The PBS NEWSHOUR and Senior Correspondent Ray Suarez will take a close look at Las Vegas’ solution to the problem of high school dropouts in a segment airing Tuesday (April 17, 2012).
In the report, Suarez profiles “Reclaim Your Future”, a citywide effort to bring dropouts back to school by visiting them at home and letting them know they are still welcome in class.
“The whole point of our effort wasn’t to do anything other than say you are loved, you are wanted, please come back,” Chaparral High School Principal David Wilson told Suarez.
“It made me feel like I was actually important, like they actually wanted me back”, said former Chaparral dropout Isaiah Quiamboa, who returned to school after a visit by Wilson. In the segment airing Tuesday, Suarez also talks to officials about the economic decline of Las Vegas, and how the bad job market hits high school dropouts especially hard.
The piece is part of American Graduate: Let’s Make It Happen, a national public media initiative funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), in partnership with America’s Promise Alliance and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to help communities across America address the high school dropout crisis.
As part of the initiative, NEWSHOUR correspondents will travel the country examining the roots of the dropout problem and its consequences for American society. While our correspondents report on the depth of the problem, the PBS NEWSHOUR’s Student Reporting Labs will help classrooms and afterschool programs investigate the dropout issues from the perspective of the young people most affected. Finally, educators across the country will get the chance to weigh in on the problem through a series of American Graduate Teacher Town Halls organized by 12 public television stations.
For more information on American Graduate: Let’s Make It Happen, visit www.americangraduate.org. American Graduate is also on Facebook and Twitter.
The PBS NEWSHOUR Student Reporting labs can be found here: http://studentreportinglabs.org
