by Lance T. Izumi, Fellow in California Studies
Pacific Research Institute
September 22, 1998

Announcer lead: Time for Perspectives. Lance Izumi says that California's rosy student dropout statistics may be misleading.

If one listens to California education officials, one bright spot for public education has been the decrease in the state's student dropout rate. State schools chief Delaine Eastin has bragged that during the past decade California's dropout rate has been cut in half to an all-time low of just 13 percent last year. Such glowing statewide statistics, however, are highly misleading.

First of all, the state relies on local schools to self-report how many of their students drop out. Trouble is, local schools often underreport the number of dropouts by claiming that dropouts eventually earn a high school diploma through independent study, adult education, or continuation school. According to Placer County education official Tad Kitada, that's an overly optimistic assumption. For instance, Mr. Kitada says that students may transfer to a continuation school and have their regular school transcripts sent there, but if students don't show up for classes, they aren't counted as dropouts. Currently, the state doesn't audit the dropout figures put out by local schools.

The state's dropout rate is also contradicted by the state's graduation rate which shows the percentage of ninth graders who eventually earn a high school diploma four years later. This year, California's graduation rate was only 66 percent. That means that 34 percent of those who were ninth-graders four years earlier had failed to graduate with a high school diploma. Even assuming that a few of these non-graduates will receive their diploma through an alternate route, the actual number of dropouts is still much higher than the number claimed by the official statistics. UCLA education professor James Catterall says that much of the claimed progress on dropouts "is probably artificial" and that, "Rather than finding ways to keep kids in school, we've found ways not to count them."

It's time that Californians got the straight story on how many of our state's students stay in school and how many drop out. Only if people receive accurate information can they see how badly the public education system is performing and demand needed reforms.

With a perspective, I'm Lance Izumi.