Opinion: For America’s children, education outlook grows only dimmer
- 01/23/12 05:00 AM ET
Thirty percent of America’s high school students drop out and never graduate. Fewer than half of the nation’s black and Hispanic students graduate on time from high school.
The scandalous bottom line here is that more than 1 million students drop out of American public schools every year. That works out to more than 6,000 students every day and one student every 26 seconds.
Education in America, particularly big-city education, is in crisis. Historians are already describing the decline of public education as a threat to the nation’s economy and military. And when the tragic scale of harm to racial minorities is considered, the education crisis is aptly labeled as the greatest civil rights
