Tagged: The Next Louisville

Twenty-three-year-old Steven Gholston was born in Louisville’s South End but moved all over Jefferson County, even spending time in Cincinnati and Georgia. He says constantly being on the move was difficult.

Gholston says he attended over half a dozen Jefferson County Public Schools before dropping out. 

Jefferson County Public Schools officials support raising the district’s dropout age to 18 and they want to move forward with approval soon.

Currently, students can drop out of school at age 16 with parental permission. But the General Assembly has passed legislation that would give local school districts the option to change that.

It's a decision JCPS has openly supported on its legislative agenda for the past two years, says Superintendent Donna Hargens.

Updated: School districts will have the option of raising the minimum age when students can drop out to 18 under legislation that on Monday cleared both the Kentucky House and Senate—which may lead to statewide implementation in the future.

The approved bill is a compromise reached after past efforts to strike a deal failed.

The dropout bill allows  local school boards to choose whether to raise the dropout age to 18. After 55 percent of Kentucky's school boards raise the drop out limit, the change in four years becomes mandatory statewide.

We hear a lot about failing and persistently low achieving public schools in Louisville. But schools like this exist across the state and across the country.

Author Ron Berler spent a year inside Brookside Elementary School in Norwalk, Connecticut. He tells his story in his new book “Raising the Curve: A Year Inside one of America’s 45,000 Failing Public Schools.”

As part of The Next Louisville education project WFPL’s Devin Katayama spoke with Berler.