Never underestimate the value of graduation and of increasing grad rates

Thousands of college students and high school seniors in the Mahoning and Shenango valleys will walk proudly across stages over the next month to collect their reward for years of dutiful attendance, responsible conduct and academic growth.

The processionals begin today when more than 1,400 students receive college sheepskins at Youngstown State University in the university’s Spring 2017 Commencement. YSU’s full 2016-17 academic year crop of graduates stands at about 2,387, the university’s second largest in its 109-year history.

Then on Sunday, members of the first high school commencement program for the Class of 2017 in the region – Youngstown Early College – will usher in the season of pomp and circumstance at the DeYor Performing Arts Center downtown. There, those top-notch high-achieving students will receive their diplomas, which represent their passport to the future.

We offer our congratulations to all the graduates as well as their supportive parents, teachers and other mentors and motivators.

The Vindicator will recognize the thousands of high school graduates at Valley high schools with a week of special pages in their honor beginning June 5. Several Valley high schools and, more importantly, the students who populate them stand out this year. Some have singled themselves out for superlative academic standings.

Their hard work has helped their schools win some singular honors, such as the coveted Silver Award from U.S. News and World Reports’ 2017 rankings of America’s Best High Schools. They include Boardman, Canfield, Poland, Stuthers, Columbiana, Crestview, Springfield Local and Lakeview.

The ceremonies at schools large and small in our region and our nation serve as a reminder of the value of a high school diploma. They also should signal the urgency to increase the shamefully low graduation rates in many secondary schools across our region, state and nation.

VALUE OF DIPLOMA

Students indeed sacrifice many personal and societal benefits when opting out of attaining that one valuable piece of paper. According to the U.S. Department of Education, a high-school diploma recipient without a college degree:

Earns an average of $8,400 a year more than a high-school dropout.

Contributes more to a state’s economy and requires less public assistance than high-school dropouts.

Becomes substantially less likely to be imprisoned or require public assistance.

Realizes a net lifetime benefit of more than $470,000.

In the Mahoning Valley, graduation rates show significant disparities. According to the 2016 Ohio Department of Education Report Cards, Poland schools had an impressively high rate of about 96 percent – already far surpassing national educational goals. But in the nearby district to its north, Youngstown City Schools had a distressingly low rate of about 74 percent.

Although the city school district’s graduation rate has increased by about 10 percentage points in recent years, clearly it has a long way to go. We’re impressed with Krish Mohip, the chief executive officer of the urban district, for his initiative to reach a 100 percent graduation rate by next year’s commencement season.

That lofty goal is made all the more difficult given that Ohio Department of Education is intensively toughening its standards to qualify for graduation next school year.

But in Youngstown, as in any school district, education leaders can only do so much. Parents and guardians of young people must work diligently to instill a culture that values learning and achievement. That includes monitoring their work closely, keeping lines of communication with teachers open, dishing out applause for good performance and punishing children when they purposely fail to apply themselves.

When schools, families and communities work together toward a common goal of educational excellence, our community, state and nation can more confidently entrust the future to those who proudly earn their ticket out of public schooling this and every spring.