Persuasive speaking - PowerPoint Presentation Example

The crucial message to emphasize actually is that it is never too late to finish what one has started; meaning, there is value in finishing one’s education. Why do students drop out in the first place? There are a multitude of rationales for dropping out. The reasons range from personal problems, family concerns, transportation dilemmas and academic issues. Furger, in his article entitled How to End the Drop Out Crisis (2008), has identified several reasons why high school students opt to leave school without earning their high school diploma.

Among those cited were: “(1) dropping out is the culmination of years of academic hurdles, missteps, and wrong turns; (2) it is a response to conflicting life pressures -- the need to help support their family financially or the demands of caring for siblings or their own child; (3) students become bored and see no connection between academic life and "real" life; (4) young people feel disconnected from their peers and from teachers and other adults at school; and (5) schools and communities have too few resources to meet the complex emotional and academic needs of their most vulnerable youth.

” By being aware of these reasons, parents, teachers, school administrators, the local community and the nation, as a whole, should look for appropriate measures to address the root causes for dropping out especially as it has serious implications to the economy. The research conducted by The Alliance for Excellent Education (2007) highlighted that dropouts are a financial drain on the economies of each state and the nation. Lower local, state, and national tax revenues are perhaps the most obvious consequence of higher dropout rates.

Even when dropouts are employed, they earn significantly lower wages than graduates. State and local economies suffer further when they have less-educated populaces, as they find it more difficult to attract new business investment. Simultaneously, these entities must spend more on social programs when their populations have lower educational levels. Dropouts represent a tremendous waste of human potential and productivity, and reduce the nation’s ability to compete in an increasingly global economy.

On the contrary, helping students realize the value of education by assisting them to graduate has economic and social benefits to society. Students who manage to graduate earning higher wages tantamount to resulting in attendant benefits to the local, state, and national economic conditions. Likewise, diverse research studies have validated the following advantages: high school graduates live longer (Muennig, 2005), are less likely to be teen parents (Haveman et al., 2001), and are more likely to raise healthier, better-educated children.

In fact, children of parents who graduate from high school are themselves far more likely to graduate from high school than are children of parents without a high school degree (Wolfe & Haveman, 2002). High school graduates are also less likely to commit crimes (Raphael, 2004), rely on government health care (Muennig, 2005), or use other public services such as food stamps or housing assistance (Garfinkel et al., 2005). Additionally, high school graduates engage in civic activity, including voting and volunteering in their communities, at higher levels (Junn, 2005).

A remuneration of the discourse reveals that there are obviously more benefits to be derived from seeking ways and means to ensue students stay in school until graduation than to