Philadelphia High School Dropouts And The Job Market: No Diploma, No Job

This piece comes to us courtesy of a partnership between the Philadelphia Public School Notebook, WHYY/NewsWorks, American Graduate: Let's Make it Happen, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Like almost 14 million other Americans, Monica Reyes is looking for work.

"Macy's, Walmart, Kmart, Sears, Friday's, Outback," said Reyes, ticking off her list of recent unsuccessful job applications.

A sluggish economy has made finding work difficult for people from all walks of life. Nationally, the unemployment rate is still above 8 percent. Four people compete for every job.

Few of them will have a tougher time finding work than Reyes.

Listen to more of Monica's story in this radio feature from reporter Benjamin Herold:

06BHDROPOUT by erikao

For starters, last year, she was shot. "Monica Reyes" is not her real name. The incident has yet to make its way through the courts, and Reyes continues to fear for her safety. As a result, the Notebook/NewsWorks has agreed to use a pseudonym in this story.

In addition, Reyes, 20, hails from Kensington, where jobs are scarce and trouble is commonplace. Sixty years ago, the area was a vibrant manufacturing hub. Now, it's a graveyard of abandoned factories and home to one of the largest illegal drug markets in the region.

"Growing up in that neighborhood, I went through war," said Reyes matter-of-factly.

But perhaps the biggest obstacle to Reyes' finding work is her failure to finish high school.

In Kensington and Eastern North Philadelphia, the unemployment rate for young adult dropouts is close to 50 percent.

While staggering, that number only begins to tell the story. Roughly 1,500 of the 3,000 or so dropouts aged 20-24 in this part of the city are not even trying to find work and are therefore not counted in unemployment statistics.

That means that only one in four young adults without a high school diploma in Kensington/Eastern North Philly has a job. Citywide, it's about one in three.

"There's a period of eight or ten years where a lot of decisions really come together and set your life path," said Paul Harrington, director of the Center for Labor Markets and Policy (CLMP) at Drexel University, which conducted an analysis of labor market outcomes for youth for the Notebook/NewsWorks.

Harrington called the situation "just disastrous."

Mayor Nutter has made reducing the city's high school dropout rate a priority. In 2011, for the first time in memory, the city's four-year high school graduation rate inched above 60 percent.

But citywide, the youth labor market is still in the tank, especially for dropouts.

Only 55 percent of all 20-24-year-olds in Philadelphia have a job. For those who have left school without a diploma, that number drops to 35 percent.

This piece has been truncated. To read the rest of the story, and other pieces in the "Focus on Dropouts and Jobs: A Neighborhood Story" package, visit The Notebook.

Also on HuffPost:

Comments

[J R M]

08:18 PM on 02/07/2012

Graduating from high school doesn't say much about what you learned, but it does show that you can put up with bureaucratic and procedural bulls**t and keep going. For many organizations, that is valuable - you are less likely to get fed up and walk out the door due to normal management harassment.

I won't know for 4 months yet if I have to withdraw my 14 year old daughter from school and officially have her drop out at the end of this school year. But in her case it would because she was jumping from high school to college 2 years early. As long as she gets her college degree, the lack of a high school degree will not cause serious issues.

[Robert59]

04:32 PM on 02/07/2012

I suspect Monica is functionally illiterate, lacks transportation, interviews poorly, and possesses a questionable work ethic. And if she is telling prospective employers she got shot I am sure they are thinking TROUBLE. She needs to get back in school, graduate, and get out of her nieighborhood. My dad left the Mississippi delta 60 years ago because it offered nothing to a young person who had no money or land (his family share cropped). Kensington is no different than the delta.

[liberalpolicysucks]

04:25 PM on 02/07/2012

Wait. People who drop out of high school can't find jobs? Wow. Never new that before...

How about this. You drop out of high school, no welfare for you. Get a GED and maybe we'll talk...

[El Chingaso]

04:18 PM on 02/07/2012

What's the problem with graduating from a public high school? It's so easy these days: a student can literally sleep through classes, blow off homework assignments, disrespect teachers, fail exams -- and STILL receive a diploma. In fact, high school graduates no longer are required to demonstrate any level of proficiency in basic reading, writing and arithmetic. No sweat, man. Cake...

Playing the high school game (despite public education's seemingly infinite flaws) is only as difficult as students want to make it. Period.

[guyvermgf]

03:35 PM on 02/07/2012

I was sort of in the same boat. My high school had a "credits" system when I was there (80's). I was 1/2 credit short and I was told that I would either have to do another year in high school or I could do a "correspondence" class to earn the last credit. Well, to make a long story short, I was angry at that and "rebelled" for ten years before I decided that I really needed my diploma. I ended up getting an Honors GED (1998) and I have better success since. So, I was wondering what is needed for the person in this story or others like her to obtain their GED. They may find it a bit easier to get interviews and/or jobs.

[Stay Up Shabazz]

03:31 PM on 02/07/2012

I saw Monica Reyes and I thought I was reading an article about the X-Files.