High school dropout rates are up sharply
Dropout rates in some of Massachusetts' biggest school systems spiked in 2002-03, the first year that students had to pass the MCAS exam to graduate.
Boston public schools' dropout rate went from 7 percent to 7.7 percent, or 1,405 students. In Holyoke, the dropout rate increased from 7.6 percent to 10.2 percent, according to state figures released yesterday. That translates to about 200 students for the Western Massachusetts city.
The rate more than doubled in Framingham, from 1.2 percent to 3.7 percent, or a total of 73 students, the state Department of Education report shows.
Some individual schools had even higher rates. At Dorchester High School, 1 of every 5 students dropped out last year, compared with a 12.7 percent dropout rate in 2001-02. The 924-student school is trying to turn itself around by creating three independently run schools under one roof, each with a different academic theme. Administrators hope that grouping students in smaller numbers will help teachers get to know the youths better and prevent them from slipping through the cracks.
"We are way understaffed and underbudgeted to deal with kids who no longer come to school," said Jack Leonard, headmaster of the Economics and Business Academy, one of the three small schools.
Statewide, 3.3 percent of high-schoolers dropped out last year, or about 9,400 students. That is 900 students more than the year before, when the rate was 3.1 percent. State Education Commissioner David P. Driscoll said the numbers concern him, although he said he has no plans for a statewide effort to combat dropouts.
"Under any estimation, we have a national problem on our hands, and we have it here in Massachusetts, where just too many kids who start in ninth grade don't finish high school," Driscoll said.
"I'm sorry it went up. That's a concern to me. But now we have to go about the business of finding out why. That's our next job."
The class of 2003 was the first group of students that had to pass the 10th-grade English and math sections of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System test to earn a diploma. That group posted the highest senior-year dropout figure in five years, although previous years were tallied under a less precise tracking system.
About 3.5 percent of the 2003 senior class, or 2,100 students, dropped out of high school, compared with a 2.9 percent rate in 2002.
The seniors had the biggest change in the dropout rate of any grade level, but Driscoll said the MCAS was not responsible for pushing out students because as many as 39 percent of the seniors who quit actually passed the test.
He suggested that more analysis is needed to learn why the rate went up last year.
MCAS opponents, however, blame the test for the increased dropout rate. They note that 61 percent of the seniors who quit did not pass the MCAS. They also expressed concern that fewer dropouts are returning to school.
"What this report shows is that there is a persistent dropout problem that is very severe in urban districts and that we're not paying attention to it," said Anne Wheelock, a senior research associate at Boston College who is studying national graduation rates. "Schools in those districts have weak holding power for an awful lot of kids."
The state figures released yesterday could grow higher because of problems with the data on the original report.
A number of large high schools reported few or zero dropouts, but officials don't think those reports are accurate and will ask the districts to resubmit their data.
