by Daniel Smith
Only the educated are free. – Epictetus
This week I’m proud to introduce a guest writer, Daniel Smith. Dan is a current military retiree, having recently retired from the Air Force after 20 years of service.
Dan holds a Bachelors Degree in Workforce Development and Education from the University of Illinois at Carbondale, which was formerly known as Vocational Education (my degree from the same university).
I ask Dan to write on a topic of his choice and he could not have chosen a better one. Currently the education system in California leads the field in teaching nothing, as proven by the dropout numbers in Dan’s article. So without further fanfare, I present Dan Smith and “The Cost of Ignorance.”
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The reality of beautiful California’s tourism advertisements is that generally within two hours of travel you’re less than a hundred miles to beaches, skiing, lakes, and desert. But there is a lot of other less wonderful things in California the tourism board conveniently leave out of their commercials.
According to the 2011 Census Bureau report there are about 9,422,978 children in California under the age of 18 years old. The Friedman Foundation reported that California has a 19% High School dropout rate. So how does this affect the 9.4 million children under the age of 18? Simple, in the next 19 years California will produce 1.8 million High School Dropouts.
There are several factors in society that contribute to students not graduating High School but, no matter the cause the burden on the California Tax Payers is real. In the very near future a large portion of these children will live on some form of public assistance for a large part of their life.
The Alliance for Education asserts, “Obviously, dropouts are a drain on the economies of each state and the nation. Lower local, state, and national tax revenues are perhaps the most obvious consequence of higher dropout rates; even when dropouts are employed, they earn significantly lower wages than graduates. State and local economies suffer further when they have less-educated populaces, as they find it more difficult to attract new business investment. Simultaneously, these entities must spend more on social programs when their populations have lower educational levels.”
The issue of school dropout rates raises several problems. How do we build a strong future for California’s economy when we can deduce that 19% of our future population may not be able to contribute to the welfare of the state?
The San Francisco Chronicle reported in February 2008, “Each annual wave of dropouts costs the state $46.4 billion over their lifetimes because people without a high school diploma are the most likely to be unemployed, turn to crime, need state-funded medical care, get welfare and pay no taxes.”
Let’s do a little math, 1.8 million high school dropouts over the next 19 years. That’s $881.6 billion over the next 19 years. So I guess Jerry Brown is spot on when it comes to raising taxes. By the way, the Los Angeles Times reported on January 6, 2012, that Governor Jerry Brown unveiled his new budget plan, calling for a painful $4.8-billion cut in public school funds if voters reject a proposed tax hike which he hopes to put on the ballot in November of 2012.
It’s difficult to vote in favor of the Governors Tax increase when they can’t manage the current affairs of the state. Yes, education is expensive but the cost of ignorance is much greater.
Dan Smith
