Number of Dropouts Declining, State Says

More California students are staying in school, taking college prep courses and passing tough exams that earn them college credit, according to statewide statistics released today.

Educators were heartened by the annual review of school performance, which compiles data from California high schools in nine categories. But the improvement is slight, and they freely admit that in some cases it is due to better record keeping rather than actual changes in student achievement.

The statistics show that in 1996, the latest year for which data is available, 60% of the state’s high school graduates enrolled in college--up about five percentage points from four years earlier.

About 35% of the graduates had taken the courses required for admission to the University of California and the California State University systems, which represented a three-point increase.

The high school performance review paints a rosier picture of student achievement than the standardized test scores that were released for the first time this summer. Those scores showed California high schoolers to be particularly weak in reading, lagging behind their counterparts nationwide.

The Los Angeles Unified School District made greater improvement than the state as a whole in six categories of the high school review. Those included college attendance and the rate at which students earn college credits for passing Advance Placement tests.

“We’re pleased with the results,” L.A. Unified Supt. Ruben Zacarias said. “It shows that if we continue to focus our efforts, these figures will get even better.”

The district posted its most impressive gains in getting more students to stay in school for four years and in enrolling more students in courses needed to qualify for college admission.

The district calculated that its ninth-graders have a 74% chance of graduating from high school. Although that figure is among the worst in the state, it marked a 10% gain over two years earlier.

District officials said the improvement in the dropout rate reflects the importance that Zacarias and his predecessor have attached to the issue.

Assistant Supt. Sally Coughlin said the district’s high schools in 1995 began tracking students with poor grades and attendance, making it possible for teachers to intervene before they drop out.

The district also is doing a better job of following up on students who leave school. In many instances, a student who moved to another school was counted as a dropout because no one had followed up on his or her whereabouts.

Manual Arts High School in central Los Angeles improved its completion rate to 94% from 32% two years ago largely by determining that many of their “dropouts” had re-enrolled elsewhere.

The Long Beach Unified School District racked up the county’s biggest gain in retaining its students--an increase of 20 percentage points. But, even there, the district was not crowing.

“The largest hunk of it is really instituting some redundant, fail-safe procedures for finding out where the kids are,” said Lynn Winters, the district’s research director.

At least one district, Compton, is reporting a sharply higher dropout rate. About 70% of the district’s ninth-graders are expected to complete high school, at the current rate. That’s 11% lower than two years previously and is among the lowest in the county.

“What appears to be a sharp change in our dropouts is the result of miscalculations two years ago, when our completion numbers were mistakenly inflated,” said Deputy Supt. George McKenna.

“We’re going to have to have a serious discussion with our principals--we have a tremendous amount of work to do,” he said. “Most dropouts are preceded by a pattern of truancy, and that can challenge resources in an economically disadvantaged district such as ours.” State education officials, who rely on local districts to report dropout data, said they cannot explain an apparent contradiction in the statistics. The state has 450,000 ninth-graders but about 250,000 graduates.

Only 50,000 of those 200,000 missing students are listed by districts as dropouts. Compton reported the third-highest gain in the county in the percentage of its students taking courses required for admission to the UC or Cal State systems. That percentage roughly doubled in two years to more than 40%.

The school districts in Arcadia, Burbank, Manhattan Beach, Palos Verdes Peninsula, Redondo Beach and West Covina also produced double-digit increases in the rate at which students enrolled in those courses for the college-bound.

Although the classes qualify those who pass them for university admission, the classes may not be demanding enough to prepare students to compete academically.

And the courses probably do not reflect new statewide academic standards for what students should know in math, language arts, science and social studies.

A statistical analysis by The Times of the high school performance data for Los Angeles County suggests that taking and passing such courses at many high schools may not count for much.

There is only a slight chance that students who take more college prep courses will score higher on the SAT college entrance exam.

Times education writer Doug Smith contributed to this story.