United Way Online Forecaster Shows How Our Community Would Improve If Education Outcomes Rise

A year ago, United Way of America laid out a bold education goal – to cut in half the number of high school dropouts over the next decade. Here in Summit County, the local United Way has joined the effort by promoting school-readiness programs including Born Learning and the Dolly Parton Imagination Library.

A new interactive Webtool – The Common Good ForecasterTM – allows one to forecast how things might change in our community if educational outcomes were to improve. In partnership with the American Human Development Project, the United Way created the Forecaster to show the ripple effects of people’s educational attainment on their health, financial stability, children’s academic performance, and community involvement.

Here are some of the staggering statistics on the current state of our education system.

Nationally, more than 26% of our nation’s young adults do not graduate on time. Of the 3.8 million public high school seniors who should graduate in 2009, 1.2 million will not. One recent study concluded that young adults in the United States are less likely than their parents to earn a diploma – a phenomenon not shared by any other industrialized country in the world.

Missing this milestone can have detrimental effects. A high school graduate will earn on average 74% more over a lifetime than a high school dropout. What’s more, those who earn a diploma are 15% more likely to be employed than their peers who drop out.

There are costs to society as well. Dropouts are more likely to be in prison – accounting for more than 75% of the prison population. And dropouts are significantly more likely to receive public assistance, and for longer periods of time than those who earn at least a high school diploma.

Dropouts are also more likely to have long-term health issues, have higher mortality rates, higher suicide rates, and higher rates of admission to mental health programs in hospitals.

Those are the costs of failing to stem the tide of dropouts. With the Common Good Forecaster, we can see how things will improve if we change things for the better.

The Forecaster breaks new ground in that it goes beyond linking education to economic returns, but also to the social returns like public safety, low-birth-weight, and voting.

Here are some specific examples of scenarios it can create: If every adult in Summit County moved up one level of education (those without a high school diploma were to graduate, those who graduated high school attended college or achieved an Associate’s Degree, etc.), median personal income would increase 22% to more than $40,000 per year, and life expectancy will go up 1.7 years.

The Common Good Forecaster is free and available to the public at http://www.liveunited.org/forecaster/. This tool can help United Ways and our community partners truly understand the impact that high school dropout rates have now – and will have down the road.

According to United Way of Summit County President Bob Kulinski, “This Forecaster can help drive home the importance of achieving our national education goal of cutting in half the number of students who drop out by 2018. Here in Summit County, we’ve put our stake in the ground trying to ensure that children are ready to learn when they enter kindergarten. Study after study shows that kids who enter school prepared to learn are much more likely to excel and thrive. And children who are succeeding in and enjoying school are more likely to graduate.”

United Way of Summit County encourages everyone to LIVE UNITED. Each of us has the power to improve lives and advance the common good when we give, advocate and volunteer. For more information on how to give now, on programs and services in our community, or to volunteer, call your United Way of Summit County at (330) 762-7601, visit our website at http://www.uwsummit.org/, or come to our offices at 90 N. Prospect St., Akron, Ohio.