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Students Speak Out

Did You Know?

A “dropout factory” is a high school where no more than 60 percent of the students who start as freshmen make it to their senior year. That description fits more than one in 10 high schools across America, most of which are located in larger cities or high-poverty rural areas and serve predominantly African American and Latino students. (The term was coined by Johns Hopkins researcher Bob Balfanz).2

Resources

Adolescent Use of School-Based Health Centers and High School Dropout
Reframing School Dropout as a Public Health Issue
From Risk to Resilience: Promoting School–Health Partnerships for Children *

Preventing School Dropout

The Dropout Crisis: A Public Health Problem and the Role of School-Based Health Care

School-based health centers (SBHCs) provide a promising solution to the nation-wide problem of high school dropout, helping students tackle the many social obstacles (drug use, teen pregnancy, school violence, hunger, poverty) that can not only impede their health and well-being, but also their chances for completing high school. SBHCs have the capacity to impact the obstacles that derail students from educational success through programs and policies that can benefit every student in the school.

In communities where social inequities are pronounced, the potential of a SBHC to reduce health and educational disparities becomes even more powerful, given that school dropout is the number one predictor of future health, well-being and economic stability. With dropout rates at 18% of Hispanic students and 10% of African American students, compared to only 8% of high school students overall, SBHC access can be the difference between a difficult life and a successful one, beginning with high school graduation1.

Many, if not most of the obstacles to school completion (drug use, teen pregnancy, violence, hunger, poverty) are the same social obstacles to health and well-being. In the United States, these determinants provide evidence that racial/ethnic health disparities continue to exist. School dropout is minimally, an education issue and a public health issue. As such, educators and the public health community are inextricably linked; not just in the problem, but in its diminution.

 

 

 

 

  1. Chapman C, Laird J, KewalRamani A. Trends in high school dropout and completion rates in the United States: 1972–2008. National Center for Education Statistics. 2010;8.
  2. Associated Press. 1 in 10 U.S. High Schools is a Drop Out Factory. MSNBC. October 29, 2007. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21531704/ns/us_news-education/from/toolbar.
* From Risk to Resilience: Promoting School–Health Partnerships for Children, by Jeanita W. Richardson, published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, appears by permission of the publisher