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Monday, March 26, 2001
Dropouts face life of low wages
Increasingly, jobs require a high school diploma
By Jeremy Schwartz
Caller-Times
After Chad Wilkins dropped out of Flour Bluff High School in 1999, he found himself in a tight financial spot.
   His full-time job as a shift manager at Taco Bell was bringing in $6.20 an hour, barely enough to make ends meet, especially since the 19-year-old had moved out of his parents' house.
   When he saw an ad for a $12-an-hour job at the Corpus Christi Army Depot, he thought his financial woes were solved. That is, until he found out he didn't meet the most basic requirement - a diploma or successful completion of the General Educational Development test.

David Pellerin/Caller-Times

Chad Wilkins works for Circle K in Flour Bluff. After dropping out of high school, he found that many employers require a high school diploma. He returned to school and graduated. Thirty years ago, many workers could earn an adequate living without a diploma, but today's dropouts earn less.

   "I just filled out the application anyway, hoping there would still be a chance," he said. "They never called me and I was like, 'Oh, well, I suppose I've got to go back to school.' "
   Chad, who now works at Circle K, had just received a crash course in the economics of dropping out of high school.
   On almost a daily basis, Meg Becker of Remedy Intelligent Staffing, a Corpus Christi temp agency, sees high school dropouts looking for work.
   "For someone with no diploma or GED, the opportunity for work is minimal," she said. "If they're diligent and a good worker they might make $6.50 or $7 an hour."
   According to 2000 U.S. Census Bureau data, the median income for a high school dropout is $12,478, compared with $20,889 for a high school graduate. A college degree doubles the median salary to $40,826.
   Thirty years ago, a high school diploma wasn't necessarily a prerequisite for a middle class life. With higher-paying manufacturing and factory jobs relatively plentiful, dropouts could still average $23,000 a year (in today's dollars), according to a 1996 Brown University study.
   "We are no longer in an economy where you can step into the steel mill or auto plant," said John Tyler, the Brown University professor who conducted the earnings study. "Jobs today are so much more automated and they require more skills."
   Impact on city

Click to enlarge

   High school dropouts don't only hamper their own earning power. Too many high school dropouts can cripple a community economically by scaring off companies considering relocating there.
   "For a number of companies, the very first thing they look at in a community is the number of high school dropouts," said Ron Kitchens, chief executive officer of the Corpus Christi Regional Economic Development Corp. "If you don't meet their minimum threshold, they won't look at you."
   Among area economic and workforce development officials, the Coastal Bend's dropout rate is a serious concern.
   The 1990 census revealed that about 30 percent of Nueces County's population age 25 and older did not have a high school diploma. While an analysis of the 2000 census won't be complete for months, many observers think that number is growing.
   'We're hurting'
   Allan Meriwether, president and CEO of the Coastal Bend Workforce Development Board, said a larger percentage of the Coastal Bend workforce may not have diplomas than people think. "We're hurting," he said. "When everyone else is growing and seeing the boom, Corpus Christi, in reality, isn't.
   "It hasn't happened here, maybe because of our reluctance to say we need help."
   The Nueces County workforce's high school graduation rate of 69 percent is slightly lower than the state's as a whole, which has a 72 percent rate for people over the age of 25. While it compares favorably with the Rio Grande Valley, where Cameron County has a 52 percent rate, Starr County has a 31 percent rate and Webb County has a 47 percent rate, it is outpaced by more urban areas.
   Travis County, home to Austin, has an 83 percent rate, San Antonio's Bexar County has a 73 percent rate, Houston's Harris County has a 75 percent rate and Dallas County has a 77 percent rate, all based on 1990 numbers.
   Cycle of poverty
   Corpus Christi also has a higher percentage of its students earning GEDs than the state, although some educators say that's an unfair comparison because urban districts tend to have higher GED rates than rural ones.
   Regardless, many researchers say earning a GED does not have the same earning power as a diploma.
   Ironically, many dropouts are forced into a lifetime of weakened earning power and poverty level wages in an attempt to escape those same economic pressures.
   "A lot of 16- and 17-year-olds feel the need to help out their families," said Clenton LaGrone, an attendance officer at Alice High School. "They're working at night and they're too tired to go to school."
   While 12 percent of the state's 1997 dropouts said they were leaving to get a job, according to a Texas Education Agency survey, 45 percent left because of "poor attendance," a vague reason that offers little clue as to the student's motivation. Many educators on the front lines say economic factors have more bearing than the state-sponsored survey lets on.
   "Sixty-nine percent of our students work. Many live on their own," said Ricardo Almendarez, principal of Corpus Christi's Alternative High School.
   'It takes a generation'
   And that struggle is often passed on to new generations as dropouts find themselves in the same economic quandary as their parents.
   "We'd like to break out of it," LaGrone said. "But it takes a generation of not doing it to get it started. We need to get that first kid in."
   Angie Martinez is hoping to stop that cycle before it reaches any of her five children. The 26-year-old mother dropped out nine years ago after bouncing among several of the high schools in Corpus Christi. She was pregnant when she left school. Since then, she has worked a number of low-paying jobs - including cleaning houses - in between pregnancies.
   Son's inspiration
   Her lack of job opportunities had her leaning toward returning to night school, but the final straw came when she began having trouble helping her 8-year-old son with his homework.
   "My son told me he didn't want a mother who didn't graduate from high school," she said. "I wanted to help in school, but there were a lot of things I couldn't do."
   Since November, Martinez has been enrolled in the Del Mar College GED program, where she attends three-hour evening classes four days a week, and hopes to pass her high school equivalency test soon.
   She hopes to use her education to get a job in criminal justice, perhaps as a parole officer. In addition to the economic benefits of more schooling, Martinez is hoping to be a better example for her kids. "I want my kids to see that I can do it," she said. "You have to go to school, you have to have an education."
   The big picture
   Educators say almost all dropouts leave school without realizing the economic suicide they are committing.
   "They're not in a position to look beyond the here and now," LaGrone said.
   But convincing students to look at the economic implications of leaving school can be the most effective tool in combating the dropout rate, Meriweather said.
   "The problem is they don't see the relevancy of their education," he said. "The teachers can't explain it very well. As they get older, we need to talk to kids about the reality of their situation."
   Martinez said some students may not be able to grasp what dropping out means until they live through the reality of it.
   "You're not thinking of the future then," she said. "Probably no one would have reached me."
   'They're always amazed'
   At the CCISD Alternative High School, speakers from the business community, military recruiters and successful graduates are brought in regularly to speak to students. The goal is to convince them of the real-life implications of dropping out.
   At Alice High School, Principal Amy Koenning tries to bring each potential dropout into her office for some budget analysis. First, she asks them what they want out of life. Most say a family, a car, a nice house. Then she breaks down the average dropout's salary and students soon see that the middle class ideal is out of reach. "They're always amazed," she said.
   "When I was in high school, kids could leave high school and there were oilfield jobs that paid big bucks," Koenning said. "Those jobs are gone. It used to be that you needed two hands and a strong back. Not anymore."
   Only so valuable
   Chad Wilkins learned such a lesson the hard way. He graduated in February and says he hopes that now that he has his diploma, he won't have to pass on any more $12-an-hour jobs that come his way.
   But even with his diploma, Chad will still face challenges. Researchers say that not only have dropouts seen their salaries plummet over the past 30 years, but the value of a diploma has seen a similar decline. According to the Brown University study, a high school graduate could earn $32,000 in 1972, but only $23,000 in 1996. To make the same money as a graduate did in 1972, today's students need at least some college.
   "Education can't end at 12th grade," Kitchens said. "Or we can't compete as a region. We need at least two years of higher education."
   Tyler, the Brown University professor, says that whereas a generation ago the high school diploma was the ticket to middle-class living, today a college degree is.
   "With just a high school diploma," he said, "kids are still at a great disadvantage."

Staff writer Jeremy Schwartz can be reached at 886-3779 or by e-mail at schwartzj@caller.com

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