WASHINGTON, Sept. 19 (UPI) -- A report by the Congress-created nonprofit National Conference on Citizenship says high school dropouts are less likely to vote than other U.S. citizens.
The report, compiled from national surveys conducted between the mid-1970s and the present, found 31 percent of high school dropouts voted in 2004, compared with 62 percent of college graduates, The Washington Post said Tuesday.
"High school dropouts are ... nearly voiceless in a system that fails them," said John Bridgeland, a former domestic policy adviser to President Bush and chief executive officer of Civic Enterprises, who heads of the conference's advisory board.
The report, "Broken Engagement, America's Civic Health Index," reflected an overall decline in civic participation. However, it found hopeful signs including increases in volunteering and political involvement since the 1990s.
Robert Putnam, a Harvard University professor and expert in the field of civic participation, urged caution when considering the hopeful signs.
"We have to be a little careful about celebrating this young generation. This is mostly an upper middle-class phenomenon," he said. "If we continue to have a substantial and growing gap between people coming out of the middle class and people coming out of the lower class, we are going to be in a serious pickle in civic terms."
