Leaders and citizens have high hopes for Kannapolis' future, with the N.C. Research Campus bringing thousands of high-skill jobs to the area. But if today's high school students aspire to do something more than empty the trash or vacuum the floors at the Research Campus — if they want the coming prosperity to be their prosperity — they must graduate from high school.

It's the same old song. Both Kannapolis City and Cabarrus County school systems saw their dropout rate increase in 2004-05, to 5.87 percent and 5.24 percent, respectively. Rowan-Salisbury's rate decreased from 5.78 percent to 5.49, but all three systems are still far above the state's 4.7 percent.

Reasons abound — boring classes, attendance problems, uninvolved parents, teen pregnancy, the need to work a fulltime job. The consequences are worse: a lifetime of lower wages and higher frustrations.

The persistent dropout rate in this area is the drip, drip, drip of human potential draining away. And it's not just Kannapolis, not just North Carolina, not just the South. A report compiled for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation calls the nationwide dropout problem "The Silent Epidemic," and it makes the 4 and 5 percent dropout rates calculated by the state look like fairy tales. The actual graduation rate is between 60 and 70 percent.

"Each year, almost one third of all public high school students — and nearly one-half of all blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans — fail to graduate from public high school with their class," the report says.

Schools have coordinators and programs to counter the trend, and No Child Left Behind will soon hit them with a big club, a 90 percent graduation rate requirement. But more of the same isn't getting it. Neither is the traditional, one-size-fits-all high school.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who is donating millions toward improving education, has declared American high schools obsolete. "Training the workforce of tomorrow with the high schools of today is like trying to teach kids about today's computers on a 50-year-old mainframe," he told a national education summit last year.

"The Silent Epidemic" shares recommendations, from making classwork more relevant to ensuring that students have a strong relationship with at least one adult in the school. Our society needs to take a serious look at the student experience in high school. Who does it not fit? And how can it be tailored to help them reach their full potential? This is everyone's problem.