Obama announces get-tough strategy for struggling schools - washingtonpost.com

Obama announces get-tough strategy for struggling schools - washingtonpost.com:

"President Obama outlined Monday a get-tough strategy for turning around persistently struggling schools, offering an unprecedented increase in federal funding for local school systems that shake up their lowest-achieving campuses."



Speaking before a meeting of America's Promise Alliance, an education group founded by former secretary of state Colin L. Powell and his wife, Alma, Obama called curbing the nation's dropout problem a pressing economic and social imperative.
"This is a problem we cannot afford to accept and we cannot afford to ignore," Obama said at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce headquarters. "The stakes are too high -- for our children, for our economy and for our country."
According to a White House fact sheet, "Every school day, about 7,000 students decide to drop out of school -- a total of 1.2 million students each year -- and only about 70 percent of entering high school freshman graduate every year." As a result of this "dropout crisis," it said, the nation loses $319 billion a year in potential earnings.

The problem is concentrated in the nation's poorest schools and among minority students. Just 2,000 of America' schools -- about 12 percent of the nation's total -- account for half of the nation's dropouts, and more than 50 percent of them are African American or Latino. Boys are also much more likely than girls to be unsuccessful in school.
Obama has sought to combat the dropout problem with an infusion of federal aide for school districts that come up with innovative plans to help students graduate. The president's budget for the fiscal year that begins in October proposes $900 million for school turnaround grants, up from $546 million in fiscal 2010. The economic stimulus