Eric remembers how often he skipped school before he officially dropped out: 52 days straight. On those days, he and several friends drove around town and chowed down at fast food restaurants to kill time—but that was fun compared to high school, he says.
"Not going to school can be addictive, like smoking. You do it once and you can't stop. I didn't have the willpower to stay in school," Eric recalls.
Eventually, a combination of parental pressure and Eric's own desire "not to be poor" convinced him to enter an alternative high school.
Unfortunately, stories like Eric's are not unusual. The Oct. 9, 2002, New York Times reported that, based upon the graduation rate of 17-year-olds, the national dropout rate in 2000 was 30 percent. Although the dropout rate is difficult to pin down, some experts believe this figure accurately reflects the scope of the problem.
"Local school superintendents clearly indicate their graduation rate is 60–75 percent—at best—based on their 9th grade enrollment. Some urban schools have even lower graduation rates," says Jay Smink, executive director of the National Dropout Prevention Center in Clemson, S.C.
The National Center for Education Statistics reports that dropout rates are highest for Hispanic students, reaching a high of 44 percent for those born outside the United States. African Americans have a dropout rate of 13 percent. The dropout rate for whites is about 7 percent, and for Asian Americans about 4 percent. In sheer numbers, however, whites account for more than 6 in 10 dropouts, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
Preventing Departures
It's hard to predict which students will drop out, say some researchers, because the reasons are varied and rooted in a student's personal or family circumstances.
However, except for high absenteeism, the traditional risk factors—such as living in a single-parent household, having a low income, or being a latchkey child—aren't necessarily the most powerful predictors for dropping out, says Mark Dynarski, a researcher at Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., who has evaluated federal dropout prevention programs.
"The students who seem relatively stable can get suddenly shaky. They may not even have risk factors, but something could happen at home or in their lives," Dynarski says. Although a teacher or counselor might see signs of distress, schools often don't have a way of channeling such elusive information that can change weekly. "Teachers would have to be comfortable providing regular feedback to a counselor and hit the window at the right time," to prevent such students from leaving school, Dynarski says.
However, other researchers disagree and believe that there are powerful indicators to show whether students are engaged in school or in danger of dropping out.
"Dropping out is the outcome of a long process of disengagement and alienation that's preceded by less severe types of withdrawal, such as truancy, suspension, or failing classes," says Mary Sinclair, a professor at the University of Minnesota, who heads Check & Connect, a dropout prevention program.
Check & Connect depends on monitors from the community—ranging from graduate students to senior citizens—who develop long-term relationships with at-risk students and their families. Over two years, a monitor meets with an at-risk student weekly or monthly to analyze data regarding absences, tardies, and suspensions and to work out practical solutions to problems—even problems as mundane as finding ways to get to bed on time. More intensive intervention might involve helping students control their anger at school or resolving an urgent issue.
Attendance, Alignment, Engagement
Keeping students in school requires a mixture of external and internal incentives. In Jefferson County Public Schools, administrators have renewed their emphasis on the basics of school attendance. Computerized recordings alert parents when a student has been absent and unaccounted for. After a student has been away for three days, a school staff member telephones the parents directly; further absences trigger a series of steps including a letter warning of truancy, a parent-teacher conference, or a request to appear in juvenile court. In extreme cases, parents can even be jailed for persistently failing to get their children to school.
Although school and court actions have boosted attendance in the county's schools, Jefferson County High School Principal Buell Snyder believes that curriculum alignment efforts have kept students engaged, despite higher standards and increased testing. With good curriculum alignment, teachers have more time to focus a lesson, make the content more engaging, and tie it to assessments, so that students are more likely to pass the tests, says Snyder.
"If alignment is working, then students are more successful academically and less likely to be discouraged and drop out," Snyder says.
Efforts to keep students engaged are not limited to the classroom. Motivating students through extracurricular activities can help them see school as a positive social experience, Snyder explains. Principals in Jefferson County schools encourage all students, especially beginning in middle school, to get involved in at least one extracurricular activity.
Dozens of model programs and resources exist for educators striving to help students persevere in school. The National Dropout Prevention Center, based on its evaluation of such programs, has identified 15 effective strategies for encouraging students to stay in school. The list is available at http://www.dropoutprevention.org/default.htm. Alternative Schools
If efforts to prevent students from dropping out fail, alternative schools are an important bridge to a high school degree. Jefferson County High School, for example, offers an academic program that is flexible, personalized, and self-paced.
Becky, a student at Jefferson County, has a husband, a five-month-old child, and a 20-hour-a-week job at a Dairy Queen restaurant. A half-day academic schedule at the school allows her to work and take care of her family. In the regular high school, Becky felt teachers "were going too fast" and didn't listen to her complaints because they had so many students. At Jefferson County, she's gained not only credits to finish her high school degree but confidence that she can pursue a nursing degree in college.
Most of all, Becky hopes to convince her child that getting an education does matter. "I don't want to be a dropout," Becky says. "I have a daughter, and I want to make a good impression on her."
Will High-Stakes Testing Raise Dropout Rates?
Efforts to persuade students to complete high school contributed to a declining dropout rate through the 1970s and 1980s, and the rate remained steady through the 1990s. However, now some educators fear that the increasing use of standardized tests will drive more disaffected students from school and cause dropout rates to rise.
Although evidence is anecdotal, declares leading expert Jay Smink, executive director of the National Dropout Prevention Center at Clemson University in South Carolina, superintendents are saying that high-stakes tests, especially exit tests needed to qualify for a high school diploma, are pushing more students to drop out.
Smink also points out that high-stakes testing in middle school and earlier has resulted in higher retention rates in many states, which correlates with dropping out at a later grade. A study by the Consortium on Chicago School Research in 2000 found that 30 percent of students retained twice in earlier grades dropped out of school before 9th grade.
Iowa's dropout rate had been decreasing but recently increased for the first time in 10 years. "We don't know whether it's a result of testing, but we're a little bit anxious" about the rise, says Raymond Morley, a consultant who heads dropout prevention services for at-risk youth in the Iowa Department of Education. "There's no question that students in alternative schools and regular schools have had an adverse reaction to all the testing going on," he concludes.
However, some educators believe that any jump in local dropout rates as a result of implementing higher standards and testing is only temporary. During Kentucky's 12 years of education reform, the Jefferson County district, which includes Louisville, has decreased its dropout rate to 5 percent. This type of large, urban school district typically has a double-digit dropout rate, says Buell Snyder, who heads the county's main alternative school.
"With the increase of standards, you may have a bulge in the dropout rate among those students in the pipeline who test before core content and curriculum standards are aligned. But once that happens, students seem to live up to expectations," says Snyder, principal of Jefferson County High School. The district's 2002 graduates have spent their entire school careers in the reform era of higher standards and accountability, and the lower dropout rate is a result of that, he states.
