THE PRICE OF FAILURE

    The state of Oregon has been forced by the federal government to adopt a new formula for calculating the high school drop out rate.  Under the previous benchmark the graduation rate was 84% for the class that entered high school in 2004 and graduated in 2008.  Under the new formula that rate has dropped to 64%.  Losing over 15,269 high school students along the way is not merely a lot of kids, it’s also a barometer of the failure of Oregon’s education leadership from local school boards and superintendants to the state department of education under Susan Castillo.  
    Oregon has been playing with school reform for 3 decades but nothing has really changed the results.  We are losing too many kids in the system which means that these dropouts become a kind of dead weight on our social service and criminal justice systems at a time when the budget is stretched to the max to help at risk families and children who need jobs, shelter and food.  If we cut the drop out rate, then these students would become employable and hence tax paying citizens.  They would also be ready to move on to higher education and eventually better paying jobs. But with these staggering drop out rates that won’t happen.  
    Let me put this another way.  The Oregon legislature just finished the current session.  While doing so it cut the higher education budget by 10%.  It also passed two tax bills to increase the minimum corporate income tax and to increase taxes on upper income Oregonians.  These two sources needed to balance the budget are projected to bring in $733 million dollars over the next biennium (2009-2011).  However a coalition of business interests and anti-tax advocates are launching a signature gathering campaign to put these two measures on the ballot in January 2010.  If these taxes are rolled back by a vote of the people the legislature which meets again in February will face draconian across the board cuts.  
    So who should care?  You should because without investing in our kids and Oregon families the drop out rates will continue to climb and with it increased demands on our social service system and criminal justice systems.  But at some point the money will run out.  At that point we will have more to worry about than the drop out rate, we will see as we have before in previous bad times jail birds getting out of county jails and state prisons early along and larger class sizes in schools where more children will be lost in the cracks hence becoming more vulnerable to failing in school and dropping out.  And when kids drop out of school what do they drop into?  You know the answer – the ranks of the unemployed, dysfunctional families and criminal behavior.  
    The old oil can commercial comes to mind – “you can pay me now or pay me latter.” It’s always more expensive to pay latter.  Anyone who has forgotten to put oil in the crankcase has paid dearly with a cracked engine block (yours truly included).  So while none of us loves to pay taxes, they are the price we pay to keep things moving in the right direction including helping kids succeed in school.  Now how the latter in done is clearly a mystery to the educational establishment.  But the answer is rather straight forward and obvious.  Make classes smaller, empower teachers to teach not give tests and create stable families which value learning.  It all starts with reading to your toddlers!  By the way, that’s how you save in taxes – you invest in kids now as opposed to building more jails.  Besides, jail space is very expensive while by comparison college tuition is a bargain!