A new report on educational attainment and achievement among 15- to 24-year-olds in the South argues that the region needs to build a new “infrastructure of opportunity” that includes stronger middle schools, a new “meld” of high schools and community colleges, and enhanced prekindergarten programs.
The report from MDC, a nonprofit in Durham, N.C., originally known as Manpower Development Corp., ties many of the challenges facing the South’s young people to the two recessions of the previous decade.
Covering 13 states, the study also highlights the demographic and cultural changes presented by that generation of Southerners; for example, of those ages 75 and older, 78 percent are white, but among 15- to 24-year-olds, only half are white.
