CA Dropout Numbers - Implications

[George Sheridan <learn@jps.net>]

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