Locked out of high school in Memphis, Hispanic boys are working construction jobs and taking pride in helping support their families, reports Chalkbeat’s Ian Round.
Photo: Ivan Samkov/Pexels
Will they return to finish high school diplomas or follow up on plans to attend community college? Probably not, says José Ayala, a college student and a counselor for Streets Ministries.
Ayala told Round that students need to learn about technical colleges and vocational certifications early in high school, before they drop out.
Mila Koumpilova, also a Chalkbeat reporter, looks at how school closures have widened education gaps for Black and Latino boys in Chicago. The pandemic has “has severed precarious ties to school, derailed college plans and pried gaping academic disparities even wider.”
I recommend reading the whole story, which focuses on three high school students whose futures were put at risk.
I fear dropout rates will go way up, unless high schools, community colleges and employers can offer job-centric pathways to disconnected, disaffected young people.
College enrollment is down and dropouts are up, reports Richard Whitmire, who worries about Covid’s “missing generation.”
“These students needed to get jobs — even low-skill, low-paying jobs — to support their families,” he writes. “In theory, these students could return to college now that the pandemic has eased, but there’s little evidence in enrollment trends to suggest this is happening.”
Community colleges, which enroll many lower-income and minority students, “have seen the most dramatic enrollment and persistence drops,” Whitmire writes.