Students in 'Dropout Factory' Schools Explore Why Kids Quit | The Rundown News Blog | PBS NewsHour | PBS: Nationally, about 70 percent of U.S. students graduate on time with a regular diploma, according to data compiled by Education Week. For Hispanic and African American students, the proportion drops to about 50 percent. And there are currently more than two million teenagers attending so-called 'dropout factory' schools where only 60 percent of the students finish high school in four years.
What does that phenomenon look like to students in so-called 'dropout factories'? PBS NewsHour's Student Reporting Labs teamed up with the People Production House's Radio Rootz program to explore why kids quit school and how the teachers and students themselves feel about being labeled a failing school.
Many of the Radio Rootz journalists come from these very 'dropout factories' in Washington, D.C., and New York City.
