Socio-Economic Status and Dropout Rates

The following are some highlights from an article by Russell W. Rumberger, PhD, concerning the impact of family and community poverty on high school dropouts. Rumberger cites the following facts: 1. 1.1 million members of the 2012 high school graduating class not earning diplomas (Education Week, 2012). 2. Dropouts face extremely bleak economic and social prospects. 3. Dropouts are less likely find a job and earn a living wage. 4. Dropouts are more likely to be poor and to suffer from a variety of adverse health outcomes (Rumberger, 2011). 5. Dropouts are more likely to rely on public assistance, engage in crime and generate other social costs borne by taxpayers (Belfield & Levin, 2007). Poverty and dropouts are inextricably connected in the three primary settings affecting healthy child and adolescent development: families, schools and communities: 1. Poor students were five times more likely to drop out of high school than high-income students (Chapman, Laird, Ifill, & KewalRamani, 2011, Table 1). 2. Child poverty is rampant in the U.S., with more than 20 percent of school-age children living in poor families (Snyder & Dillow, 2012, Table 27). 3. Poverty rates for Black and Hispanic families are three times the rates for White families. While family poverty is clearly related to dropping out, poverty associated with schools and communities also contributes to the dropout crisis. It is well documented that schools in the United States are highly segregated by income, social class and race/ethnicity. Community poverty also matters. Some neighborhoods, particularly those with high concentrations of African-Americans, are communities of concentrated disadvantage with extremely high levels of joblessness, family instability, poor health, substance abuse, poverty, welfare dependency and crime (Sampson, Morenoff, & Gannon-Rowley, 2002). Disadvantaged communities influence child and adolescent development through the lack of resources (playgrounds and parks, after-school programs) or negative peer influences (Leventhal & Brooks-Gunn, 2000). For instance, students living in poor communities are more likely to have dropouts as friends, which increases the likelihood of dropping out of school. Two strategies can be used to combat school dropout due to poverty. 1) Improve the academic achievement, attitudes and behaviors of poor and other students at risk for dropping out through targeted intervention programs. 2) Improve the settings themselves, by reducing the poverty level of families, schools and communities and the adverse conditions within them. This would require considerable, political will, and public support to reduce the huge disparities in family income, access to health care, school funding and student composition, and community resources. Russell Rumberger is professor of education in the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education at UC Santa Barbara and former vice provost for Education Partnerships, University of California Office of the President.