PA Dropout Summit

State, Community Leaders Unite to Tackle Pennsylvania's High School Dropout Problem

Secretaries of Education, Labor & Industry Discuss Multi-faceted Approaches

HARRISBURG, Pa., Nov. 13 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- New strategies to keep students engaged in school and on track to earning a high school diploma were discussed today at a summit, hosted by the Rendell administration and community partners.

"It is our obligation as educators to ensure that all students finish high school with a diploma in hand," Education Secretary Gerald L. Zahorchak said. "A meaningful diploma is truly a ticket to success that helps our students become productive citizens."

Local elected officials, business leaders and prominent child advocacy organizations gathered at the Pennsylvania's Dropout Prevention and Re-Engagement Summit to develop an action plan for increasing the state's high school graduation rate in order to ensure that Pennsylvania's young people are better prepared for college, work and life.

A report, commissioned by America's Promise Alliance, the nation's largest alliance of organizations working on behalf of children and youth, found that only about half of all students served by the school systems in the nation's 50 largest cities graduate from high school. In Pennsylvania, approximately one-in-five (21 percent) 9th grade students do not graduate four years later. Nationwide, nearly one out of every three public high school students drops out before graduation. That's 1.2 million students each year, or nearly 7,000 each school day.

Pennsylvania's comprehensive approach to curbing dropouts has three main components: prevention, intervention and re-engagement.

Prevention efforts are aimed at helping at-risk children get off to a solid start through programs such as Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts, state funding for Head Start and block grant funding for full-day kindergarten. The Department of Education also works closely with the Department of Public Welfare to administer early intervention programs to aid children with particular educational or developmental needs.

Intervention and re-engagement programs include tutoring, alternative education programs and a host of efforts to make high school more challenging and engaging for students.

These efforts include:

-- Classrooms for the Future, a three-year investment to provide laptop
computers, high-speed Internet access and state-of-the-art software to
high school classrooms across the state.
-- A Dual Enrollment program that allows high school students to take
college-level, credit-bearing courses at local community and four-year
colleges and universities while earning credit towards high school
graduation.
-- Project 720, named for the number of days a Pennsylvania student spends
in school from 9th through 12th grades. Project 720 ensures high school
students have access to rigorous academic coursework in core subjects,
provides additional Advanced Placement courses and offers smaller
learning environments for better student-teacher interaction.
-- A Resiliency/Wellness Approach, which is based upon six key
environmental protective factors or positive human development domains.
If these domains are strongly and well implemented in schools, they will
promote positive social and emotional development, and will support
student academic achievement.

All of these efforts are aimed at creating a more rigorous and relevant high school environment that keeps students engaged.

The summit is part of America's Promise Dropout Prevention Campaign, a national effort to reduce high school dropout rates and prepare children for college, work and life. The campaign includes a series of Dropout Prevention Summits that will be held in every state and 50 communities over the next two years.

The lead sponsor for the national campaign is the State Farm Insurance Company. State Farm is joined by AT&T, The Boeing Company, Casey Family Programs, Ford Motor Company Fund, ING Foundation, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and The J. Willard and Alice S. Marriott Foundation. For more information or to learn how to get involved, visit www.americaspromise.org.

Pennsylvania's summit is co-sponsored by the departments of Education, Labor & Industry, Health, and Public Welfare; the Governor's Commission for Children and Families; the Institute for Global Education & Service Learning; PennSERVE; Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children; Pennsylvania Statewide/Afterschool Youth Development Network; the Pennsylvania Workforce Investment Board; the Philadelphia Youth Network; Summit Health and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

For more information on Pennsylvania's summit, visit

www.center-school.org/americas_promise.php.