Education for All Matters More Than Ever

As the school year gets started and as I start attending meetings around town representing the school I often hear from patrons, usually my age or older, who always remember the "good old days" of education when they were in school.  Now I'm old enough to have attended school in the 1960's & 70's.  I've also served as an educator for the past 32 years and I'm here to tell you that those, "good old days," of education will no longer cut it for our current students.

When I graduated in the 1970's I had many classmates who had no desire, or need, to attend a post-secondary school.  They went home to work on the farm, took over the family business or moved to a city where they could get a factory job.  Those classmates of mine who couldn't or wouldn't finish high school simply fell back on the new volunteer military to give them a job and a career.  Those days are over!!

At no time in our history has it been more vital for us as a country, state or community  to be committed to learning for all students.  Here are a few facts to back up that statement:

A high school diploma does not guarantee a middle class job.

• In 1970, only 28% of jobs required post-secondary education.
• By 2015, 67% of jobs will require post-secondary education.
• In 1970, 74% of the middle class was high school graduates and dropouts.
• In 2007, only 23% of the middle class was a high school graduate, and only 8% were dropouts.
• In the same period, the percent of middle class Americans with college degrees increased from 26% to 69% (Carnevale, Smith, & Strohl, 2010)

There are serious implications for those who fail.

• Students who fail are three times more likely to be unemployed (Breslow, 2012)
• These students are more likely to live in poverty (Breslow, 2012)
• Students who fail school will earn 33 cents for every dollar a college graduate earns and are four times more likely to be uninsured (Olshansky et.al, 2012)
• High School dropouts are 63 times more likely to be incarcerated (Breslow, 2012)

I know some of you are wondering why you need to worry about this as your kids, like mine, are grown and no longer in school.  But let me share one last fact with you, that will hopefully make you, as a taxpayer, very interested in making sure that all of our students are able to learn.

• On average, each high school dropout costs taxpayers $292,000 over his or her lifetime (Breslow, 2012) 

As I stated earlier, our commitment to learning for all has never been more important than it is now.  How we educate students is undergoing major changes in the state of Iowa and at Audubon Community school. The success of those changes will have an impact on the financial future of all of us.