Abstract
This paper investigates Smith’s (1989) thesis that county drop out rates have been self- perpetuating in the rural South, a pattern reinforced by the presence of mining and manufacturing employers with few skill demands. The results show that the associations of mining and manufacturing with high drop out rates, notable as late as 1980, have largely disappeared. But counties with high proportions of female headed families and low young adult (age 25-44) education continue to have little improvement in high schools completion. The extent of perpetuation of low education varies by state, whether due to differences education policies or economic structures.
Highlights
The proportion of students who complete high school is perhaps the most basic measure of local school success
The mean county dropout rate declined markedly over the study period in the nonmetropolitan South, the rate of decline appears to have been more substantial in earlier decades than in 1990-2000 (Table 1)
Average dropout rates declined by 2 percentage points in study counties between 1990 and 2000, but rose slightly in the excluded counties, suggesting that the increase in the prison population in the 1990s did affect Census education statistics in counties where prisons were located
Summary
The proportion of students who complete high school is perhaps the most basic measure of local school success. As Coleman (1988), Lichter et al (1993), Israel, Beaulieu, and Hartless (2001), Wenk and Hardesty (1995), and others have made clear, school outcomes are the products of schools, and of the constituent families and the socioeconomic context in which the schools are situated These authors have focused largely on the role of student family structure and income in determining school success, Israel, Beaulieu, and Hartless (2001) extend their analysis of the role of social capital in school outcomes to consider the integration of student and family into the community. Mining had provided many in the region with low-skill jobs at relatively high rates of pay, which discouraged high school completion
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