Cutting truancy expected to lower poverty numbers

from The Rockford Register Star

By Geri Nikolai

ROCKFORD — Fighting truancy is a great first step toward reducing poverty, said the leader of a watchdog group that tracks economic conditions in Illinois.

Amy Rynell said local efforts to curb truancy should improve Winnebago County’s high school graduation rate, which in 2005-06 was the third worst in the state at 78.5 percent.

That is one reason Winnebago County stayed on the “Poverty Warning List” in the 2007 report generated by the Illinois Poverty Summit. Ogle County moved onto the “Poverty Watch List” in the report, while Boone County moved off the Watch List.

Other factors that determine if a county gets on one of the lists are teen birth rate, unemployment rate and poverty rate. The only one where Winnebago County improved was unemployment rate.

Rynell commended local leaders — United Way, the city, county, school district and others — who go after habitually truant students with court action, counseling and mentoring.

“One reason we include graduation rate is that it’s a predictor of future income,” she said. “For each year of education you get, you really see a difference in your economic bottom line.”

SirCharles Townsend of Rockford sees his economic bottom line on the upswing, finally, eight years after he dropped out of high school as a freshman.

Townsend, 22, said after quitting school, he ended up “down and out. I kind of lost track of myself.”

In October, he enrolled in YouthBuild, a program that teaches construction and other skills to dropouts who are given stipends as they learn. Since then, Townsend has earned his GED, rented an apartment where he lives with his sister and looks forward to getting an apprenticeship.

“A year from now,” he said, “I see myself earning $15 to $16 an hour and saving to own my own house.”

Michael Call, president of United Way, said the poverty report shows why the anti-truancy efforts are so important.

“All these social issues tie together in a clear critical way,” he said. “All we really need to do is turn the key on helping kids stay in school and the graduation rate goes up, the poverty rate goes down, crime goes down and employment goes up.”

“If we, as a community, can stay focused on keeping kids in school, Winnebago County can get off that Watch List. It will take a few years, but it can happen,” Call said.

Rockford School Superintendent Dennis Thompson recalled the three rules for staying out of poverty he once heard: 1. Graduate from high school; 2. Get a job; 3. Don’t have children until you’re married.

“If you violate one, your chances of going into poverty triple,” said Thompson.

Thompson said he dealt with a former dropout recently who came asking for his diploma. The young man had been offered a good job, but only if he could prove he graduated from high school.

“He was two credits short,” Thompson said. “Fortunately, he had made them up by taking equivalent courses in the military so I was able to authorize his diploma.

“He was crying,” added Thompson. “When it comes to education, he was now a believer.”

Others move off list
Boone County may have moved off the Poverty Watch List because of the population growth it continues to see from the Chicago suburbs, said Rynell of the Poverty Summit.

“That’s a plausible conclusion. It definitely happens in smaller communities,” she said.

The poverty rate in Boone County was listed as 7.9 percent, 4 percentage points under the state average. Ogle County’s poverty rate was 8.7 percent and Winnebago’s was 12.7 percent.

Ogle County was placed on the Watch List because its teen pregnancy, unemployment and poverty rates were worse than the year before, Rynell said.

Winnebago County, on the Warning List for the second year, “continues to struggle,” Rynell said.

“One of the things I see in Winnebago is a higher bankruptcy rate than the state,” she said.

The state bankruptcy rate in 2005 was 8.3 per 1,000 people. The local numbers were 12.2 in Winnebago, 7.9 in Boone and 7.5 in Ogle.

Typically, a community with a high bankruptcy rate sees a plethora of high-interest lending shops opening up, Rynell said.

“They really proliferate in poor areas and result in the poor becoming poorer,” she said. “They end up just digging a deeper financial hole.”

The report shows housing continues to be a bargain in the Rock River Valley. Fair-market rent for a two-bedroom unit is $829 monthly on average in the state, the report said. The numbers locally are $599 in Ogle County and $635 in Boone and Winnebago.

If you earn a minimum wage, you must work 71-75 hours each week to afford those apartments, the report said. The Illinois average was 98 hours a week and, in some Chicago collar counties, it was 111 hours.

Staff writer Geri Nikolai can be contacted at 815-987-1337 or gnikolai@rrstar.com.