Dropout Rate Falls in County

An estimated 7.7% of Orange County students who began high school as freshmen this year are expected to quit before graduation, far fewer than the state projection of 11.7%, according to state dropout figures released Monday.

In the 1997-98 school year, the county’s dropout percentage--the root of the four-year projections--fell to 1.9%. That is down from the county’s rate of 2.7% two years ago and well below the current state average of 2.9%. School districts in Anaheim, Brea Olinda, Fullerton, Placentia-Yorba Linda and Los Alamitos lead the way--all boasting one-year dropout rates below 1%.

The figures were among statistics showing that California’s high school graduation rate, at 67.2%, is near the lowest in the nation, belying years of glowing reports purporting to show steady declines in the dropout rate.

Bowing to critics of the methods it uses to track dropouts, the state Department of Education this year also reported that, for the 1998 graduating class, nearly a third of the students who entered ninth grade failed to earn high school diplomas. That rate was about three times the number reported as the dropout rate. In the past, the state has reported only the dropout rate, not the graduation rate.

This year, state officials refused to release graduation rates for individual school districts and schools, saying that they could be distorted by student transfers. Instead, they are continuing to provide figures that purport to show that all districts in the state have better dropout rates than the state as a whole.

In Los Angeles Unified, for example, the 1997-98 dropout rate reported Monday was 18.6%--down from 26.2% the previous year. But the graduation rate--not reported by the state but derived from state data--was 46%, meaning fewer than half the entering ninth-graders received a diploma.

Statewide, not only was the 1998 graduation rate disappointing, but it actually represented a slight decline over the last 10 years, even as state officials were claiming steady reductions in dropouts.

In a third set of numbers reported Monday, California ranked fourth from the bottom in the percentage of state residents ages 18 to 24 who have a high school diploma or its equivalent.

The U.S. Census Bureau figures indicated that California’s 81% tied with Texas and was ahead of only Nevada, Pennsylvania and Louisiana.

None of the existing methods for calculating the dropout rate is flawless, but the fact that the graduation rate and the census show a similar story strongly indicates that the state’s claim of steady improvement in the dropout rate is incorrect.

“The data [are] lacking to determine what happens to students who, once enrolled at a particular school in ninth grade don’t graduate as seniors,” said Assistant Supt. Pete Boothroyd at Brea Olinda, which tracked a 0.3% dropout rate last year. “There’s a big question mark about what happens to them. It’s a valid question, but there’s no system in place to track a student through his or her educational career.”

For years, the annual report of dropout rates provided one of the few bright spots in the state’s dismal education picture.

Last year, for example, state schools Supt. Delaine Eastin introduced the annual dropout report with an optimistic message.

“In the last decade, we can be proud of the gains we have made cutting the percentage of high school dropouts by more than half,” Eastin said.

Her comments this year were far more subdued, focusing on the need to reduce student transfers, often the first step toward dropping out.

“It is important to help our students form a connection with their schools and to move them to alternative settings only when all other options have failed,” Eastin said.

State officials said they have given up on soon developing a method to measure dropouts that is reliable enough to be used to hold schools accountable. Consequently, dropout rates will not be included in the index of school performance being developed as part of Gov. Gray Davis’ reform effort.

“We know we’ve got a problem in the state with not enough students graduating,” said Lynn Baugher, administrator of the department’s educational demographics office. “We also got a better appreciation that we don’t have enough data to describe it clearly and certainly not enough to describe it from an accountability perspective.”

Local educators believe the situation is actually less dire in Orange County. Until a better system of tracking students is devised, the focus should be on low dropout rates, Orange County Supt. John Dean said.

“People like their schools--that’s very standard throughout the county,” he said. “When you have our dropout rate [of 1.9%], we’re doing something right.”

Under state regulations, a student under the age of 21 who misses 45 days of school and does not re-enroll, either in the same or a new district, is classified as a dropout. If a district loses track of a student after he or she moves, that case is also considered a dropout.

In Orange County, the massive Santa Ana school district still has the county’s steepest dropout rate, losing 4.7% of its high school students last year, but administrators have seen a steady decline from two years ago, when the rate was 7.6%.

Alfonsina Quintana Davies, a Santa Ana assistant superintendent, credits the drop to the addition of alternative education options and the use of “field workers” who visit the homes of students who miss school regularly.

“If we have kids drop out, we’re doing everything in our power to get them to drop back in,” Quintana Davies said.

To continue whittling the dropout rate, Santa Ana hopes to expand the use of field workers. Administrators also are embarking on an effort to inform immigrant parents that education is compulsory until 18 in California, contrary to the customs of some other countries.

Santa Ana also has beaten the state in implementing a tracking system for all students who enter high schools. Of the 814 freshmen who entered Saddleback High in 1994, for example, 474 were seniors last year. While 124 dropped out over the four years, 216 more moved, transferred, graduated early, were expelled, began home schooling or left after their 18th birthday.

Lowering the state’s dropout rate has been a state goal since the mid-1980s. Although the rate at which students leave school without earning a diploma is widely acknowledged as a significant factor in judging a school’s performance, there have been escalating disagreements on how best to measure it.

The Department of Education has historically clung to the method that held the greatest potential for improvement: tracking ninth-graders individually to determine which ones leave over the four high school years.

By this measure, the state had a dismal dropout rate of more than 20% earlier in the decade. The four-year rate reported Monday for 1998 was down to 11.7%, suggesting that nearly 90% of all ninth-graders graduate.

Critics contend that this method grossly distorts the picture because it allows schools to wipe students off their books without knowing whether they actually graduate.

Districts ‘Cooking the Books,’ Critic Says

Any individual district could be correct in asserting that large numbers of its students have transferred elsewhere, but that cannot be true of all districts simultaneously.

Alan Bonsteel, a San Francisco doctor who mounted a campaign to report graduation rather than dropout rates, said large numbers of dropouts go uncounted because students first transfer, often to a county school or continuation school. He also alleges that students who leave school during the summer are not counted.

“It’s totally unaudited,” Bonsteel said. “It’s obvious that a lot of districts are totally cooking the books.”

In many cases, the way school districts have pursued the goal of fewer dropouts has been through better or, in some cases, more creative, record keeping.

The state defines a dropout as a student who stops coming to school and for whom the school does not receive a request for his or her records and grades.

Some schools verify that students have enrolled in another school. But others wipe a dropout off their books by taking it upon themselves to transfer a student’s records to an independent study program.

Schools may also assert that a student who stops showing up has returned to Mexico or moved out of state, whether they have any evidence of that or not.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Dropout Decline

Orange County’s high school dropout rate not only is lower than the statewide rate, but is continuing to decline. Such is the case, also, with the estimated percentage of students who will drop out during a four-year period:

Anaheim Union High

4-YEAR DERIVED RATE

1995-96: 2.8%

1996-97: 4.3%

1997-98: 2.8%

1-YEAR RATE

1995-96: 0.8%

1996-97: 1.1%

1997-98: 0.7%

Brea Olinda Unified

4-YEAR DERIVED RATE

1995-96: 2.9

1996-97: 2.2

1997-98: 1.3

1-YEAR RATE

1995-96: 0.7

1996-97: 0.5

1997-98: 0.3

Capistrano Unified

4-YEAR DERIVED RATE

1995-96: 6.1

1996-97: 6.8

1997-98: 5.1

1-YEAR RATE

1995-96: 1.5

1996-97: .6

1997-98: 1.2

Fullerton Joint Union

4-YEAR DERIVED RATE

1995-96: 6.0

1996-97: 5.1

1997-98: 4.4

1-YEAR RATE

1995-96: 1.3

1996-97: 1.1

1997-98: 0.9

Garden Grove Unified

4-YEAR DERIVED RATE

1995-96: 6.4

1996-97: 6.2

1997-98: 4.0

1-YEAR RATE

1995-96: 1.6

1996-97: 1.5

1997-98: 1.0

Huntington Beach Union

4-YEAR DERIVED RATE

1995-96: 10.0

1996-97: 9.1

1997-98: 9.3

1-YEAR RATE

1995-96: 2.2

1996-97: 2.0

1997-98: 2.1

Irvine Unified

4-YEAR DERIVED RATE

1995-96: 2.0

1996-97: 7.7

1997-98: 7.8

1-YEAR RATE

1995-96: 0.5

1996-97: 1.9

1997-98: 1.9

Laguna Beach Unified

4-YEAR DERIVED RATE

1995-96: 2.1

1996-97: 3.2

1997-98: 6.8

1-YEAR RATE

1995-96: 0.5

1996-97: 0.8

1997-98: 1.8

Los Alamitos Unified

4-YEAR DERIVED RATE

1995-96: 5.2

1996-97: 3.4

1997-98: 2.3

1-YEAR RATE

1995-96: 1.3

1996-97: 0.8

1997-98: 0.6

Newport Mesa Unified

4-YEAR DERIVED RATE

1995-96: 6.4

1996-97: 4.1

1997-98: 4.6

1-YEAR RATE

1995-96: 1.7

1996-97: 1.0

1997-98: 1.1

Orange Unified

4-YEAR DERIVED RATE

1995-96: 10.6

1996-97: 10.2

1997-98: 10.3

1-YEAR RATE

1995-96: 2.7

1996-97: 2.7

1997-98: 2.7

Placentia Yorba Linda

4-YEAR DERIVED RATE

1995-96: 4.1

1996-97: 3.6

1997-98: 3.8

1-YEAR RATE

1995-96: 1.0

1996-97: 0.9

1997-98: 0.9

Saddleback Valley

4-YEAR DERIVED RATE

1995-96: 8.2

1996-97: 7.1

1997-98: 7.1

1-YEAR RATE

1995-96: 2.0

1996-97: 1.6

1997-98:1.6

Santa Ana Unified

4-YEAR DERIVED RATE

1995-96: 26.4

1996-97: 21.6

1997-98: 17.0

1-YEAR RATE

1995-96: 7.6

1996-97: 5.9

1997-98: 4.7

Tustin Unified

4-YEAR DERIVED RATE

1995-96: 1.6

1996-97: 1.8

1997-98: 4.3

1-YEAR RATE

1995-96: 0.4

1996-97: 0.4

1997-98: 1.0

Orange County office*

4-YEAR DERIVED RATE

1995-96: 73.7

1996-97: 56.2

1997-98: 29.4

1-YEAR RATE

1995-96: 22.5

1996-97: 19.1

1997-98: 8.5

Orange County total

4-YEAR DERIVED RATE

1995-96: 10.6

1996-97: 9.8

1997-98: 7.7

1-YEAR RATE

1995-96: 2.7

1996-97: 2.5

1997-98: 1.9

Statewide total

4-YEAR DERIVED RATE

1995-96: 15.3

1996-97: 13.0

1997-98: 11.7

1-YEAR RATE

1995-96: 3.9

1996-97: 3.3

1997-98: 2.9

* Alternative education schools run by the county, including court schools, continuation schools and independent study programs.

Source: California Department of Education