Keynote Address for America’s Promise Alliance and White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives Policy Briefing, “The Dropout Epidemic in the U.S. and Cross-Sector Solutions.”
April 30, 2008
I am grateful for the opportunity to be here with you. I am grateful also that all of you are here… because your presence affirms the importance of the issue we’re here to discuss today.
You know, if 7,000 children went missing today in this country, there’s no doubt about what our response would be. Our communities would mobilize all the resources at their disposal to get them back. The story would dominate the media. There would be urgent investigations and new policies to prevent it from happening again.
Yet in a very real way, we ARE losing 7,000 children — not just today but every day that school is in session. They are dropping out, and most will not come back. In the next five minute, 10 more will be lost.
And “lost” is not too strong a word. What is being lost are the hopes and possibilities of over a million young people every year — and in the process, some of our possibilities as a nation.
We know what happens when children fail to earn a high school diploma. They become twice as likely to be unemployed… and eight times as likely to wind up in prison.
We also know that ALL of us have a stake in their success.
Those of you in the business community know it better than anyone. You know what it takes to compete in a global economy. You are seeing how hard it is to find the talent you need when 30% of our students are failing to finish even a high school education — and roughly another third who DO graduate are short on skills needed for the 21st-century workforce.
When our young people are at risk, we truly are a NATION at risk. Our competitiveness is at risk. Consumer buying power is at risk. Our prosperity is at risk. Our place in the world is at risk. The American Dream is at risk.
That is why the America’s Promise Alliance has undertaken a national campaign over the next five years. Our top priority is to improve high school graduation rates — and to see that our graduates are ready for college, work and life.
The good news is that we know how to get there. We aim to turn the odds in favor of 15 million of our most disadvantaged children by seeing to it that they are surrounded with more of the difference-making resources we call the Five Promises:
- caring adults
- safe places
- a healthy start and healthy development
- an effective education that builds marketable skills
- opportunities to help others
Regardless of their race or their family income, when children have a critical mass of these Promises, their chances of success go way up. The need for all of these Promises shows why school reform alone is not enough. So we are mobilizing partners from every sector, at every level, in specific ways, to turn the tide in this dropout crisis. It will take all of us.
The business community has been among the leaders in recognizing what’s at stake. You might have read that AT&T is investing $100 million over the next four years aimed at improving educational opportunities for our youth and reducing dropouts. State Farm has made a big investment to help us sponsor dropout summits in all 50 states and 50 key cities, where we will help leaders from all sectors take concrete action. And there are many other partners — such as the Boeing Company, the Ford Motor Company, ING, the US Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable — who recognize the need for urgent action and have joined us. I hope that all of you will join our Alliance in this effort.
It is clear that we face an economic imperative to reverse the dropout crisis. But there is a reason we are here discussing this issue at a roundtable sponsored by the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives because the call placed upon us as Americans is also a moral one.
Forty years ago last month, on the last Sunday of his life, Dr. Martin Luther King preached here in Washington at the National Cathedral. His sermon was titled “Remaining Awake through a Great Revolution.”
In retelling the story of Rip Van Winkle, he focused on one particular detail. The last sign Rip Van Winkle passed before he fell asleep bore the image of King George III. Twenty years later, he was startled to see that same sign now bore the image of George Washington. He had slept through the revolution.
In 1968, said Dr. King, a revolution was going on. Would we be awake to its possibilities? “There is nothing new about poverty,” he said. “But now we have the technology and resources to eradicate it. The question is, do we have the will?”
Four decades later, we have witnessed an amazing technology revolution and a global business revolution. But there is still nothing new about what puts children at a disadvantage.
Twenty-five years after the publication of “A Nation at Risk,” there is nothing much new about the school dropout crisis.
Forty years after Dr. King spoke, it is haunting to realize that we have not summoned enough will to bring all of our children out of the wilderness.
But I have hope today because I believe we have again come to one of those moments when momentous change is possible. There is a great awakening going on in this country today.
More Americans are waking up to the understanding that we not only are economically tied to the well-being of our young people but morally bound to each other. With your leadership and your help, we will turn this tide.