High Hopes: Will the stimulus bill help curb high school dropout rates?

Listen to this story.

by Sean Corcoran

Last week, the federal government released some forty-four billion dollars in federal stimulus money for education, with another round of funding due later this year. Among people concerned about the state's dropout rates, there's optimism that the new dollars can be put toward the problem. But budget restraints already are hitting dropout prevention efforts, forcing cutbacks and perhaps even ending some programs.

When Beverly High School's regular school day ends around 2:45 each afternoon, large back-hoes and dump-trucks begin ramping up their clamorous work on the school's 81 million dollar addition and renovation project. And also around that time, about a dozen students -- students who've had trouble in school and have even contemplated dropping out -- they're starting their academic day.

18-year-old Tasha Belisle is a senior at Beverly High. She spends her mornings and early afternoons at her retail job at the nearby mall. Then, at 2:45 she comes to school, where she's part of a new program called STAY. "If it wasn't for this program I probably would have dropped out of school, and that was the last thing I wanted to do...I have a couple friends who dropped out and they got their GEDs and they are working. But some of them they just sit home and do absolutely nothing."

Belisle fell so far behind in her school work she didn't see any hope of graduating, and she considered dropping out. But last spring, school administrators launched the afternoon program, reacting to the school's dropout rate as it inched higher than the state average. And it's already helped reduce the number of dropouts from 58 in the 2006-2007 school year, to 25 last year.

Many schools in the Commonwealth have programs for students deemed "at-risk", but there are very few designed specifically to support potential dropouts. And among those that do exist state-wide, they most often rely on government grants, making them vulnerable to budget cuts. STAY is different. It's one of the only programs of its kind on the North Shore, and it's funded completely by the school district. And assistant principal Erin Brown says it eventually will accommodate even more students.

"Our first goal is to keep them in the general school day, doing what they need to do and helping support them to do that. It's when we are trying everything and it's breaking down and we're worried that we're going to lose kids and that they're going to fall through the cracks that everybody is looking at what else can we do to help kids."

About 100 miles south of Beverly, on Cape Cod and the Islands, educators and officials at the local Workforce Investment Board have spent the past three years developing programs and launching efforts to identify potential dropouts and keep them in school. And they, too, are beginning to see some progress.

For example, during the 2004/2005 school year, 371 students dropped out the region's schools. Last year, the number was down to 247 dropouts -- an improvement of about 130 less students. But with budgets becoming so tight, there's concern among those working on the issue that existing programs -- even the successful ones -- soon will be cut or reduced. David Augustino of the Cape's Workforce Investment Board, says state cuts already have affected early intervention programs.

"To my eye it looked like they were heading in a very positive direction, but they had to pull back and more in a differente direction because of the budget situation.Â?

Educators say they're uncertain if the dropout issue will grow worse because of the nation's budget crises, or, in fact, if it will get renewed attention through the federal government's stimulus packages. Bill Fisher, the superintendent of Cape Cod Tech in Harwich, says that school's dropout prevention program only exists because of government grants through the Workforce Investment Board. And if they go away, so will the program.

"We really, we wouldn't be able to do wha we are doing without it beause we really don't have the additioanl resource sot hire the extra staff and provide the additiona support for them ... The grant is a significant means to get this kind of success. And it does work, no doubt about it. "

Educators like Fisher are trying to be optimistic that later rounds of the federal government's stimulus package will include funding for dropout-prevention.

"I think there is definite potential of new resourves being put into the problem but the question is how is it going to play out and how quickly is it going to play out? That, I think, is going to be the key."

Massachusetts Secretary of Education Paul Reville, who's heading up a state-wide dropout commission, says he's not sure how much of the federal money will specifically go toward the dropout problem, but he does expect more money to find its way into prevention programs through Workforce Investment Boards.

"I think, in a general way, help is on the way through the stimulus program, but it is not likely to be a panacea. It is not likely to plug all the holes since we've come under such tremendous strain in the past year."

There also is the possibility that the state could require school districts to use future federal stimulus dollars for specific purposes, such as dropout prevention, Reville said.

"We're expecting more guidance on that in the next couple weeks."

Among the people most passionate about keeping dropout prevention programs in place -- and even expanding them -- are the students themselves. At 17 and 18, students are fully aware programs like theirs are not immune to politics and budget issues. And students such as 17-year-old Meghan Derosha of Barnstable, who's in the Diploma Plus Program at Cape Cod Community College, say none of these program would ever be cut or scaled back if people understood the impact they have on young people's lives. Because, she says, they work.

"There's so many kids here -- like it's radio you can't see how many kids here but -- There's so many kids that are affected by this. And you woudln't see us on the streets and be like, 'Oh, yeah, they're going somewhere,' because I know if I saw any of these people on the street, I'd be like, 'They're not going anywhere -- especially me.' But if you really got to know us like these teachers did, you know that we are doing something so good for the community, the country, everybody. Because this is important. This isn't just woe is me. This is a life changing miracle that's happened and people really need to get to understand it and get to know it. Because this is what's real. This is what America should be. This is it right here."

The Diploma Plus program Derosha attends has a ninety-eight percent graduation rate. But last Wednesday, program administrators announced they expect to lose all their state funding for the next fiscal year, forcing them to look to private sources of income to keep the program going.

Read or listen to the first story of this series. Read or listen to the second story of this series.