Cathie Black has her hands full in her new position as Chancellor of New York City Schools. Education is a challenging subject for anyone involved and people across the city and state are offering a deluge of ideas on education reform and listing hundreds of daunting problems in our public school system. Perhaps the most pressing issue that continues to haunt NYC schools and districts across the United States is the formidable high school dropout rate.
Despite increasing acceptance that a high school diploma is a bare minimum necessity for success, graduation rates are still wholly unacceptable. Currently, nearly 40 percent of New York City students who enter ninth grade will not graduate with their peers four years later, and nationally up to 40 percent of ninth grade students in cities with the highest dropout rates repeat ninth grade — sadly, only 10 to 15 percent of those repeaters ever graduate...