Addressing The Dropout Crisis With WMHT’s American Graduate

Graduating high school is essential to all young Americans to begin their pathway to a career, but sadly we lose one out of four young people to the dropout crisis each year. The dropout rate is more than just a statistic; it makes success harder to achieve for our youth and impacts the success of the economy. This crisis has cost the nation billions of dollars in productivity and our communities have suffered major social costs.

With the help of teachers, school leaders, parents, and communities, for the first time in U.S history the high school graduation rate has exceeded 80 percent. With this positive graduation rate trend, it is important to continue to implement strategies against and raise awareness of the dropout crisis in order to potentially reach the President’s goal of 90 percent graduation rate by 2020.

With hopes of continuing the increasing rate of high school and college completion, SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher is a staunch supporter of the Cradle to Career framework, a movement that involves the collaboration of communities, philanthropists, parents, and other stakeholders to help reform the way we educate young people. It has been supported by many communities throughout New York State and continues to gain new partnerships. The mission of the New York State Cradle to Career Alliance is to provide students with the guidance and educational tools from kindergarten throughout college in effort to raise graduation rates and help cultivate young professionals to having successful careers.

Recently, Chancellor Zimpher sat down as the subject in the WMHT American Graduate Stories Of Champions campaign to discuss her efforts to advocate college readiness with the Cradle to Career movement. The American Graduate series recognizes actions taken toward raising awareness regarding the dropout rate crisis taking place in different communities.

View the video below and explore more info on American Graduate at wmht.org.