Jackie Gerstein

7,000: The number of students nationwide who drop out of school every day. Schools known as dropout factories produce more than half of our country's dropouts. 2,000 dropout factories produce almost three-fourths of African American students and two-thirds of Hispanic students who didn't finish school.  Studies show that dropouts dim not only their own economic future but also that of their communities. The 1.2 million students who should have graduated with the class of '07 will cost the nation $329 billion in lost income over the course of their lifetimes. About two-thirds of all prisoners are high school dropouts.
Source: http://www.edutopia.org/stat-high-school-dropout-rate

If we want to change these statistics and ultimately, the course of American Education, then educational reform cannot be just a whim of a few, it needs to become a necessity demanded by the majority.