City's High Dropout Rate Costs Everyone

PHILADELPHIA - There's a major problem inside schools across Philadelphia, and it could impact wallets and businesses well outside the city.

Mayor Michael Nutter said Tuesday that the city is seeing small progress in cutting its dropout rate, but there is still room for improvement, Fox 29's Joyce Evans reports.

"The fact that we have so many people who have dropped out of high school means that we're losing money at the state level and in the city," said Ray Murphy, of Bread and Roses, which is an advocacy group for more and better education.

The city's losing money by the hundreds of millions, according to a recent study by the Alliance for Excellent Education.

That includes houses that won't be bought, money that won't be earned, spent, or invested, even millions a year in cars that won't be bought.

According to the study, if half of the Philadelphia students who dropped out of the class of 2008 had actually graduated, the city could have expected a boost in tax revenue by $18 million.

"We're going to see more and more money lost in our wage base. We're going to see more and budget crises. We're going to see less dollars for basic services that we all rely on," Murphy said.

He says tax incentives are not enough to lure and hold onto businesses when your dropout rate is at 29 percent and 22 percent of the population is illiterate.

"We've definitely fallen behind, and we need to catch if we want to be able to keep up in the new economy," Murphy said.

Ebony Baylis, 20, is doing her part to catch up after dropping out of high school three years ago.

"I would try, and it was like things would keep happening that would make it harder for me to learn, harder fro me to, you know, succeed in what I was trying to get to."

But she's getting to it now with youth united for change, which just started a progress for dropouts.

"You never think that you can make as big a change as you think you can until you get involved with people that are going to help you get there," Baylis said.

Baylis' advice to others: "Stick it out, you know, keep trying because there is a purpose to you getting what you want to get for your future."

Baylis is about to earn her GED, and she has already set her sights on college.

Nicholas Torres, of Project U-Turn, joined the Fox 29 News at 10 to talk more about why the mayor is touting some progress in the number of high school graduates and reclaiming dropouts.

Project U-Turn is a joint project between private and public business agencies that are fighting that dropout rate in the city.