Louisville’s dropouts are expensive for everyone

The Alliance for Excellent Education just published an analysis of the economic costs of high school dropouts for 50 of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas. That includes this report for the Louisville area.

High schools in Louisville and the surrounding 13 counties lost over 30 percent of their students prior to graduation according to the Alliance. If that loss were cut in half, the Alliance says the added graduates would earn $27 million more and generate an additional $4 million in taxes for the region.

Per the Alliance, five high schools in the Louisville area are “Dropout Factories,” which means they graduate less than 60 percent of their students.

Those schools would be wonderful candidates for conversion to charter schools, which news reports around the country are saying do much better than regular public schools in graduating students.