Finding paths for lost teens

CHAPEL HILL -- For most in the Triangle, this is a week of celebrating work and heading back to school. We live in one of the wealthiest communities in the nation, a place where the educational and economic opportunities seem boundless.

But many of the Triangle's teens and young adults aren't hopping on a school bus or filling out a time sheet -- they're disconnected from school, work and society. Instead of building the foundation for their adult lives, many are simply lost. They're lost to themselves and to an economy for which their skills and contributions are essential.

Barely half of economically disadvantaged ninth-graders in Wake and Durham counties are graduating from high school in four years. Nearly 20 percent of 16- to 24-year-olds looking for jobs can't find one.

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ABOUT THE ONLY TIME WE HEAR ABOUT THESE YOUNG PEOPLE is when there's a melee at the mall or a heinous murder. But well-publicized problems with gangs and teen violence are just the tip of a much larger problem -- though a costly part. In addition to the social price we pay for violence, a recent study found that the value of saving a high-risk youth who's dropped out of school, uses drugs and has turned to crime is as much as $4.4 million. That's considering medical and criminal justice costs, on top of lost earnings.

For every presumed gang member there are three times as many young people aged 16-24 who have dropped out of school. Doing so sets them on a path likely to result in chronic unemployment at worst and low pay at best (a median weekly wage of $419, compared with $585 for a high school graduate and $721 for someone with an associate's degree).

A new study by MDC called "Disconnected Youth in the Research Triangle Region: An Ominous Problem Hidden in Plain Sight," sponsored by the North Carolina GlaxoSmithKline Foundation, identifies the problem and its potentially long-term effects. (To see the report on the study, go to www.mdcinc.org.)

It says a growing proportion of our prime-age workers will come from African-American and Latino ranks. "These are precisely the demographic groups that experience the highest rates of youth disconnection," the report says. "In the coming decades, 80 percent of new jobs will require education beyond high school. By failing to reverse the growing tide of disconnected youth, we undercut our ability to field a competitive workforce in a high-skill, knowledge-driven economy."

The problem is seen most acutely in Durham. Both Durham and Wake had about the same number of 15- to 17-year-olds out of school in 2004-05 -- 800. While that number represented 3 percent of adolescent youth in Wake County, it was 10 percent of Durham's. The Durham/Chapel Hill region also has a more pronounced number of 16- to 19-year-olds who are looking for a job but can't find one: 31 percent, compared with 14 percent in the Raleigh region. That is undoubtedly a reflection of the fact that Durham has the highest percentage of both African-American and Hispanic youth in the Triangle.

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MANY LOCAL GROUPS ARE TRYING TO ADDRESS THE PROBLEM, from a mentoring collaborative in Durham to four alternative schools in Wake to after-school programs at Boys and Girls Clubs across the Triangle. But the problem goes beyond discrete interventions. Despite the heroic efforts of these and other organizations, the Triangle's default response to youth disconnection tends to be through small, community-based groups -- when the answer needs to be larger.

The solution requires a systemic response by schools, business, policymakers and nonprofits to quantify the problem and address it broadly and deeply. It will involve using data to find out where kids fall through the cracks and developing partnerships, policies and coordinated initiatives to help them.

We need to create large-scale alternative learning options that engage high-risk youth and move them from high school into college, as Portland, Ore., does. We need groups such as the Boston Private Industry Council, which connects young people to education, training and jobs. And we need to find a solution that is regionwide, the way the Youth Transitions Funders Group, a consortium of foundations, worked with leaders in Boston, Philadelphia, New York, Portland and San Jose to create partnerships that reform systems, create innovative programs, and change policy.

The most important step is the first one -- bringing leaders together to acknowledge the issue and create solutions that help disconnected youth become assets who can help our region stay strong. Only then, when Labor Day rolls around, will there really be something to celebrate.

(David Dodson is the president of MDC, Inc., a Chapel Hill-based nonprofit focused on improving educational and economic opportunities in the South.)

BY THE NUMBERS

$4.4 million The value of saving a high-risk youth who has dropped out of school, uses drugs and has turned to crime

10 The percentage of 15- to 17-year-olds who had dropped out of school in Durham in 2004-05

31 The percentage of 16- to 19-year-olds in the Durham/Chapel Hill region looking for a job.