by KYW's Mike DeNardo
Many of today's dropouts are tomorrow's criminals (see related story).
"High school dropouts are 3½ times more likely to be arrested later in life, and also eight times more likely to be incarcerated, in jail."
Bruce Clash (right), the Pennsylvania director of the anti-crime group called Fight Crime: Invest In Kids, says a report done for his group shows that if you increase the graduation rate 10 percent, you'll see a 20-percent drop in violent crime. That would translate to 75 fewer murders and 2,000 fewer assaults in Philadelphia.
Clash endorses spending more on early childhood programs as a key strategy:
"Getting kids off to the right start boosts graduation rates and makes them much less likely to commit crimes and be a threat to all of us later in life."
Schools superintendent Arlene Ackerman (right) says that ultimately, the formula for keeping kids in school is simple:
"We have to make sure that we have classrooms that are more interesting than the streets."
That means engaging the 42 percent who choose the streets:
"The more activities that I had to be involved in, the more I wanted to come to school. And when I've talked to young people who have dropped out of school, that's what they say. They've lost interest and hope in school. We've got to give them hope."
As Mayor Nutter says, the city can't teach them if they don't show up.
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