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OpinionMay 22, 1991

A group of concerned school representatives are working to assist at-risk students in the Cape Girardeau Public Schools. Their goal is identify these children at an earlier age and hopefully prevent future school failures. Their point is well taken. ...

A group of concerned school representatives are working to assist at-risk students in the Cape Girardeau Public Schools. Their goal is identify these children at an earlier age and hopefully prevent future school failures.

Their point is well taken. It's nearly impossible to transform a 16-year-old truant who hates school into a potential graduate. But if this same student could be identified in the third grade, then it may be possible to alter fate. Prevention may be a far more effective tool than correction.

Last year, 97 Cape Girardeau students quit school. Only eight of those dropouts occurred at the junior high level. The vast majority of these pupils quit in the 10th and 11th grades.

The overall drop-out rate in the Cape Girardeau Public Schools is 18 percent. That's much better than the national rate of 29 percent or the state average of 24 percent. We applaud local school officials for not being satisfied with "good enough."

The committee began meeting in February. Its first task was to expand district record keeping on dropouts beyond what is simply mandated by the state. These expanded records will eventually provide a better documented trend of why local kids quit school.

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National statistics provide a number of warning signs that can be used in early grades to target potential dropouts. Among those indicators are: high absentee rate, high truancy rate, low academic skills, recurring discipline problems, broken home, numerous family relocations, and a job working more than half-time while in school. Studies reveal that perhaps the strongest predictor is repetition of a grade in school. The likelihood of a student dropping out increases by 40-50 percent if retained one grade. If retained two grades, the dropout likelihood increases to 90 percent.

Not every kid belongs in class. Some are so disruptive that their antics impede other students' learning. These kids would perhaps best be served by a G.E.D. or other alternative learning program. But many of these dropouts can become successful students if intervention comes at an early enough stage.

Student failures are not an individual problem. Whether we realize it or not, they affect us all. One million students drop out of school each year. The National Education Association estimates that the cost to provide for dropouts and their families exceeds more than $75 billion a year in lost tax revenues, crime, unemployment and welfare. For every taxpayer, that means an outlay of $800 a year.

As the nation's demo~graphics shift, corporations may find themselves hard pressed to find adequate numbers of well-trained workers. Already, a third of all major corporations provide some kind of remedial training, says the NEA. Ultimately, our national productively is at risk.

Hopefully this study by the Cape Girardeau schools will one day grow into an effective program to assist at-risk students. We could all benefit from this sound prevention.

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