School Dropout Rate Dips Under New Formula

Using a new state definition for what constitutes a school dropout, 26% of all high school students who enter ninth grade in the San Diego Unified School District drop out before graduating four years later.

Although the number represents a significant drop from the 36.7% estimate under previous state guidelines last year, it still is unacceptably high for district administrators, who concede that they have no single “best bet” strategy to deal with the problem.

The staff will present the new figures to the Board of Education today, along with proposals for several pilot programs to prevent dropouts that the district wants to experiment with. The plans range from a jointly funded program with private business in San Diego to three strategies that would be financed by a hoped-for $500,000 federal grant.

“The reasons and causes for dropouts are so many that I don’t think there will ever be one particular format or answer,” Bertha Pendleton, district deputy superintendent who oversees dropout prevention, said. Some district principals and counselors have complained privately that there appears to be no consistent philosophy to the district’s efforts.

But Pendleton noted national educational reports that find no single solution that appears to work. “For that reason, I think we have to tap into as many things as possible,” she said.

The board will learn today of the new state definition that defines a dropout as any student who leaves school before graduation and does not return to a school, or an equivalent educational program, by mid-October of the next school year.

Using New Definition of Dropout

The state Department of Education previously had labeled a dropout as a student who leaves school and does not ask for a transcript to be sent to another public or private school within 45 days.

Under the new definition, administrators found that, for the 1986-87 school year, 6.9% of students in San Diego dropped out in grades 9 through 12. They then extrapolated the rate over four years and came up with the 26%.

Using the same definition for ethnic groups, the four-year district dropout rate for Latinos is estimated at 39.2%; for Indochinese, 29.5%; for blacks, 27.9%; for whites, 22.6%; for Asians, 21.6%, and for Filipinos, 12.4%. The Indochinese category includes Vietnamese, Khmer (Cambodian), Lao and Hmong ethnic students.

By high school ranking, Hoover has a 44.4% dropout rate, the district’s highest, meaning that 44 of every 100 students who enter Hoover in the ninth grade are not there for graduation four years later. Lincoln was close behind with a 42% rate, followed by Morse at 32% and San Diego at 33% for a three-year period. All those high schools have predominantly minority enrollments.

The lowest rates among high schools included La Jolla, University City, Gompers and Madison.

Memorial Junior High School has 22% of its ninth-graders drop out, and 11% of its eighth-graders. The next highest is Roosevelt Junior High, where 10% of eighth-graders and 10% of ninth-graders drop out.

Administrators say that even the new definition does not account for certain situations, such as Indochinese students who come as 17- or 18-year-old refugees and stay in school only a short time before having to leave to take a job, or

Latino students whose families return to Mexico.

Nevertheless, officials concede that the figures are too high. And, although many prevention and recovery programs are under way at a variety of schools, especially those in minority areas, local and national educators warn that short-term success is not likely.

A special U.S. Department of Education committee, on which San Diego district superintendent Tom Payzant served, concluded last fall that no single model will ever work to prevent dropouts. Another national report said that at least six differing strategies could be useful, depending on the particular problems in a local district.

San Diego administrators will tell the board as much today when they ask approval to redefine their own dropout goals for the next several years. They pledge now to reduce the four-year dropout rate by 50% and to increase by 25% the number of students enrolled in programs to prevent dropouts. A staff report says it is unreasonable to expect to make a significant dent in the dropout problem in the short run.

The board is expected to approve a pilot program for a $434,000 Dropout Prevention and Recovery Center in Southeast San Diego, financed with $148,000 from the district and with $285,477 from the Private Industry Council of San Diego. The program would enroll about 120 students at first, mainly those in grades eight and nine who are either dropouts or at high risk of dropping out. They would enter a one- to two-semester program of computer-assisted instruction in basic skills as well as intensive training in job-related skills such as discipline, personal interaction and other social habits.

Although the industry council is primarily interested in employment skills, the district will emphasize fast-paced academic remediation, Pendleton said. “Operationally, many of the details are not in place . . . but I think the combination of a job experience or internship and a strong educational component is a proven model around the country.”

Pendleton stressed that the basic skills instruction for such programs will begin to include elements of the district’s new core curriculum, which is designed to bring higher-level math and English material to more of the district’s 115,000 students.

The board also will be asked to apply for an available $500,000 in federal funds for dropout prevention and recovery experiments.

‘M and M’ Project

Pendleton said the district wants to set up a motivation and maintenance project in the Hoover and Morse clusters, which include the junior high and at least two of the elementary schools that feed into the high schools.

The “M and M” project is already under way in the San Diego and Lincoln High clusters, financed by a state grant. It involves improving attendance for at-risk students through personalized counseling and tutoring for both students and parents. Pendleton said the program appears to be working well and cited the success by Memorial Junior High this year in reducing its truancy rate from almost 50% to below 20%.

The federal money, if received, also would be used to set up a partnership academy in one or more high schools, based on a model being tried in several California schools. The model creates a school within a school, where perhaps a single group of 100 students is placed with the same teachers and counselors for its entire high school career in a way to promote pride and motivation as well as more academic success.

And some of the money would go toward maintaining a successful summer school that combines academics and jobs--Project Step--that otherwise will terminate after this year because of an end to the the Ford Foundation grant that has funded it.

“The total picture is not well understood for preventing dropouts, but I do think that we are trying things that have the potential to work in some way,” Pendleton said.