Anti-dropout grants get support

About three dozen House members, including Speaker Joe Hackney, appeared at a news conference Tuesday in support of continuing a grant program aimed at curbing high school dropouts.

The program was approved in 2007 and devoted $22 million over two years to grants. In that time, the Department of Public Instruction handed out 140 grants to school districts, nonprofit organizations and government agencies. Each award came with strings -- the recipient must show they are making good use of the money.

Hackney said he does not yet know how much money will be available to expand the program, but he said the grants are still needed. Three out of 10 high school students leave before graduation and the current economic crisis makes it even tougher for dropouts to find work and have a future, he said.

"We cannot allow them to consign themselves to lifetimes of poverty and uncertainty because of something that happens when they are teenagers," Hackney said.

State Reps. Susan Fisher, an Asheville Democrat and Earline Parmon, a Winston-Salem Democrat will run the bill through the House, Hackney said.

Parmon said that money spent to keep a student in school avoids future costs for unemployment, prison space and food stamps.

"It will save us down the road," Parmon said.