About 9,600 ninth-graders have just entered Charlotte-Mecklenburg high schools. If trends continue, 2,880 of them will be gone by the time their classmates graduate in 2014.

For the most part, it's not hard to predict who will fall off the diploma track. Problems in school, often accompanied by turmoil at home, emerge as early as elementary school.

Despite "no social promotion" policies, the students least likely to graduate have already been promoted without the reading and math skills they need. They'll be back in ninth grade next fall and may never make it to 10th.

Black freshmen outnumber white classmates now, but by commencement time, the proportions will probably reverse. At a handful of high-poverty, mostly black high schools, almost half the new freshmen will fail to collect diplomas four years later.

CMS has made gains since its bleak 2009 graduation rate created a sense of urgency. But most students remain less likely to finish high school in 2010 than peers around the state and in comparable cities.

Cutting the dropout rate in half would pump as much as $25.6 million into the Charlotte region's economy by increased earnings, spending, investment and home sales, mostly among African-Americans and Hispanics, says a study by the Alliance for Excellent Education released this summer.

And some costs can't be measured in dollars.

Saving kids: What's it worth?

Many believe the best chance for saving students on the brink comes from a personal relationship with an adult - a teacher, counselor, family member or mentor - who sets high standards and inspires the young person to meet them.

The story of Danquirs Franklin and Juwon Lewis (see Page 1A) shows the challenges of building such connections when families are in crisis.

But sometimes the needs of children aren't as obvious.

Sam Constine, one of the 3,310 CMS kids who failed to graduate with his class in 2009, is a white kid living in suburbia, with two parents and older siblings who went to college. He attended high-performing schools, and his family tried desperately to help him succeed. But merciless bullying by classmates eroded any advantages he brought from home.

Sam, now 19, recalls high school as a miserable experience. He skipped more than he showed up, and when he went to class, he slept and fiddled with his cell phone.

When he flunked 10th grade, his future looked as bleak as any other failing student's.

Sam got a lifeline from CMS's Performance Learning Center, a small alternative site created for students who founder in traditional schools.

"I went from 'rather die than go to school' to 'I love school!'" says Sam.

He got a diploma in January, found a job with the help of PLC faculty and just started his first course at Central Piedmont Community College.

That's the kind of turnaround that educators, policymakers, philanthropists and advocacy groups are eager to replicate. They're working on a long list of efforts to boost graduation, from early education to summer camps to better job training for teens.

But most of those efforts are expensive, at a time when competition for every dollar is fierce. When the recession hit, CMS pulled the plug on plans to open a second PLC.

As CMS and community leaders weigh painful choices ahead, one of the toughest questions may be: What is it worth to save an at-risk kid?

Starting early

CMS's prevention work starts early, with free public prekindergarten, big chunks of class time spent teaching reading to children in K-2, and top principals and teachers being sent into some of the district's weakest elementary schools.

Community groups join educators in the quest for quick intervention. For instance, the national dropout-prevention group Communities In Schools sends social workers and volunteers into 17 CMS elementary schools where many of the city's impoverished, homeless and immigrant children are concentrated. They work with the whole family, trying to support the kind of healthy, stable homes that encourage school success.

But the daily survival struggle that defines life for many families can undermine those efforts. Many disadvantaged children switch schools frequently. CIS staff keep track as long as they're in the network of 42 elementary, middle and high schools with which the nonprofit group works. But many shift in and out - often falling behind as they keep adjusting to new classrooms.

Moving up to middle school jolts more kids off course. The work gets harder, the schools get bigger and peer culture can rule an adolescent's life.

Sam attended a high-performing suburban middle school - he and his mother, Ruth Constine, prefer not to name it - where he was physically and verbally bullied. Ruth Constine says her son got overlooked in a large school because he was neither a troublemaker nor a star.

"Intellectually, I don't fault the schools," she says now. "But emotionally I do. They didn't take care of my child."

Sam moved to high school, but by then, he had nothing but loathing for school.

Promote or retain?

For Asia Wider, middle school was the end of the line.

She attended Eastway and J.T. Williams, both of which have high poverty levels and a history of weak performance. Asia, now 18, says she got suspended a lot, mostly for minor infractions. Every time she was sent home, she fell further behind in class. She failed courses and was held back.

In 2008, when she was 16 and still in eighth grade, she quit in frustration. Now she's working on her GED at CPCC, hoping to pass the math test by December.

To many laypeople, it's obvious that students shouldn't move up until they've mastered the skills from the previous grade. Ten years ago, N.C. lawmakers set "gateway" standards, designed to thwart social promotion by encouraging schools to hold back kids who don't pass third-, fifth- and eighth-grade exams.

Principals have final say, and most students who flunk the tests move up anyway. That's because many educators and experts say repeating the grade does more harm than good.

"Public perception is that retention is beneficial, especially in the early years," says Deborah Houck, president of the N.C. School Psychology Association. "They feel like it's a chance for kids to catch up. The problem comes when they don't see what happens in the long term."

Research done by Houck, a CMS school psychologist, and others nationwide shows that students held back do perform better when they repeat that grade. But over the long run, those students are more likely to fall behind academically, cause behavior problems and drop out than comparably weak students who were promoted, Houck said.

The students most likely to be held back - minorities, boys and kids from impoverished families - are also the biggest risk for dropping out, Houck says. The School Psychology Association recommends that most students who fail exams should be promoted and given extra help to catch up.

"The farther behind they are, the more damaged they are by retention," Houck says. "It's so counterintuitive."

Dumbing down?

CMS is working to avoid holding students back, or to move them into alternative settings when they get significantly older than classmates.

They've created "alternative to suspension" centers so students temporarily kicked out of school can keep learning.

Midwood High, a catch-up for ninth-graders not academically ready for high school, was created as a catchup for ninth-graders not ready for high school work. Last year, CMS added the Bank Street credit-recovery program, in which older high school students who have fallen behind can work on the credits they need.

"We don't believe a student who is 17 and in their middle-school years is ever going to graduate," Superintendent Peter Gorman told the school board in May. "We've got to get them into an alternative high school setting."

The new standards limit how often a student can be held back in elementary and middle school and give ninth-graders an extra year to pass freshman English without being retained.

In CMS and most U.S. districts, ninth-grade homerooms bulge with older students who have failed required classes and are still classified as freshmen. The longer students stall in ninth grade, the less likely it is they'll ever collect a diploma.

CMS has reduced the number of credits required to graduate from 28 to 24, effective with the Class of 2013 (the state minimum is 20). Such moves inevitably bring charges of "dumbing down."

But supporters note that a student who passes all classes could graduate in three years. That gives kids a number of options for senior year, they said, such as tuition-free classes at community colleges, studying abroad or working on advanced high school classes needed for college admission

Plugging the cracks

By the time Sam advanced to a high-performing high school, he was depressed and bitter about school. He got angry when his parents insisted he needed to go to college. By the middle of 10th grade, he simply stopped going.

A family friend told Ruth Constine about the Performance Learning Center. She tried to get Sam in for 2007-08, but they missed the application deadline. Reluctantly, Sam agreed to repeat 10th grade, but he passed only a couple of his eight classes.

In 2009-10, Sam started at the brick building north of uptown Charlotte, a world away from his suburban home. He immediately connected with PLC Principal Sherry Sigmon and Communities In Schools Coordinator Chris Capel. For the first time since he was a small child, Sam started making friends.

He was 14 credits short of graduating, almost two full years behind. When he first heard that he would work online at his own pace, he figured that meant goofing off, something he mastered at his old school. He quickly learned otherwise.

"It's self-paced as long as you stay ahead," Sam says. "You have to be very motivated to stay at this school."

By the end of his first year at the PLC - what should have been his senior year - he had completed 10 credits, two more than he could have at a normal pace. He had perfect attendance and all As and Bs. Capel took him out to lunch to celebrate the grades, and he got tickets to see "The Color Purple" as a reward for attendance.

First semester of 2009-10, Sam finished his last four credits. Teachers let him know when they heard about jobs, helping him land a spot at Black Forest Books & Toys.

Sam got his diploma in February. At the PLC's ceremony, he handed his parents a rose.

For the first time, Sam saw his father cry.