State Dropout Rate Falls 38.8% in Eight Years : Education: Officials attribute the decline to special school programs targeting the problem and to general reforms. All major ethnic groups improve.

California is steadily chipping away at its once abysmal high school dropout rate, reducing it by 38.8% in the eight years since the state began tracking the numbers of students who left school before graduating, officials said.

A state Department of Education report to be released today shows that 15.3% of the Class of 1993 dropped out between 10th grade and graduation day, down from the 16.5% of students lost from the Class of 1992. Eight years earlier, one-fourth of all California high school students failed to earn a diploma or its equivalent. However, the state dropout rate remains above the national average.

Improvements were registered in all the major ethnic groups, although the rates for African Americans and Latinos, about 22% for each, remain above the state average. (For the Class of 1986, dropout rates for both groups were more than 35%.)

The report, based on data collected annually since 1986 from each of the state’s secondary school districts, provided a dose of good news for a department that has been battling controversies, the most recent of which is the furor over its pioneering but problem-plagued testing system.

The progress came despite several years of tight budgets and at a time when increasing proportions of the state’s 5.2 million public school students live in poverty or speak little English, placing them at higher risk of dropping out. The rate, calculated over a three-year period, is based on the number of students who leave during grades 10, 11 and 12 and do not transfer to another school or enter an alternative diploma program.

State officials credit small but aggressive anti-dropout programs in growing numbers of school districts, as well as a decade of reform efforts to overhaul curriculum and teaching, improve textbooks, encourage more students to take tougher courses and reorganize schools to make them more effective.

“What we have is a tremendous number of people in California working incredibly hard to improve what’s going on in public schools, and they are doing it despite incredible odds and with about 80% of the national average funding per child,” said William D. Dawson, acting superintendent of public instruction.

In the state’s biggest school district, the 640,000-student Los Angeles Unified, where 42.7% of the Class of 1986 failed to graduate, the dropout rate fell to 29.1% for the Class of 1993, a reduction of nearly one-third. Officials credit a two-pronged effort, begun in 1987 with a state grant, which aims to keep students in school and to get dropouts back into the classroom.

Several other urban districts with formerly high dropout rates also posted significant gains in their efforts to keep students in school. They include San Francisco Unified, which whittled its rate from 30.5% in 1986 to 9.6% in 1993, and San Diego Unified, which went from 32.1% to 14.3% during the same period. About a dozen California districts registered 100% improvement, and several had no dropouts at all last year.

But not all districts have shared in the success. For example, Oakland’s rate grew, from 19.7% to 28.9%, during the eight-year period. Locally, rates jumped in several districts, including Culver City, Long Beach, Pasadena and even Beverly Hills.

The report was sobering news for officials in Culver City Unified, which saw an 85.5% increase in its dropout rate, to 23%.

“I was very concerned when I saw that number,” said Supt. Curtis Rethmeyer, who, while questioning the accuracy of the report, acknowledged that it indicated “we are not as successful as we would like to be.” Beverly Hills officials could not be reached for comment on their dropout rate, which climbed from 6.1% in 1986 to 11% last year.

When compared with other states, California still has a long way to go in solving its dropout problems. Although the federal government compiles data differently, making direct comparisons difficult, 1990 census data provides some idea of how the state ranks nationally. Nationwide that year, 11.2% of those ages 16 through 19 had left school without earning a diploma; for California, the number was 14.3%, lower only than Nevada among all the states.

A look at some of the districts that have made big strides in solving their dropout problems showed that most--including Los Angeles and San Diego--stretched relatively small amounts of money to create individually tailored programs for clearly troubled students.

The 4,500-student Duarte Unified School District, where the dropout rate once hovered near 60%, is a case in point.

The district, which is 58% Latino and 14% African American, parlayed a $240,000 state grant into a program designed in 1987 with the help of parents, teachers, counselors and others, to create a “school within a school” at Duarte High. It began with 50 students identified as most likely to drop out. With the help of the students and parents, a team of school staff members created individualized, computer-assisted learning programs that mirror the state curriculum but allow students to work at their own pace and during hours that mesh with jobs or child-rearing needs.

By the end of the first year, students who had initially showed up only 20% of the time were reporting to class 80% to 90% of the time and making steady academic progress, said Alan Johnson, the district’s deputy superintendent.

The next year, the district set up off-campus sites for those who had already dropped out, including some in their 20s. About half the 60 to 100 students a year taught at those sites earn diplomas.

Last year, the district’s dropout rate fell to 18.9%; at Duarte High it was just 3%.

“We know some kids flat don’t want to come to school, don’t want to try,” Johnson said. “But many of them do. What we have is a way to help those kids.”

Times staff writer Carol Chastang contributed to this story.

Dropping Out

The dropout rate in California high schools has fallen 38% since 1986. Listed below are the dropout rates for the Class of 1993 in Los Angeles County school districts, and the change since 1986.

1993 CHANGE RATE FROM ’86 Statewide 15.3% -38.8% ABC 14.1% 13.7% Alhambra City 11.8% -19.2% Antelope Valley 11.9% -82.6% Arcadia 8.8% 12.8% Azusa 6.4% -88.0% Baldwin Park 11.8% -40.1% Bassett 7.9% -82.7% Bellflower 4.5% -33.8% Beverly Hills 11.0% 80.3% Bonita 11.1% -39.0% Burbank 8.6% -64.2% Centinela Valley 21.9% -23.7% Charter Oak 6.5% -50.4% Claremont 4.5% -52.6% Compton NA NA Covina-Valley 5.3% -57.9% Culver City 23.0% 85.5% Downey 11.0% -9.8% Duarte 18.9% -68.3% El Monte Union 13.0% -48.0% El Rancho 11.2% -70.4% El Segundo 3.3% -78.3% Glendale 2.3% -82.2% Glendora 7.2% -50.7% Hacienda-Puente 13.6% 18.3% Inglewood 21.4% -32.1% La Canada 1.7% -51.4% Las Virgenes 7.1% -4.1% Long Beach 27.9% 13.4% Los Angeles 29.1% -31.9% Lynwood 17.5% -57.6% Monrovia 12.9% -11.6% Montebello 16.2% -35.5% Norwalk-Mirada 12.3% -42.0% P.V. Peninsula 1.9% -42.4% Paramount 15.2% -11.1% Pasadena 25.5% 24.4% Pomona 8.2% -72.0% Rowland 10.5% -45.3% San Marino 0.4% NA S. Monica-Malibu 26.7% -34.9% South Bay Union 7.2% 5.9% South Pasadena 1.0% -95.2% Temple City 8.7% -35.1% Torrance 2.8% -85.5% Walnut Valley 3.0% -37.5% West Covina 34.7% 56.3% Whittier Union 8.8% -55.6% Wm. S. Hart 11.1% -50.2%

Source: California Department of Education