American Graduate Day Highlights Fight to Curb Student Dropouts

More than 7,000 students drop out of school every day, a million each year. Join public media partners this Saturday, Sept. 22, 2012, for the first ever American Graduate Day — a full day of multi-platform programing to fight high school student dropout rates.

Under the American Graduate: Let’s Make It Happen initiative, over 20 national partner organizations have joined forces to fight the crisis by engaging schools, parents, students and community leaders.

The special day will feature stories and best practices from familiar voices such as NewsHour senior correspondent Ray Suarez, Need to Know’s Jim Glassman and Tavis Smiley.

Here’s how you can tune in:

Watch: The national television broadcast begins this Saturday at 1 p.m. ET on your local PBS station.

The program, hosted by CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo, ABC News’ JuJu Chang, NBC Nightly News education correspondent Rehema Ellis, Stone Phillips, Ray Suarez and more, will run special segments and local content until 8 p.m.

Check local listings or stream it live here.

Listen: Public Radio International (PRX) and Connecticut Public Radio – WNPR will produce a one-hour special, “Left Behind, Dropping Out.” You can also listen to PRX’s curated American Graduate playlist for additional content.

Join the conversation: The dropout crisis affects each community differently. Follow us at American Graduate on Facebook and @amerigrad and #amgrad on Twitter to share what’s going on in your backyard.

Help: Be a champion. Find out what’s going on in your community and how you can help here.

Then, join us next week on the PBS NewsHour as we take a deeper look at the dropout crisis.

American Graduate is a public media initiative funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to help local communities across America find solutions to address the dropout crisis.

Follow @newshouramgrad