The blurry haze of statistics

Up way too late one night, my friend Beth and I got into a nutty screaming match regarding education. We both know of what we speak - she works in a collegiate department of education, I did my grad work in the subject - and then we hit a brick wall: dropout rates. We were both drunk enough that, honestly, I can't remember whose point was proved, but I know what my point was: from the late 1950s on, it is a fact that approximately 30 percent of Americans - primarily men - drop out of high school. You can find variances, but overall, this stat - the 30 percent one - stands true, year in and year out. 

A strange facet of American life is the insistence of quantification: we cannot accept as natural that, once Americans hit the age of 16, three of ten of us don't care to finish high school. The statistics can be massaged, but overall, this is, was and will remain the truth among American public schoolers. Some don't want to go, others start working, still others get fed up. Whatever the reason, the idea is that the dropout rate being a bad thing is skewed. Who among the educated classes, at this tumultuous moment in American economic life, is happy they didn't learn a trade and start working? Precious few, I'd suggest.  It's not to downgrade the fruits of an education, it's merely to say that if one has a point to dropping out - a plan, an arc - then one is wise to do so. 

I bring this up regarding an otherwise wonderful column by Victor David Hanson, a damn smart fella, a Californian and a farmer. The point herein is that he should (must) know that 30 percent of young adults don't care to graduate from high school. Fair or not, the implication that 30 percent of California high schoolers not graduating is an anamoly bugs me - look it up, it's not. 

VDH, whose writing I enjoy and whose column where the following is included, is on target otherwise:

Biannual state proposition initiatives, often put on the ballot by narrow special interests, allowed voters to vote for additional entitlements and benefits without providing the money to pay for them. Yet Californians are not an informed electorate, as the state’s mediocre public high schools experience 30 percent dropout rates.