Group Finds California Miscalculated HS Dropout Rates

[Kadie]

Group Finds California Miscalculated HS Dropout Rates
Harvard Researchers Use Different Methodology To Calculate Rate

POSTED: 3:37 pm PST March 24, 2005
UPDATED: 3:43 pm PST March 24, 2005

LOS ANGELES -- California's high school dropout rates were miscalculated, and more accurate figures show that only half of male Hispanic and black students in the state earned regular high school diplomas, a civil rights group said.

The state has reported a graduation rate of 87 percent for 2002, but researchers with The Civil Rights Project of Harvard University using a different methodology said Wednesday the rate is closer to 71 percent.

Graduation rates for minority students were significantly lower - 57 percent for blacks, 60 percent for Hispanics and 52 percent for American Indians.

For minority males, the figures were even worse, according to the group's statistics that reflect the percentage of 9th grade students who graduated with their 12 grade class. Fifty percent of blacks earned high school diplomas, compared to 54 percent of Hispanics and 46 percent of American Indians.

more...
http://www.thekcrachannel.com/education/4316324/detail.html

[noamnety]

1. It's really hard to accurately track that data

The state requires you to report what happens with students that stop attending your school - you are supposed to enter a code saying whether they dropped out, went to adult ed, homeschooling, a different school in the same district, a different district, a private school, etc. And in an ideal world, you could enter accurate data.

But it's incredibly common for a student to just stop attending and not return phone calls, or to just say they are being homeschooled so they don't get lectured. Trying to get the parents of a drop out to actually contact the school is like pulling teeth sometimes. Anyone expecting that data to be accurate is living in a dream world.

The problem is compounded by schools feeling pressured to report less dropouts, so if they don't know whether a child is homeschooled or has dropped out, if they can't get a response from the family, why would they enter a code for dropout, if they can enter a homeschooled code instead and legitimately claim they didn't know which it was?

[LeftyMom]

2. It shouldn't be that difficult

to confirm that a kid is homeschooled. If the kid is in some faux homeschool charter or a private "cover school" (programs that do the paperwork and generally offer curriculum and grading services for a fee) the new school should be reporting thier data. If they're homeschooled on an r4, the state should recieve the r4 from the parents remove the child from school. There's no reporting requirement for the tutor option, but almost no one uses that option. Some parents prefer to homeschool "underground" without reporting, but most of them never enrolled thier children in school to begin with.

The state should be able to distinguish legitimate homeschoolers from dropouts in most cases simply by checking records, which shouldn't be hard to do as the state requires r4's to be filed electronicly so they can be stored in a database.