Toledo Dropout Prevention Summit, sponsored by the United Way of Greater Toledo, Nov. 19

On Nov. 19, 2009, from 8:00AM to 4:30PM, parents, students, educators, business leaders, juvenile justice, nonprofits, and religious organizations convene at the Dana Center (University of Toledo Health Science Campus) for a day-long education summit (Toledo Dropout Prevention Center) to increase awareness, encourage collaboration, and facilitate action to improve graduation rates.

The keynote speaker is Bob Wise, president of Alliance for Excellent Education. For his complete biography, visit: http://www.all4ed.org/about_the_alliance/bob-wise 

 The United Way of Greater Toledo is sponsoring the event and in its press release, the following statistics are given:

According to America’s Promise Alliance, nationally, more than one million high school students drop out of high school every year—that’s 7,000 every day; one every 26 seconds. Moreover, only half of black and Latino young men are graduating on time.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, Ohio’s graduation rate is 79%.

According to the Ohio Department of Education, Toledo ’s graduation rate was 86.6% in 2007/08.

What background factors could be contributing to graduation rates? They may include:
Many Toledo children grow up in a home that contains at least one of the 31,000 Lucas County adults that read at or below the basic level.

Averaged, about 63% of 8^th grade students in Toledo ’s two public school systems are proficient in reading at grade level. That number rises to 81% in tenth grade.

Averaged together, approximately 55% of Toledo students in the two public school systems are eligible for free/reduced lunch.

In 2007, 775 teen pregnancies occurred in Toledo with births being most prevalent in Toledo ’s central, north, and east-side neighborhoods.