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Read the Real Story Behind the Houston "Miracle"
HOUSTON (KHOU) -- The low dropout rate in the Houston school district has won it praise and even awards. But the 11 News defenders have discovered the numbers may be a lesson in lies because a lot more kids may be quitting classes than we know about.
Many consider HISD's dropout rate an education miracle. The district says it has fallen radically in the past eight years.
Its latest figures show only one-and-a- half percent of HISD students leave school. That helped HISD win the $500,000 Broad Prize and get named the best urban school district in the nation.
But some educators say they don't believe it and est imate as many as 40 percent of HISD students may be dropping out.
So how does the district get its figures?
Juana Juarez moved to Houston with her family from Mexico and started going to Sharpstown Senior High School. "I thought the school here would be the same as the school back home," she said.
But the 11th grader got her first surprise when she was put into the 9th grade and held there for two years.
"I felt bad because I didn't see the reason," said Juarez, whose grades were A's and B's.
So Juarez finally decided part of her dream was over. She dropped out and took a job working the night shift at a local Wendy's. "I really don't like working there," she said. "I get very little pay. It's dangerous. A month ago
they held us up.
After five months, Juarez realized she made a mistake. "I'm not going to go anywhere with this job," she thought. "My dream finished when I got here."
Juarez says she'd like to go back to finish school. But HISD records say she never dropped out of Sharpstown High School. Instead, they say she just transferred to a charter school in Alief.
Juarez said she never told HISD that. So what's going on?
High school dropouts are a hot topic lately. That's because dropouts pay a price in a hard life, a price that society often shares.
So some school districts reward schools for keeping track of kids and keeping them in class because with high enough test scores and low dropout rates, employees get bonuses-- that means money for everyone from the janitor to the
principal.
But the Defenders have discovered that, unfortunately, some HISD schools seem more interested in cash than in the kids. And the kids are suffering.
Some former employees told 11 News the school administrators didn't want it to look like their school had a lot of kids dropping out. Chris worked for more than a year at an HISD high school teaching predominantly Hispanic students.
He says he saw something unusual happen far too many times. When one of his students wanted to drop out, a school counselor would come in with a document for the student.
"They'd have to sign off at the bottom," he said. "And they were persuaded to sign off saying they were transferring to another district."
By saying they were transferring, the student wouldn't count as a dropout. Chris said the school knew the students really weren't transferring.
"There was nobody going to go check and see where 'Juan Garcia' went once he left. They see it as a victimless crime." Chris said.
Sharpstown High School's dropout rate looks like a miracle.
Last year, the school had more than 1700 students, many of them from lower-income homes. Yet, out of the 463 students that eventually withdrew, not one of them was considered a dropout.
So Sharpstown Senior High had zero dropouts.
"They seemed pretty happy to know there was zero percent dropouts when there wasn't," said Terry, a Sharps town employee who did not want his last name used.
"A lot of the staff knew that those kids had really dropped out," he said.
The Defenders obtained a dropout report for Sharpstown from early October with 30 students all considered dropouts.
Next to their names were two number codes giving the reason they left school.
One girl had a 02 code, meaning she left to get a job.
Another girl had a 04, meaning she left for the military.
And many students had code 84, indicating they left because of failing grades, poor attendance or language problems.
But three weeks later something astonishing happened. Every single student had fallen off the list giving the school its zero dropout rate.
How did it happen?
"Technology," Terry said. "Everything can be done by computer."
In fact, the Defenders have found that all 30 students had their codes for leaving school changed to codes that the state doesn't count as a dropout.
In Juana Juarez' case, her code was originally 02, meaning she went to find work.
In fact, when she left Sharpstown she signed a withdrawal form listing her reason as "to pursue job."
But on the dropout list, someone changed her withdrawal code to an 81, indicating she "left to enroll in a private school." And on another document they wrote the comments "charter school in Alief."
"That's not the truth," Juarez said. And she says she doesn't know a thing about a charter school in Alief. "I never told them I was going to go to another school." She said. Juarez' mother confirms she is not enrolled in a
charter school.
And there are other cases.
Jennys Franco also left Sharpstown and now works at a Domino's.
She told school officials she simply wasn't = going anymore.
Franco originally appeared on the dropout list with an 84 code, meaning she withdrew for reasons such as poor attendance. That's something the state considers a dropout.
But just weeks later, her code was changed to a 22, indicating she was getting her GED. That's something the state does not count as a dropout. And she, too, fell off the list.
Franco says it's bunk, and the school never asked her if she was going into a GED program.
Sharpstown's principal, Carol Wichmann, claimed the school has a zero percent dropout rate at this point in the school year.
Anna: "We found that many of the students that you're now saying are not dropouts, in fact, were dropouts."
Wichmann: "I don't know what you're looking at... Would you be looking at a confidential list?"
Anna: "These are kids that would have been on your list as of October 3 and you're now saying that they're not dropouts and we found that they are, in fact, dropouts."
Wichmann: "That's a confidential list."
Anna: "Besides the list -- how can these kids many of them are dropouts and, in fact, are today still dropouts?"
Wichmann: "I don't know what. . .we don't have that. Our records indicate that we have a positive exit for all of those students. I'll try to go back and see where our process went wrong."
Find out what HISD administrators have to say about all of this Tuesday night at 10pm on 11 News. We'll hear their explanation of a memo they sent to schools about dropouts -- a memo one Texas politician calls "shocking."
— Anna Werner
Defenders investigate HISD dropout rate
Channel 11 KHOU News Defenders
2/10/003
http://www.khou.com/news/defenders/investigate/khou030210_gs_defendersHISDdropouts.40a29881.html
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