Filmmaker Dr. Robert Mark Carpenter and Bill Milliken, Founder of Communities in Schools, with students in a still from American Dropout.

USC alumnus Dr. Robert Mark Carpenter (Ph.D. Rossier School of Education), has wrapped production on his feature length documentary, American Dropout. This film takes a raw and gritty look at the invisible high school dropout crisis. The project began while Carpenter was getting his doctorate at USC, and it continues his research on the complex factors that contribute to the dropout epidemic.

There are more than 50 million dropouts in the United States, and those affected cross all categories of location, culture, gender, and socio-economic status. These dropouts are ineligible for 90% of jobs, they commit 75% of all violent crimes, and they cost taxpayers nearly $2 trillion in welfare services. American Dropout follows Carpenter as he criss-crosses the country to investigate not only why this is happening, but what can be done about it before it is too late.

Carpenter says he was “shocked that, with the extensive scale of the dropout epidemic across the US, no other documentary had tackled this subject.” As the son of a dropout who went to a “dropout factory”, Carpenter decided to make a film about the issue.

He and his team embedded themselves into the lives of four dropouts: one who was addicted to cutting, one whose dad would taze her to wake her up for school, one who got addicted to drugs, and another who was in a gang. Selecting the subjects was one challenge. Another challenge was interviewing them to get their intimate stories while trying to keep them as safe as possible when discussing their trauma. Carpenter had a therapist present at most interviews so he could ensure the safety of the cast and crew while keeping his objective distance as a filmmaker.

Seeking a broad lens on this subject, Carpenter interviewed experts ranging from former U.S. Secretaries of Education Arne Duncan and John King to Communities in Schools Founder Bill Milliken to diversity expert Dr. Darlene Robles and poverty expert Dr. Ruby Payne. He interrogates the science behind at-risk kids, how trauma shifts brain activity in children and how that puts them in jeopardy within social systems. The dense relationship of families, school administration, public health: all these forces are involved in both the causes and potential cures of the dropout epidemic.

“I hope the film will help form consensus about how to end the dropout epidemic in the US. It’s a story of healing, of recovery from trauma,” says Carpenter. After looking at his own experience, he realized he had to be authentic about his own fears and prejudices around dropouts in order to allow space for himself and his subjects to begin to heal.

American Dropout is currently in post-production.

Articles