I own a restaurant and employ several high school kids and a few drops outs as well. I think the issue is more a lack of a challenge than anything else. The kids who are still in school that I employ are extremely bored with school - they are intelligent and hard working but get bored to tears with the slow pace of education. Granted we don’t live in a big city, but in PA the curriculum is basically set by the State which includes Pittsburgh and Philadelphia as is the pace and expected outcomes of each grade year.
The drop outs I employ quit school because they were bored with it! They learn quickly, speak and write intelligently and are my best employees.
I imagine we could lay blame on parents as well but come on - how does one inspire a kid who is slightly above average, but below the typical high achiever that everyone pays attention to? These kids get stuck in a class teaching to the lowest common denominator which is the child (or two) in their class who are special needs and can’t grasp concepts (who will by the way probably graduate and be unemployable in most cases due to their inability to learn). When I was in school it was a challenge - there were no “slow learners” who were mainstreamed in my classes - we all had to work hard.
This isn’t intended to throw insults at the special needs and/or slow learners but by mainstreaming them we in effect cause this dropout problem.
I am sure there are lots of unionized educators who will want to argue my points, but those of us on the outside have to live with their results.
I posted this as a knock against Democrat controlled big cities, Not as a knock against kids that know that graduation is not going to help them get ahead in this world.