AMERICA'S economy is evolving relentlessly in the high-tech "Information Age." Good-paying jobs increasingly go to well-trained, well-educated workers with specialized skills. People with only high school diplomas - and those who don't graduate at all - are being left farther and farther behind.

Back in the postwar era of blue-collar factories, even dropouts could enter manufacturing work and rise to middle-class incomes. But that opportunity is receding. Millions of U.S. manufacturing jobs been wiped out by automation or moved overseas. Today's middle-class pay arises mostly from glass office towers filled with computers, fax machines, videoconference screens and the like - the realm of the educated.

The Center for Economic and Policy Research defines a "good job" as one paying at least $16 an hour, with full benefits. A new report from the agency says that, in 1979, workers with only high school diplomas or less held 36 percent of America's "good jobs" - but the ratio dropped to just 18 percent by 2005, heading downward.

Less-educated workers will suffer most in the ongoing economic slump, the report said. "People in the middle and at the bottom are going to be the bulk of victims in a recession," a center economist said.

In view of this disturbing trend, all West Virginia families should try hard to push their children to higher levels of learning to bolster their futures. But sadly, this state has an ominous high school dropout rate, like much of America.

Kanawha County school board member Becky Jordon was alarmed to learn that 70 students dropped out of Riverside High School so far this term, and 50 quit Herbert Hoover, and 28 left George Washington. She told the board it was "too many kids already to be losing.... We just have so many falling through the cracks."

Those 150 lost youths will have little hope of finding good careers. Most will wind up in minimum-wage jobs, or worse. Some may return to earn GEDs, but even that isn't enough in the snowballing "knowledge economy."

Nationally, the picture is just as dismal. Former Gov. Bob Wise, now head of the Alliance for Excellent Education, warned: "Almost one-third of students won't graduate. Another third will not graduate ready for college or the modern workplace."

A 2006 study funded by the Gates Foundation concluded: "There is a high school dropout epidemic in America. Each year, almost one-third of all public high school students - and nearly half of all blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans - fail to graduate."

The report warned that dropouts are much more likely to "be unemployed, living in poverty, receiving public assistance, in prison, on death row, unhealthy, divorced, and single parents with children who drop out from high school themselves."

This waste of young lives is tragic. All adults should support efforts to keep teens in high school - then push them for advanced training needed for the Information Age.

Repeatedly, we have urged that the legal dropout age be raised to 17 to spur more youths to graduate. Riverside High School Principal Paula Potter goes farther, recommending an 18 cutoff.

Saving young people is imperative. State leaders should give serious study to raising the dropout age.

Back in the postwar era of blue-collar factories, even dropouts could enter manufacturing work and rise to middle-class incomes. But that opportunity is receding. Millions of U.S. manufacturing jobs been wiped out by automation or moved overseas. Today's middle-class pay arises mostly from glass office towers filled with computers, fax machines, videoconference screens and the like - the realm of the educated.

The Center for Economic and Policy Research defines a "good job" as one paying at least $16 an hour, with full benefits. A new report from the agency says that, in 1979, workers with only high school diplomas or less held 36 percent of America's "good jobs" - but the ratio dropped to just 18 percent by 2005, heading downward.

Less-educated workers will suffer most in the ongoing economic slump, the report said. "People in the middle and at the bottom are going to be the bulk of victims in a recession," a center economist said.

In view of this disturbing trend, all West Virginia families should try hard to push their children to higher levels of learning to bolster their futures. But sadly, this state has an ominous high school dropout rate, like much of America.

Kanawha County school board member Becky Jordon was alarmed to learn that 70 students dropped out of Riverside High School so far this term, and 50 quit Herbert Hoover, and 28 left George Washington. She told the board it was "too many kids already to be losing.... We just have so many falling through the cracks."

Those 150 lost youths will have little hope of finding good careers. Most will wind up in minimum-wage jobs, or worse. Some may return to earn GEDs, but even that isn't enough in the snowballing "knowledge economy."

Nationally, the picture is just as dismal. Former Gov. Bob Wise, now head of the Alliance for Excellent Education, warned: "Almost one-third of students won't graduate. Another third will not graduate ready for college or the modern workplace."

A 2006 study funded by the Gates Foundation concluded: "There is a high school dropout epidemic in America. Each year, almost one-third of all public high school students - and nearly half of all blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans - fail to graduate."

The report warned that dropouts are much more likely to "be unemployed, living in poverty, receiving public assistance, in prison, on death row, unhealthy, divorced, and single parents with children who drop out from high school themselves."

This waste of young lives is tragic. All adults should support efforts to keep teens in high school - then push them for advanced training needed for the Information Age.

Repeatedly, we have urged that the legal dropout age be raised to 17 to spur more youths to graduate. Riverside High School Principal Paula Potter goes farther, recommending an 18 cutoff.

Saving young people is imperative. State leaders should give serious study to raising the dropout age.