Posted on 04/01/2009 11:41:36 AM PDT by bs9021
Dropout Grants Subsidize Dropouts
by: Daniel Allen, April 01, 2009
The policies of Beverly Perdue, the Democratic governor of North Carolina, were brought into question recently by a report showing that North Carolina’s high school dropout rate is getting worse, despite millions of dollars set aside in the state budget. The dropout grant programs have many supporters, but new research carried out by the John Locke Foundation suggests that evidence does not offer a bright forecast for the program’s future.
The author of the report, Terry Stoops, found that “only 14 [out] of 100 North Carolina schools served by state-dropout-prevention-grant recipients saw substantial improvement in [their] dropout and graduation rates from 2006-07 to 2007-08.” Of the 100 schools that received funding from the dropout grant program, only 45 were able to improve their overall dropout rate. Of these 45, only 14 recorded higher graduation rates.
Governor Purdue has set aside $6.7 million to for more dropout grant programs. Stoops questions the wisdom of this move considering the inability of program supporters to prove its effectiveness. He said, “They cannot establish a causal connection between the grant program and changes in the dropout rate. A number of grant-recipient schools had lower dropout rates, but there is no evidence the grants themselves were the primary cause for the decline.”
Along the same lines, from 2006-07 to 2007-08, the average dropout rate declined from 7.2 to 6.7 percent, but the average graduation rates in those same schools declined from 73.1 percent to 71.5 percent. The millions of dollars being spent on this program simply cannot be proven cost-effective....
(Excerpt) Read more at campusreportonline.net ...
Liberal females are the worst, whatever.
The constant incentive of any government bureaucracy is to grow the problem.
How’s that LBJ War on Poverty going? How are ‘free’( 10-20,000 dollar per per student) doing? How are school lunchs doing for the fattest generation ever?
Anyone notice a patter here?
More? See James H. Buchanan, Nobel economics, Public Choice Theory.
Like Judge Smails says ... “The World needs ditch diggers too.”
The schools need more male teachers and administrators, curriculum authors, for starters. ... ...
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