Dropping out of school is like raising a white flag

Published 9:00 pm Monday, June 13, 2005

This one’s for the high schoolers out there.

Specifically, those who are considering dropping out.

Two articles caught my eye last week.

Read separately, both were scary. Taken together, they just about shriveled my stomach.

The first was a front-page story in this newspaper. The headline was: “Schools fight dropout blues.”

Seems that, in Snohomish County, more than 2,000 students do not finish high school in a given year. For the entire state, the dropout rate is estimated to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 34 percent.

Some neighborhood.

Things got even scarier when I stumbled across a column by Thomas L. Friedman of The New York Times.

He pointed out that India has become the outsourcing capital of the world and “is taking work from Europe and America not simply because of low wages. It is also because Indians are ready to work harder and can do anything from answering your phone to designing your next airplane or car. They are not racing us to the bottom. They are racing us to the top.”

He went on to say that “a grassroots movement is now spreading, demanding that English be taught in state schools … beginning in first grade.”

Got that, guys and girls? Work’s leaving these shores and the people getting that work are now demanding that their kids learn a second language beginning in first grade. Care to wager whether the competition for jobs will ratchet up another notch in the near future?

Truly worrisome, though, is the fact that such articles aren’t being read, discussed, thought about, argued over, or even understood by those who are about to become “road kill” on the highway of change – the ones who drop out.

Truth is, we should tie them down and force-feed such articles to them. And, after that, we should subject them to a few tough, but necessary, lectures.

Specifically, we should bring in business owners to explain what it’s like competing against companies that send work to places where wages are a fraction of those here in the United States and why it’s absolutely necessary for American workers to have as much education as possible.

Bob Cannan, president and CEO of Eagle International, Inc., put it this way: “The competition isn’t around the corner, it’s here. Not only are foreign workers good, they’re also smart, well educated, ambitious, multilingual, and feel entitled to nothing but what they earn. Also, while we’ve been busy teaching our kids that keeping score makes people feel bad, their kids are learning a different lesson. They’re learning that it’s good to win and winning’s easy when the competition doesn’t mind losing.”

After the lectures, we’d bring in people to explain just how tough it is these days to find and hold jobs when they’re competing not only against good foreign labor (see above), but also against resourceful, industrious (and well-educated) locals.

We’d close by pointing out that, several years ago, the U.S. Department of Education published statistics on median annual income versus educational attainment. In general, the data showed that the more education one has, the more income one can expect.

Conversely, the cost of not having an education is depressing. The median annual income for all workers who’d finished high school was approximately $34,000 per year. That figure dropped to less than $20,000 per year for those who’d dropped out.

With all of the above, here’s a test for those of you still considering dropping out:

In today’s world, how far do you think $20,000 a year will go toward paying for a family’s food, clothes, shoes, rent, cars, insurance, electricity, water, garbage, medicine, etc.?

(Hint: Not very.)

So, here’s the deal: Dropping out of school isn’t a bad choice. It’s so far beyond “bad choice” that it’d take the light from “bad choice” a week to catch up after you did it. In fact, if you’re looking for an express trip to financial hell, dropping out pays for your ticket. First class. One way. Nonstop.

The sad thing is that we, as a society, aren’t making all of this glaringly obvious to you.

So, from a crotchety old writer whose words will probably never reach you, here’s a piece of advice.

Trying to compete for good jobs without an education is worse than showing up at a gunfight with a knife. It’s more like not knowing there’s going to be a gunfight and showing up empty-handed. In short, you lose. Big time.

Stay in school and learn. Then, learn more. Because you can bet the competition is suiting up to face you.

As for dropping out – what in hell are you thinking?

Larry Simoneaux lives in Edmonds. Comments can be sent to larrysim@att.net.