Discuss the concept of school failure and its effects on delinquency. What are the recent trends in school failure? What are the characteristics of students who drop out of high school? What factors are thought to explain the dropout rate? How is dropping out related to delinquency? How is dropping out related to future financial losses?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answers should address the connection between dropping out and delinquency. From 1967 to 2014,
the high school dropout rate fell from 14% to 7%. The dropout rate disproportionately impacts minority
and foreign-born students, those who identify as LGBT (up to 1/3 of this group drops out of school) and
males (5% White males, 7% for Black males and 11% for Hispanic males). The dropout rate is explained
by many different reasons, such as high rates of truancy, low parental education, low grades, academic
performance, grade level retention, school disengagement, moving to a new school in the ninth grade,
extra-curricular responsibilities, and delinquent behaviors. School exclusionary policies increase the
chances of school failure and makes juvenile court involvement more likely. Being suspended as a
freshman doubles the risk of dropout. Being placed in a juvenile correctional facility can make completing
school difficult. Recent studies like the Civil Rights Project in Los Angeles followed a cohort of 10 th
graders and found that suspensions were related to 67,000 instances of dropping out. Furthermore, it was
determined that for each student dropout, $163,000 was lost in lifetime tax revenue and $364,000 was
spent on additional social, medical, or criminal justice costs. The total cost of the 67,000 dropouts was
$35 billion. Dropping out limits educational and vocational opportunities and increases the risk of living in
poverty and receiving public assistance in young adulthood. When a student drops out, his/her risk of
lifetime incarceration increases more than threefold.