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Michigan Beginning to Wonder Where the Dropouts Are
Michigan schools don't know how many students are dropping out of high school or where they're going when they quit, leaving thousands of teenagers lost in the state system designed to track them.
For decades, schools have failed to produce reliable dropout and graduation rates, and a new state system designed to make the numbers more accurate has yet to produce data.
Without knowing how many students are leaving, schools and state leaders say they can't solve the problem of high school students dropping out. Experts say high dropout rates lead to higher crime, additional taxpayer spending on jails and adult education, and a blemished image for many communities - including Lansing schools, which have struggled for years to cure a chronic dropout dilemma.
"If people knew the true numbers of dropouts, they would be horrified," said Mary Reimer, information specialist for the National Dropout Prevention Center in Clemson, S.C. "In some urban schools, you have 60 percent of the population that's not going to function well in society."
Consider:
The most current figures Michigan has provided on graduation and dropout rates are from the 2001-02 school year. They show, among other things, that Lansing's dropout rate is worse than Detroit's, and that Lansing's graduation rate rose from 55 percent in 1998 to 70 percent in 1999 - only to slide back to 57 percent by 2001.
The state says its system of collecting data isn't functioning because schools are overburdened, confused and unable to submit the information.
Several school leaders, including officials in Detroit, say they have sent the state dropout stats and the graduation data it needs, but Michigan has failed to release the data.
Michigan is one of 13 states that doesn't report data to a federal clearinghouse for education statistics, and therefore was ineligible last year for up to $100,000 in dropout prevention funds.
"There's too much freedom for districts to do what they want to do," said Lonnie Beatty III, the Lansing School District's project development specialist for pupil accounting. State officials "know they have a problem."
Numbers mess
Until 2000, the state left it up to individual school districts to monitor and report graduation and dropout rates.
The result: incomplete, unreliable and, some officials say, doctored numbers.
Schools had different ways of counting students. Some, for example, wouldn't consider a student a dropout if the student said he or she was going to another school, even if there was no proof of enrollment elsewhere.
Some schools calculated graduation rates based on how many students entered class one year and how many graduated four years later, not accounting for the students who were held back, switched schools or attended adult education classes.
Then there's the issue of what happens to students who don't graduate on time, but don't necessarily drop out, either. Students might be held back, go to school elsewhere or go for their General Educational Development certificates.
Now, the state requires school districts to assign numbers to all students and track them as long as they attend school in that district.
Good idea, most agree.
The system is similar to one that's been working in the 209,000-student Houston School District ever since an uproar about inaccurate numbers there. After an audit of Houston schools turned up inaccurate data, that district began tracking individual students to find out how many had dropped out.
But Michigan has yet to produce.
Schools aren't familiar with the new system and have been late in getting in their numbers. And that's when they do it properly, said Lani Elhenicky, external affairs manager for the Michigan Center for Educational Performance and Information.
The center has spent months working with schools and often will send experts to high schools to help them get the right data, Elhenicky said.
"Districts are quite frankly overwhelmed with everything they have to do," she said. "There could be any number of reasons districts are having trouble."
Elhenicky said some schools find the spreadsheets for collecting data confusing and are having trouble changing their accounting systems to meet state standards.
She expects the bugs to be worked out within the next year or two.
But schools tell a different story.
The Detroit school system has been collecting data on a per-student basis since the mid-1990s, said Mike Albert, director of information for Detroit Public Schools. Throughout the 1990s, the 146,200-student district was reporting graduation rates as low as 55 percent and 60 percent.
Now that the state's in charge, the district has no official information, Albert said.
"The state is so elegantly poised to tell you what the real story is," Albert said. "Why they don't, I don't know. Where's the accountability in this process?"
Lansing officials also say they already do a per-student count.
"There's no requirement for a district to follow up on kids," Beatty said. "But Lansing does that."
Dropout problem
Keeping teens enrolled has challenged schools for decades.
Nationwide, urban districts report graduation rates as low as 50 percent, and, in many cases, numbers haven't risen significantly since the 1970s.
Many experts say the situation might worsen as schools face more pressure to produce high test scores and consequently might do less to keep low-achieving kids in school.
The fallout reaches beyond school walls.
Dropouts make less money than those with diplomas and are more likely to end up in jail or on welfare.
Communities with high dropout rates often are plagued with higher crime rates and the stigma of having a school system that doesn't work.
And taxpayers shoulder much of the cost, pouring money into corrections, welfare and adult education systems flush with people who didn't make it through the 12th grade.
For example, about half of all black male dropouts and 13 percent of white male dropouts will be incarcerated by their early 30s, according to a study by the Washington, D.C.-based Justice Policy Institute.
That's why knowing the numbers is crucial to reversing the trend.
"You wouldn't manage a business without specific data and knowing what's going on in your business," Elhenicky said. "Certainly, you want to know what's going on in your school."
Reasons for leaving school are many - and students who drop out almost never return to traditional high school.
"Once they're gone, it's incredibly hard to get them back," said Linda Cabose, director of the GED program in Grand Ledge, where hundreds of students a year get the closest thing they can to a high school diploma.
She's talked to thousands of dropouts in 27 years on the job.
Students leave because they're struggling with their grades, they need a job, or they abuse drugs and alcohol, Cabose said. They also give up school to have babies and take care of siblings. Some simply crave more freedom.
Boys are more likely to leave because they want a job and independence. Girls often feel pressure from their friends, she said.
Daniel Bates of Mason quit school when he was 15, bored with class and wanting more freedom.
He was expelled from school at the end of his freshman year in Bay City and decided not to return for his sophomore year.
Ten years after dropping out, he's married, caring for an 18-month-old boy and can't find a job despite searching at least five hours a day.
He's struggled to make enough money to care for his family and, at one point, was getting food stamps.
— Sharon Terlep
Lansing State Journal
2003-09-07
http://www.lsj.com/news/schools/030907_grad_rates_1a.html
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
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