lesson: Life without a high-school diploma, in the words of philosopher Thomas Hobbes,
is "nasty, brutish and short."
Dropouts who don't wind up in jail make about $9,200 less per year than their graduating classmates, and this discrepancy will last their entire lives.
Dropouts who were able to find employment formed the bulk of the 18.4 percent of adults who worked for poverty-level wages last year. A 2005 report from the Center for Law and Social Policy makes it clear that "unless the education and labor- market status of these young persons improve, they will spend their adult years on the fringes of the labor market, marginalized in their ability to provide for their economic well-being or that of their families."
In addition, the decision to leave school early often is passed down, creating succeeding generations of dropouts.
If entering ninth graders knew all this, would they still terminate their educations?
Sadly, our ninth graders' view of work is far too often shaped by popular culture, which rarely if ever shows the true nature of work. The lifestyles of the rich and famous dominate the airwaves, while the lifestyles of the poor and undereducated are rarely shown. Conspicuous consumption may have entertainment value, but there is a high price to pay for our ignorance: Students develop little awareness of the human-capital impact of their decisions.
To combat this, we need to make the back-to school merriment and yesterday's celebration of Labor Day as intertwined in real life as they are connected on the calendar.
First, we need to build core competencies in labor literacy. For most people, our personal labor is the key to our prosperity.
ANYTHING that harms our labor status stunts our potential financial growth. Many schools already have work-preparation and career-exploration programs, but they need to be expanded so students can better understand their future roles as wage earners.
