TERRE HAUTE —
Getting more young people to graduate from high school is a complicated task.
That effort exemplifies the broader challenge of revitalizing the community surrounding those schools. Thus, news that Vigo County schools have raised the district’s graduation rate from 73.4 percent in 2007 to 92.2 in 2012 merits more than applause, which is indeed due. That improvement process should serve as a roadmap for Terre Haute to overcome its greatest obstacles.
The Vigo County School Corp. graduation rate exceeded the state average of 87.9 percent and was the highest among the 10 largest districts making up the Indiana Urban Schools Association. Those niches are especially impressive given the overall graduation-rate improvement statewide, by 1.1 percent over last year and more than 10 percent since 2007, according to the Indiana Department of Education. The increase moves the state closer to the DOE goal of 90 percent graduation success. Vigo County is already there.
A cross-section of community members rolled up their sleeves to get these results, including educators, parents, students, VCSC staffers and board members, and as a group termed “community partners.”
In reality, the “community partners” should include all of us. The problems Vigo County schools face in raising its percentage of students earning a high school diploma are largely the same ones the city and county must conquer to become the best community in Indiana by 2020.
A prime difficulty in pushing a teenager to meet graduation requirements is simply getting them to show up for class. Some students, Tanoos pointed out, had a staggering number of absences — 30, 40 and 50 days or more per year. Poor attendance also plagues the workforce. In an analysis of the “skills gap” last month, local employers and job training groups mentioned the lack of “soft skills” as a key reason many people struggle to meet the requirements to perform advanced manufacturing work. “Soft skills” include showing up to work on time, or showing up — period — as well as getting along with co-workers, behaving properly with those colleagues, and following instructions.
Vigo County’s high child poverty rate inhibits learning for kids whose only balanced meals come through school breakfasts or lunches. The institution of a “backpack” program in the district has given children from low-income homes a little extra food to take home on the weekends. Adults who don’t maintain a balanced diet probably under-perform at work, and risk losing their job. The healthy behaviors of adults living in this sector of Indiana — the 8th congressional district — ranks 424th out of 436 districts nationwide, according to the latest Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index.
Do those behaviors — smoking rates, eating habits, lifestyle choices — matter? Well, in a community with five institutions of higher learning, the unemployment rate in Terre Haute has steadily remained at or near the highest among Indiana metropolitan areas since the recession ended (statistically) in 2009.
The district has used two alternative schools to redirect troubled kids toward class work and graduation. The proper support and environment lacking in some of those students’ lives are likely missing in the lives of some adults who end up on the wrong side of the law. Each young person steered away from those pitfalls and toward learning, from the K-through-12 schools to college or technical training, doubly benefits us all.
High school graduation is a starting point in life, not a finish line. The community should be thankful for the improved preparation young people have received through the school corporation’s efforts, and should be committed to maintain that standard year after year. The schools have proven that our problems can be addressed.
Editorials
EDITORIAL: Getting to starting line major step for children
Grad-rate increase good news for Vigo
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EDITORIAL: Waging the ‘readiness’ campaign
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EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news: Dashing finish for the Sycamores
It’s always thrilling to see Indiana State University’s athletic teams do well in high-level competition, and two specific teams rose to impressive heights last weekend in the Missouri Valley Conference outdoor track and field championships.
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EDITORIAL: Better monitoring needed to prevent local environmental messes
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EDITORIAL: Memo to U.S.A.: You can ‘SPPRAK’ just as we do in Vigo County
Our kids, truly, are ‘Making a Difference’
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Some words in praise of boring government — Indiana’s
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EDITORIAL: Doc’s prescient prescription
Viewed through a 2013 prism, Doc Bowen’s response to the AIDS epidemic looks merely prudent, routine.
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EDITORIAL: Education remains worth the cost
Within the next few weeks, each of the local colleges will have conducted graduation ceremonies. A few days later, a different Class of 2013 will don caps and gowns for commencement — the seniors at five Vigo County high schools. It is still a smart, worthy aspiration for those high school grads to replicate the achievement of those college students by earning a higher-education degree.
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EDITORIAL: Good news for downtown
For decades, it seems, downtown Terre Haute has been in the throes of change
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EDITORIAL: Overall, state budget step in the right direction
For average Hoosiers uninterested in political point-scoring, the budget crafted by the Indiana Legislature inspires only muted, if any, fanfare.
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EDITORIAL: The lessons of organ donation
The range of emotion surrounding life-saving transplantation of a vital organ is extreme. It is the ultimate “good news-bad news” scenario.
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READERS’ FORUM: April 26, 2013
• Pence’s tax cuts benefit wealthiest
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EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news
This does not qualify as a surprise in any way. But the Wabash Valley’s response to widespread flooding of recent days has been nothing short of impressive, even inspirational.
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EDITORIAL: Still waiting for the jobs reward
The forces in control of Indiana government for most of the past decade need to show some results to Hoosiers in one primary category.
Good-paying jobs. -
MARK BENNETT: Littered with irony: Why do people callously discard their trash, and who are they?
Though they aren’t acknowledged by the U.S. Census Bureau, there are basically two demographic groups of people … Those who would dump their old toilet on the banks of the Wabash River or a rural roadside. And those who wouldn’t.
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EDITORIAL: Doing the dirty work to clean up tossed trash
A first-of-its-kind, coast-to-coast project to remove litter from U.S. roadsides brought the Pick Up America crew through the Wabash Valley two years ago.
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EDITORIAL: Keep school security a local issue
The decision to provide armed security inside a schoolhouse should be made locally.
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EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news
Indiana’s parks need your help.
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EDITORIAL: The return of terror
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EDITORIAL: A solution to distracted driving … stop it … now
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EDITORIAL: ‘Women of Influence’: 2013 selectees have given much to their communities
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EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news: A new honor for our veterans
A commendation goes out today to state Rep. Clyde Kersey, a Terre Haute Democrat who led the charge this week in the Indiana House of Representatives to pay tribute to the nation’s Purple Heart recipients.
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EDITORIAL: Shifting view on marriage
One could argue, as many have, that Sen. Joe Donnelly did the right thing last week when he dropped his support of government-sanctioned opposition to same-sex marriage. It wasn’t a radical move, considering most Democrats have now made the switch.
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MAX JONES: The American Newspaper: Changing? Yes. Dying? No way!
It happened again this past January when all those “looking at the year ahead” stories started popping up on Internet “news” websites and broadcast “news” programs. Under a provocative headline reading something like “Five industries/businesses doomed to tank in the coming year,” there it was, a prediction based on an unsubstantiated “expert” analysis that the newspaper industry will continue in 2013 to suffer its slide into oblivion.
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EDITORIAL: A chance to change our bad cultural habits
The sight of diligent, eager young people dragging trash out of the Wabash River wetlands is both inspiring and sad.
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EDITORIAL: Maintaining high standards
Standards
It’s the raging buzzword in education circles these days. Everyone insists that higher standards must be met. Anything less is, doggone it, unacceptable. -
Noteworthy in the news
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EDITORIAL: Crack down on dumpers
There is a reason it’s called “illegal” dumping. It’s against the law. And there is a very good reason illegal dumping is against the law.
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Season of Day 2s arrives
Calendars in Cincinnati contain one extra holiday — Opening Day, traditionally the first Monday in April.
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