these young men and women. While President Obama has offered a blueprint for revamping the funding of — and bringing No Child Left Behind Act-styled accountability — to workforce training efforts (including vocational education activities funded through the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act), the plan is unlikely to pass this year. More importantly, the reality is that re-training those who are functionally illiterate and innumerate is unlikely to work. They would need to actually go back to elementary and secondary schools in order to just get to base level academically. And given the fact that 33 percent of fourth-graders are functionally illiterate according to the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress, and more are just reading at basic levels that fail to equip them for higher education, there’s no way that American public education in its current form can provide these dropouts with the remediation they need to get into the economic mainstream.

What we have are young men and women who, because of the nation’s education crisis, are unable to find work and compete in the modern economy. We have men and women who will be unable to help their communities sustain economic progress and, in already-impoverished neighborhoods, will be unable to help their fellow citizens bring social and fiscal revival. And America will be ill-equipped to compete in an increasingly global economy in which countries such as India, Canada, and Singapore are doing a far better job of educating their children from the poorest to the wealthiest households.

This is more than a failing of our children. This is a moral failing, especially when we are supposed to be shining city upon the hill and must live up to our obligations to our Creator. We must continue to force the overhaul of American public education. And that means providing all young men and women the high-quality teaching and comprehensive, college-preparatory curricula they need to help the nation succeed in the new economic paradigm.