By Andie Corso
Stand Up
Two minutes may pass from the moment you read this blog, start to finish. In those two minutes, three California students will decide to drop out of school.
Not graduate. Not skip ahead to university studies. No, those students are quitting. They are walking away from one of the components of our society designed wholly for their benefit.
They are striking out on their own. And the vast majority of them are not ready.
If we can't keep our children in school, what can we do?
The crisis of students dropping out is the focus of the California Mayors' Roundtable Graduation Summit Thursday (April 29) in Sacramento.
Mayors from across the state -- Chula Vista to Berkeley -- will be welcomed by Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson for this major event.
For Mayor Johnson, the crisis hits home. Mayor Johnson began devoting time and energy to after-school programs while playing professional basketball more than two decades ago.
He knew the path taken by children who drop out is long and predictable -- with many opportunities for intervention.
"As mayors, we know that you can not have a great city without great schools," Mayor Johnson says. "When a student drops out of high school, we all know that doors close on that individual."
Mayor Johnson, who founded the nationally recognized St. HOPE charter school organization in Sacramento, considers education reform his passion.
And his passion has aligned with many other leaders in California, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has been invited to join the Graduation Summit.
Mayor Johnson recently was appointed co-chair of two national education panels, advising U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and exploring reform measures for the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
Participants in the Sacramento Graduation Summit will confront bleak statistics. In Sacramento alone, about 7,100 students drop out annually. Their decision to leave school translates into fewer job opportunities and lower earnings.
State officials estimate lifetime wages lost to California dropouts is $45 billion for each graduating class.
The Graduation Summit will allow participants to explore methods of lowering dropout rates in California -- and stemming the financial havoc created each time a student quits school.
Speakers invited to the Graduation Summit include San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome, California State Senate Pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg, State Secretary of Education Bonnie Reiss and former West Virginia Gov. Bob Wise.
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