The Alliance for Excellent Education, a Washington-based advocacy group, offers some interesting calculations on how much struggling high schools --- and students who can't graduate --- are costing Maryland. Read this statement that the organization issued today:

MANY MARYLAND STUDENTS START NINTH GRADE

BUT WON’T FINISH TWELFTH,

ACCORDING TO ALLIANCE FOR EXCELLENT EDUCATION

Federal Government Can Help by Expanding No Child Left Behind

to Include Resources and Support for High Schools

    Washington, D.C. – This is a watershed year for American education, with Congress currently working on a renewal of the No Child Left Behind Act.  In 2004, the last year for which data is available, only 75 percent of Maryland’s students graduated from high school on time.  And about 31 percent of the students in Maryland who started ninth grade earlier this month read so far below grade level that they are at serious risk of not graduating in four years. 

    “The poor graduation rate is a wake-up call that we can and must do more to help our high school students,” said Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia. “All of us pay the price – not just the dropout, who is looking at a severely limited future, but also the rest of us, who need these new members of the workforce prepared to support the nation in a twenty-first century world that is becoming more and more competitive."

The Alliance for Excellent Education, to help illustrate the potential economic benefits of an improved high school system that better prepares all high school students to graduate prepared for college and work, calculates that: 

Maryland would save more than $307 million in health care costs for each class of dropouts, over their lifetimes, had these dropouts stayed in school and earned their diplomas.

Maryland households would have over $1.1 billion more in accumulated wealth if all heads of households had graduated from high school.

If Maryland’s high schools graduated all students ready for college, the state would save almost $80 million a year in community college remediation costs and lost earnings.

Maryland’s economy would see a combination of savings and revenue of more than $211 million in reduced crime spending and increased earnings each year if the male high school graduation rate increased by just 5 percent.

Wise said, “While well-intentioned, the current NCLB simply does not address the dropout problem and permits far too many students to leave high school without an adequate education.  Congress has the opportunity, right at this moment, to ensure that the law extends to all students.  Now is the time to build on the ideals of ‘No Child Left Behind’ and pass legislation that leads the nation toward ‘every child a graduate.’"