American Graduate


“American Graduate: A San Antonio Community Conversation”
KLRN 9.1
Join the converation on Twitter! Use the hashtag #nodropoutsa, or follow our Tweets on Twubs.

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NEWS:

KLRN, Girls Inc., and a panel of community leaders recently discussed dropout rates, challenges facing today’s high school students, and ways in which community members can combat the issues. Panelists included Big Brothers Big Sisters of South Texas president and CEO, Denise Barkhurst; Communities in Schools of San Antonio CEO, Nancy Reed; and Generation TX executive director, Mari Aguirre Rodriguez. The program, "American Graduate: A San Antonio Community Conversation," is moderated by Texas Public Radio’s David Martin Davies, and co-hosted by Girl’s Inc. MVP’s. The program aired Thursday, October 27 at 8pm on KLRN 9.1.

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American Graduate is a public media initiative funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to help local communities across America find solutions to address the dropout crisis. The initiative builds on public media's long-standing commitment to education by convening conversations and strengthening partnerships between public radio and television stations and local schools, businesses and community organizations to help students stay on the path to a high school diploma.

National facts:
  • The vast majority of students — 92 percent — say they expect to earn a high school diploma.
  • But, for many of these students, the reality is much different.
  • Every year, more than 1.3 million students drop out of high school. That's 7,000 students a day.

 Texas facts:
  • Since 1986, Texas high schools have lost three million students. This is the equivalent of losing Houston and Austin over the course of two and a half decades. At the current pace, we could be looking at losing as many as 3.5 million more students or the entire populations of San Antonio, Dallas, El Paso and Lubbock over the next three decades.
  • Bexar County is the estimated fifth in Texas with the highest attrition rates.
  • Over 15 states have high school dropout rates higher than the national average.

  • Every 4 minutes a student in Texas drops out of school.


http://www.americangraduate.org/
http://www.cpb.org/
http://mediaengage.org/