Dear Friend:

This week General Colin Powell, America’s Promise Alliance Chair Alma Powell, and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan launched an exciting new campaign to reverse the high school dropout crisis in America. Over the next ten years, the Grad Nation campaign will mobilize individuals, organizations, and businesses to ensure that 90 percent of today’s fourth-graders graduate high school on time.

Today more than one in three American students fails to graduate from high school. Young people who drop out are twice as likely to be unemployed, three times as likely to live in poverty, eight times more likely to wind up in prison, and twice as likely to become the parent of child who in turn drops out. Continue reading →