CALIFORNIA BRIEFING / STATEWIDE

For every three students who graduated from a California high school in 2007, one dropped out, according to a report released Thursday by the California Dropout Research Project at UC Santa Barbara.

The report says those dropouts -- 123,651 in grades seven to 12 in the 2006-07 school year -- could cost their communities more than $24 billion in healthcare, lost taxes, crime and other expenses.

The numbers are more dire in Los Angeles, which, in the same school year, produced roughly one dropout for every graduate. The study says that reducing the dropout rate by half would generate $1 billion for the city and reduce the number of homicides and aggravated assaults by 3,659 annually.

The study looked at dropout rates in 17 California cities.

“Economic losses from a single year’s dropouts are both substantial and borne largely by the local communities -- students drop out of school and drop into the cities,” said Russell Rumberger, director of the California Dropout Research Project, in a written statement.

The research is intended “to help cities identify the magnitude and impact of the dropout crisis and to create a sense of urgency in order to start working on solutions.”

The Los Angeles Unified School District encompasses many communities beyond Los Angeles, and in the 2006-07 school year reported 28,545 graduates and 16,263 dropouts in ninth through 12th grades.

Spokeswoman Gayle Pollard-Terry acknowledged that the district’s dropout rate is a problem but noted that it is decreasing, while the number of students attending college is increasing.

-- Seema Mehta