Along with a number of other earthshaking societal changes in the past few decades, going to high school isn't what it used to be. At least for many teenagers it's not. And that makes Durham's hopeful foray into alternative high schools, like the Evening Academy at the traditional Southern High School campus, worth emulating.

Evening Academy, which opened about two months ago, allows students who care for family members, for instance, or who must earn a paycheck or who simply had dropped out of school, to take classes at night. Several districts have opened other non-traditional high schools that meet the same day hours as regular schools. That's progress. Night classes, however, allow students to continue earning a salary or looking after siblings.

Young people who attend the alternative schools in many cases have tried to get a decent job before finishing the required level of course work to complete high school. So they have had a glimpse of the tough row one faces without a high school diploma, in terms of lower wages and lower horizons.

An example: consider Brandon Alexander, an 18-year-old Southern High dropout who recently enrolled in Evening Academy. Alexander told The N&O's Samiha Khanna that he had worked at a movie theater for more than a year, had just received a 30-cent raise and still was making only $6.80 an hour. But his mother was ill and out of a job, so he couldn't afford to return to school full time.

Southern High's evening program fit his circumstances, which are unusual but not unique. "I realized I could make so much better money and have a career," Alexander said.

North Carolina has too many young people who, like Alexander, live in the dropout shadows. An average of three in 10 of the youngsters who started high school in the 2003-04 school year did not graduate four years later. Durham's percentage was a little worse. The Wake and Johnston districts did better. Yet two in 10 students in those districts failed to graduate on time, a situation that often results in a student leaving school, period.

In the Triangle, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro district had the best graduation rate. But still, more than 1 in 10 in that system drifted from the classroom.

Specialized high schools are gaining traction largely because of dropout rates but also because educators know that family breakdowns, economic need, peer pressure and other modern-day stresses have put a greater pull on kids to abandon school.

Not surprisingly, many of the changes suggested for traditional high schools -- fewer students in a classroom, tutoring and job training -- typically are built into these specialized schools. Local school boards need to start incorporating those aims into their big, traditional high schools, and making it clear why money spent on them is a good investment. It's usually cheaper, and easier, to keep kids in school than to lure them back. Almost always, it's easier on the student.