Dropout Rates

The first of three editorials on the dropout rate.

Nov 2, 2007 - The Virginia Pilot is planning three editorials in response to the "dropout factory" report from John Hopkins University.* This is the first of three planned editorials, and the lack of solid information isn't discouraging them one bit from urging prompt action. Something. Anything.

But neither would it be useful to spend much time dissecting or questioning the Johns Hopkins methodology. Whatever the study's shortcomings, and there are several, its underlying conclusion is sound.

The state is doing their own tracking.

In the meantime, Norfolk school officials are right not to wait for more accurate figures before acting. Whatever the dropout count, it is higher than can be tolerated.

And,

The just-released study from the Alliance for Excellent Education, a Washington-based think tank, estimates that the Virginia economy will lose $7.5 billion over time because of lost earnings from students who failed to graduate on time last June.
Once again, methodology isn't precise. But no one should doubt that the value of lost earnings is huge.

And a stirring challenge:

Until lately, school dropouts have been the hidden Achilles' heel of education reform. Now, disappearing children rightly are moving into the national spotlight. A trail-blazer in urban education, Norfolk can once again lead by confronting this challenge head-on.

TT - With sketchy information and suspect studies that are more press releases than foundations for planning? We looked at the "dropout rate" issue several times. And it's just that - the latest buzzword. States don't have mechanisms in place to count their dropouts. There is no standard defintion of a dropout. Is it someone who changed schools, districts, moved to another state? Left school altogether? How would you know they left school for another state unless you tracked them?

It's a useless exercise to talk about new policies for a problem you can't define, can't quanitify, and can never substaniate.

It sounds, however, like the best kind of program for bureaucrats to spend money on.

* The John Hopkins Unversity analsysis was commissioned by the Associated Press.

This blog isn't the only one sceptical of the dropout rate issue. A reader sent a link to Jay Mathew's column on the subject. Dropout Data Raise Questions on 2 Fronts