« Vol 4, Issue 3, Winter 2005

The Dropout State?

A crisis is brewing in California schools, revealed not by poor grades or declining test scores but a far more ordinary symptom: empty seats. Only 69 percent of the state's students are graduating high school on time, according to recent research by Harvard University and the Urban Institute.

For minority students, the news is worse. Only 55 percent of African American students, and 57 percent of Latino students, graduate with regular diplomas. The figures are even lower for male students in these groups.

The research, based on new methods for calculating dropout data, has issued a wake-up call for California schools.

"The number of youth who aren't getting a high school diploma is staggering," says Anne Stanton, director of Irvine's Youth program. "The failure to educate, connect, and help young people complete a significant milestone like high school has huge ramifications, both for the individual lives of these young people and for the economy of California. When you think of the cumulative effect of these statistics over a decade or more, the implications are tragic."

To focus public attention on the state’s low high school graduation rates and to help policymakers, education leaders, and advocacy groups probe causes and explore solutions, the Irvine Foundation is sponsoring two conferences, one on March 24 in Los Angeles for the public, and a special briefing in May for the California legislature. The March 24 public event in Los Angeles is free, but space is limited and registration is required. Please register on or before March 15, 2005, by filling out the online form. Conference details are being finalized; for more information, contact Christina Nahi at cnahi@law.harvard.edu, at the Civil Rights Project.

Public awareness of the problem is so low because data on graduation rates is often wrong, with states and localities using a wide variety of methods and standards for calculating dropout rates, and minimal state or federal oversight of graduation rates for accuracy, the report's authors contend. As a result, dropout data can be strikingly misleading. In some states, for example, a 5 percent dropout rate has been reported for African Americans, when the real number is closer to 50 percent.

And in California, what is officially reported as a nearly 87 percent graduation rate is actually, when measured with a more thorough Urban Institute method, just under 69 percent, according to the report. Dropouts for minority youth in California schools are similarly underestimated by official data.

The California conferences will be run by Harvard University's Civil Rights Project and focus on findings and ideas of a range of scholars featured in the project's new book, Dropouts in America: Confronting the Graduation Rate Crisis.

"The consequences of not completing high school for these students and their communities is devastating," according to Gary Orfield, editor of Dropouts in America and co-director of the Civil Rights Project, which identifies such dropout effects as higher unemployment, prison incarceration, and poverty rates. "Schools in some districts are literally hemorrhaging students."

Some scholars in the book cast doubt on the testing emphasis of recent school reform efforts. In many schools, they argue, to boost aggregate test scores low-performing students are being either held back, which increases their likelihood of eventually dropping out, or pushed out of the system altogether. "It is no success for anyone," Harvard's Orfield writes, "if a school raises its average test scores by flunking out low-scoring students and ruining their future."

The Losing Our Future report also criticizes the California system for its "soft" approach to holding schools accountable on graduate rates. "California's appearance of having a high graduation rate standard is an illusion," according to the study.

The state is "among the weakest" of 39 states that establish a graduation rate goal but "give an accountability 'pass' to any school or district that falls below the goal, yet shows 'any improvement.'" As a result, the researchers point out, a change as slight as 1/10th of 1 percent over the previous year could pass the accountability test. As an example, the report cites the San Bernardino school district, which could continue to pass the state's minimal "improvement" standard but, at its current rate, still take 500 years to meet California's goal of 100 percent graduation

"This research focuses attention on the need to make education relevant for California students, and to the fact that high school systems aren't working for many young people," says Irvine's Anne Stanton. "It's a call to action."

Link:

California’s K-12 Public Schools: How Are They Doing?

Describes the condition and performance of California's K-12 public schools in terms of student population, resources, and outcomes, analyzing trends and comparing California to other states and the nation as a whole. Published by the RAND Corporation, with funding from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

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