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Public Affairs coverage from our award-winning staff |
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New School Plan Tackles Drop Out Problem
Produced by Julia McEvoy on Monday, February 25, 2008
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Nearly half of Chicago Public School students drop out before graduating high school. Today CPS announces an ambitious plan to keep students from quitting. The plan cobbles together existing programs with some new ideas.
Roughly 12,000 Chicago Public School students drop out each year. Carmita Vaughan the district's head of Drop Out Prevention and Recovery says the newly coordinated attack on the drop out problem will literally save lives.
VAUGHAN: Because we know that if students don’t graduate with at least a high school diploma, in a lot of ways, they’re doomed to social failure.
A million and a half dollars will go toward creating so-called freshman on track labs. They’ll be in six high schools with high at-risk populations.
More money—a $4.8 million government grant—will launch intervention efforts in another five schools with high violence rates.
Vaughan says the new approach will also have to reach kids earlier: students who drop out often starting thinking about doing it while in elementary school.
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