I only read the article, not the underlying study, but there is a depressing point and a mildly uplifting one to be made.

The uplifting one is that those are four-year graduation rates. If you factor in the kids who take five years to get through high school, it's marginally better.

The depressing one is that some states actually try to calculate graduation rates based on the number of 11th or 12th graders who graduate, rather than the number of ninth graders. Talk about pitiful. Of course you can look like you're doing well, if you're only counting the kids who already made it through 15+ years of school! Of course they're more likely to graduate! Argh.

The really, really depressing thing is to complete some online job applications for entry-level jobs and see how many times they ask tricky questions about your educational background to try to catch you if you are lying about a GED versus a diploma, or never having graduated at all. They don't even need a human to weed you out from consideration for a job at that point.

My HS lost nearly half of each class between 9th grade and graduation. Which explains why I was valedictorian -- pure staying power, baby!

Most dropping out occurs between 9th and 10th grade, I believe.

See the credentialism inherent in the system! I have only received two diplomas: one from elementary school and one from some bullshit boy scouts thing, yet I do just fine. I suspect that if they'd offer GEDs in 6th grade the state would save itself a lot of time and money.

Now perhaps you people begin to see why I think blowing off your h.s. graduation is kinda snooty.

Okay, I'm going to plead ignorance due to a sheltered upbringing on this one, too. So tell me: When a kid drops out of high school after 9th grade, probably age 15 or so, what does he or she do all day? Are half of the schoolkids in these troubled states in gangs? Working full-time despite being underage? Just hanging out at home? What? That just seems like an awful lot of kids to be out on the streets.

I had lots of friends who dropped out of h.s. They mostly all just sat around all day (generally stoned) and hung out with some combination of each other and their friends from school (many of whom were often near failing-out themselves, if that helps identify the crowd in question). Most sold drugs (small-scale) and did various odd jobs for a living.

Half a state does seem very high, though.

Half a state does seem very high, though.

Literally.

Get it? Because they're hanging around stoned all day! Eh? Eh? Thank you, I'll be here all week. Try the veal.

When a kid drops out of high school after 9th grade, probably age 15 or so, what does he or she do all day?

In my (limited) experience, in addition to work (legit and under-the-table), a big one is caregiving. Either for younger siblings, or for disabled parents/relatives.

One of the strange consequences of better trauma care and better neonatal care is that a lot of premature babies and shooting victims survive when a generation ago they would not have. But they need care, and an SSDI check doesn't cover the amount of around-the-clock attention necessary. So family members take up the responsibility.

There are runaways and "pushouts" too. The Seattle/Portland contingent can probably speak to that better than I can. Kids do get thrown out of the house for being gay, or choose to leave because of various kinds of abuse.

As an andecdatum, I went to work. VB work, but work all the same.