Let me begin by talking about the economic issues kids without a GED or high school diploma face.
When a young man or woman gets kicked out of school, he or she does not obtain their high school diploma. This negatively affects their chances of getting a good paying job as well as the types of jobs that are available to a drop out. The world we live in now requires at a bare minimum that everyone has a high school diploma or GED. As technology advances so too does the demand for a quality education. A high school diploma is hardly worth much in the working world as many employers seek individuals with Bachelor’s degrees and higher. This means that kids who get kicked out of high school will be severely limited in the types of jobs they are able to get and how much money they can
make.
As they are limited by the amount of money they can make, it is more likely that they will be influenced by negative activities such as smoking weed, taking or selling drugs, stealing, carjacking and other criminal activities to supplement their income earning potential.
This causes more social issues for the community because more teenagers and young adults will be in jail and crime increases. A person’s ability to afford a good lifestyle depends on their ability to earn a good salary. This means that the community is at risk for poor neighborhoods. Statistics show that chances of kids who don’t have a high school diploma having children increase, so there is an increase in single parenting and their children will be at a higher risk of being drop outs or not doing well in school as well.
There is the stigma and shame that comes along with being kicked out of school. Everyone knows you were kicked out and you will lose people who you thought were friends.
My speech identified four major areas of concern for kids kicked out of school: the economic effects of not having a high school diploma which limits the kind of jobs and the amount of money they can make; the social issues faced by drop outs such as increased crime and single parenting; the negative issues the community faces and the shame that comes along with being kicked out of school.
We need to start looking at what causes students to behave in ways that cause them to be kicked out of school and fix those issues to reduce that amount of these students in the community as it is a problem that has negative effects for the entire community.