Building Our Future One Child At A Time

Building Our Future One Child At A Ti= me

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There are = two statistics that should stir the soul of anyone who cares about the future of Birmingham. The first statist= ic is truly frightening. 47.7% of t= he youngsters who enter the ninth grade in Birmingham City schools will never graduate. They drop out. This horrible number looms even bi= gger when you consider that in Mountain Brook the dropout rate is just 4.7% and = in Vestavia it is only 9.7%.

Half the c= hildren of our city face a dead end future because they abandon their only chance to succeed – a good education.

And uneduc= ated workforce has incredible implications for the economic well being or the city. A worker who earns more= will spend more, creating economic growth and revenue for the city. Birmingham&#= 8217;s high school dropouts earn approximately 29 cents for every $1 made by a col= lege graduate. While the average family income has risen 17% for college graduat= es, it has fallen by 25% for families with parents who have no high school dipl= oma.

Education = was the liberating factor that helped me build my life and when I am elected mayor,= one of my highest priorities will be to cut the dropout rate in our schools in half. Mind you, I will not be satisfied with simply cutting the rate in half, but that will be our initial goal.

We’l= l attack the problem of high school attrition by forming intervention and mentoring teams in concert with our schools leaders, church leaders, with parents and with business leaders who recognize the value of an educated populace. And I’ll ask the City Counci= l to work with me to set aside a portion of the funding designated for the colle= ge scholarship program to help fund after-school tutorial programs.

We must acknowledge the severity of this problem and take aggressive action to corr= ect it.

I said tha= t there are two statistics that should cause concern. In addition to a drop out rate of = 47.7% the declining enrollment figures for Birmingham City schools is startling.<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> From 2002 through 2007 enrollment = in our schools declined by more than 7,900. That is a 22% decline in just 5 years.

No statist= ic is more ominous than one that proves that families with children are leaving o= ur city. As families move out of Birmingham, they take with them the very life blood that feeds our future.<= /p>

To stop th= is exodus, we must give the families here a reason to stay and create an incen= tive for new families to move here. As mayor, I will ask the City Council to help me institute the scholarship pro= gram for which funding is already in place.&nbs= p; This revenue stream was pledged to a scholarship program and am convinced making it a reality should be one of our highest priorities.

Cut the dr= op out rate in half and stop the decline in enrollment in our schools – these are goals we must, I repeat must meet if we are to have a real future. As Mayor, these will be my goals.<= /p>