Re: CA Dropout Numbers - Implications

[aburke5054@aol.com]

A "who should take the rap" argument is an exercise in silliness.  
Anyhow, Heckman says the problem is less schools and more families.  So 
start the supports young and worry less about 8th grade algebra.

Art

-----Original Message-----
From: George Sheridan <learn@jps.net>
To: ca-resisters@serv1.ncte.org; ca-resisters@interversity.org
Cc: ENInational@lists.riseup.net; arn-l@interversity.org
Sent: Mon, 28 Jul 2008 12:10 pm
Subject: [arn-l] CA Dropout Numbers - Implications

Peter Schrag: The dropout numbers: Who should take the rap?
===========================================================


By Peter Schrag - pschrag@sacbee.com

Published in The Sacramento Bee Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Story appeared in METRO section, Page B7
http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/1098884.html

Coming just a week after the state Board of Education toughened math
requirements
for eighth- graders, California's new dropout statistics are even more 
sobering
than they would be otherwise.

As usual, the numbers, which are based on new data systems and which 
calculate
graduation rates as lower and dropout rates as higher than in the past, 
get the
predictable schools-are-failing responses, sometimes from the same 
people who
demand higher standards.

But in this murky statistical picture, the new data may be almost as 
misleading
as the old. Dropout numbers, long underreported, may be still worse, 

but it's
just as likely that they're better. In education, unfortunately, bad 
news is
much
more likely to get respectful attention than good news, which is too 
often
ignored.

The numbers, released last week by the state Department of Education, 
put
California's high school graduation rate in 2006-07, the latest year 
for which
numbers are available, at 67 percent and the cumulative grades nine to 
12
dropout
rate at 24 percent, the difference being the students who transferred, 
got an
equivalent diploma, left the country, died, etc.

Critics like Alan Bonsteel of the pro-voucher California Parents for 
Educational
Choice say the new system still uses "phony data" from school districts 
that
undercount dropouts. Among other things, he says, the state ignores the 
middle
school dropout rate and provides districts a long and sometimes dubious 
list of
reasons – "being on an extended family vacation" is one Bonsteel cites 
– to
discount the dropout numbers.

But in basing its calculations on enrollment in the ninth grade, which 
has a
huge
"bulge" of students who have been held back as not ready for high 
school work,
the state is probably overcounting dropouts. Some of that bulge may be 
transfers
from private schools, but it's hardly enough to account for most of it.

If the department's data for the graduation rate in 2006-07 were 
calculated on
the basis of eighth-grade enrollmen
t four years before, rather on the 
bulging
ninth- grade enrollment three years before, it would be 75 percent – 
hardly
great
but not as dismal as the 67 percent reported.

In all those calculations, almost needless to say, African American and 
Latino
students lag far below the state average. For African Americans, the 
state
estimates a dropout rate of 41 percent between ninth and 12th grade. 
For
Latinos,
it's 30 percent.

(For whites, on the other hand, it's15 percent; for Asians, 10 percent).

What deserves almost as much attention as the ethnic gaps and hasn't 
gotten it
are the gender differences – a 46 percent four-year dropout rate for 
African
American males vs. a 36 percent rate for females, with similar 
differences for
most other groups, which may be almost as significant as the numbers for
ethnicity.

Obviously, the numbers reflect school problems, and especially the 
inadequate
resources in schools serving the state's poorest children. It's not 
simply that
they don't get commensurate schooling – that their teachers are less 
qualified
or
that their school facilities are run down. Given the handicaps they 
bring to
school, they need richer resources, smaller classes, more counseling, 
more
enrichment, more of almost everything.

But the gender differences and other data are also reminders of the 
influence of
family, peers and other cultural factors, health care, housing a
nd 
countless
other factors largely beyond the control of schools.

In a report issued last month by the Public Policy Institute of 
California,
researchers concluded that children at risk of failure on the 
California High
School Exit Exam can be identified as early as fourth grade.

Given everything that's known, that's hardly surprising. It reinforces 
the
conviction that early intervention is more effective than later 
remediation. But
it also implies that academic problems aren't just created in the 
schools and
that calls from people like Barack Obama on black parents (fathers 
especially)
to
be there for their children – to work with them, read to them and 
encourage them
to engage in responsible behavior – aren't out of line, no matter how 
easy it is
to demagogue them as racist.

None of that exempts schools and teachers from their responsibility for 
quality.
Nor does it exempt California's leaders from the responsibility to 
provide
resources commensurate with their expectations – expectations that, as 
with the
decision mandating beginning algebra for all eighth-graders, are too 
casually
imposed by people, including the governor, eager to look serious and 
tough at
other people's expense.

The state says the new dropout numbers are higher not because dropping 
out has
increased but only because of the new way of calculating them. But 
Russell
Rumberger, who studies dropout issues 
at the School of Education at UC 
Santa
Barbara, says a close examination of the new data suggests that, in 
fact, the
dropout rate is rising.

What's almost certain is that every increase in demands on schools and 
students
not matched with the necessary resources to meet them is likely to 
drive up
failure rates and increase dropouts still further. That, too, is a 
no-brainer.


George Sheridan







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