GOVERNOR CALLS for EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTIONARIES (EDULUTIONARIES)

Summit deals with 20,000 dropouts a year in Michigan

Goal: Ways to keep students in school

LORI HIGGINS • FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER • October 21, 2008

LANSING -- As economist Andrew Sum pointed out the wide gap between lifetime earnings for high school dropouts and those who've received a diploma or college degree, he told the audience the numbers should be sobering.

"When you look at these results, you ought to tremble," said Sum, professor of economics and director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston.

But any of the statistics Sum displayed on an overhead projector during a half-hour talk at Monday's Michigan Dropout Prevention Summit in Lansing could have caused a similar reaction. Dropouts, he said, are more likely to live in poverty, earn substantially lower pay and be incarcerated.

And Michigan, he said, is harder hit by the nation's dropout crisis because of the deindustrialization of the state and the disappearance of the kinds of jobs that years ago allowed dropouts to still make good money.

"Michigan used to have among the most well-paid dropouts," Sum said.

The all-day summit was organized by a cadre of organizations to tackle the state's dropout crisis, in which more than 20,000 high school students abandon their education each year.

The summit is a culmination of about six months of work, including 11 hearings held across the state in which parents, educators, students and others discussed the crisis. The summit goal: come up with solutions that work for keeping kids in school.

Early in the day, Gov. Jennifer Granholm urged participants to become "educational revolutionaries."

"For those kids that drop out, that's a 100% failure. There is no question ... we have to be committed to changing the status quo."

She encouraged participants to be willing to "rewrite the rules for those kids," which the current system is not working for.

But Granholm said she doesn't want to see the state's tough new graduation requirements -- which some say could lead to more dropouts -- softened in response.

Participants heard from a panel of students, most of whom had dropped out of school at one point. Among them was Robert Olivarez, 16, of Lansing, who described growing up with a mother who was in and out of jail. He experimented with drugs and alcohol, dropped out of school and found himself going down the wrong path until he talked to a cousin who had enrolled in the Michigan Youth Challenge Academy, a military-type school in Battle Creek that helps kids get caught up while focusing on infusing discipline and structure in their lives.

Before he entered the program, he had a 0.2 grade point average. Now, his GPA is up to 3.7.

"They helped me get my education," Robert said.

The students were asked, in one word, what youth like them need.

Responses ranged from "respect" to "love" to being noticed.

"Support is key," Robert said.

Contact LORI HIGGINS at 248-351-3694 or lhiggins@freepress.com.