News 14 Carolina - Political Connections

Dropout rate gets worse....

So much attention has been centered around North Carolina's dropout rate. It's at the tip of the tongue of every politician who is either running for office or is speaking to an education group.

The legislature has two separate committees looking at the issue.

Today, the state board of education got an update from last year. It's even worse, in fact, it's the worst it's been in seven years. 5.24% is the number or 23,550 students compared to 5.04% last year.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg jumped to 6.4% as did Forsyth County. Wake is up over 4% while Durham dropped to under 5%.

Coincidentally, a joint legislative committee taking up the dropout issue met up today as well. They were hearing suggestions from outside advocates.

NCAE guru Eddie Davis had some interesting suggestions from his group (teachers mainly). One was starting school at 3pm in some alternative schools to keep students with kids, who are married, who have health problems, who need to work to help put food on the table, etc.

It's clear thinking outside the box in this day and age will be required. The question is how long can the state afford to study these issues without finding solutions that work in the short term versus the long term.