Resource Center

Presented to the Texas State Board of Education, September 12, 2002 Since 1986, Texas has lost almost 2 million students from our high schools. This is like losing Austin and Dallas over the course of a decade and a half. These 2 million young people did not do anything to deserve to disappear. Our schools, rather, are not holding on to them through graduation. And our state is looking the other way.

In September of 2000, I appeared before this board to urge the state to address what at the time was an emerging need to have more credible estimates of the Texas dropout rate. Two years later, there is growing statewide disenchantment with Texas Education Agency dropout counting and reporting procedures. And the credibility gap is approaching a crisis. Major state newspapers, including the Dallas Morning News, the El Paso Times, the Fort Worth Star Telegram, and the San Antonio Express-News, have criticized the adequacy of the state dropout counting and reporting process and have called for major changes.

Recent studies by the National Center for Education Statistics have emphasized the problem. In fact, the U.S. Department of Education, in reporting state level school statistics, decided to use its own alternative methods for estimating the Texas dropout rate, due in large measure to concerns with Texas’ existing dropout reporting system. Other institutions, like the National Dropout Prevention Network, have raised similar concerns.

In 1986, the Intercultural Development Research Association conducted Texas’ first comprehensive statewide study of high school dropouts. Until then, no one knew how many dropouts we had. Using a high school attrition formula, IDRA found that 86,000 students had not graduated from Texas high schools that year, costing the state $17 billion in foregone income, lost tax revenues, and increased job training, welfare, unemployment and criminal justice costs.

By 2001, 16 years later, the estimated cumulative number of Texas high school dropouts had grown to 1.6 million students – with a net loss in revenues and related costs to the state of $441 billion.

The latest IDRA attrition study is being completed in the coming weeks. It reflects that 143,175 more students were lost to attrition in 2001-02. Texas experienced a 39 percent overall attrition rate for the class of 2002. Following a 16-year trend, Hispanic students had the highest attrition rate at 51 percent, followed by African American students at 46 percent and Native American students at 29 percent. White students had an attrition rate of 26 percent.

IDRA is the only organization to annually compute attrition rates using consistent definitions and calculation methods. In the mid 1980s, IDRA and official TEA estimates of the number and percentage of dropouts were very similar. Unfortunately, over the years, the state has pursued a course of trying to define away the dropout numbers, rather than actually decreasing the numbers of dropouts.

As the agency’s dropout estimates have declined over the last decade, so has the credibility of its dropout reporting. Few in or outside of Texas believe that the actual Texas dropout rate is anywhere near the 1.6 percent rate reported by TEA in its latest dropout estimates. Despite the claims that the new “school leaver” student accounting system would address these problems, this system as currently implemented only serves to compound rather than resolve the state’s dropout credibility problems. IDRA and many others contend that it is time for a major restructuring of the state dropout reporting system. We simply have to know how many students are graduating.

In order to present recommendations to you today, IDRA has examined, as it does regularly, different methodologies that are used. First, let me give you an overview of the differences between TEA and the NCES definitions, collection procedures and methods of calculation, because these differences have led to inconsistencies in the number and percent of students reported as public school dropouts.

Comparison of NCES, TEA Dropout Counting and Calculation Procedures

Definitions and Calculation Methods.

TEA currently defines a dropout as “a student who is enrolled in school at some time during the school year, but either leaves school during the school year without an approved excuse or completes the school year and does not return the following year.”

NCES, the primary federal entity for collecting, analyzing and reporting education data, in 1990 defined a dropout as an individual who: (1) was enrolled in school at some time during the previous school year; (2) was not enrolled at the beginning of the current school year; (3) has not graduated from high school or completed a state-or district-approved educational program; and (4) does not meet any of the following exclusionary conditions: (a) transfer to another public school district, private school, or state- or district-approved educational program, (b) temporary absence due to suspension or school-excused illness, or (c) death.

NCES began collecting dropout data through the Common Core of Data (CCD) in the 1991-92 school year. Dropout statistics are only reported for those states whose dropout counts conform to the CCD dropout definition. Until very recently, the Texas dropout counts have not conformed to this definition. A comparison of the specific areas of agreement and disagreement are outlined in Exhibit A attached.

According to an assessment by TEA, annual dropout rates of TEA and NCES differ in several ways, including:

• The situations treated as high school completion;
• The situations when school leavers are considered to be continuing high school elsewhere;
• When dropouts are excluded from the dropout count;
• How duplicate, erroneous, and indeterminate records are handled;
• How summer dropouts are assigned to school years and grades;
• The conditions under which students are considered re-enrolled in the fall; and
• The denominator.

NCES counts the following groups of students as dropouts while TEA does not:

• Students previously counted as a dropout;
• Students who withdraw to enroll in an approved adult education GED program;
• Seniors who meet all graduation requirements but do not pass the exit-level TAAS;
• Students enrolled but not eligible for state Foundation School Program funding; and
• Dropouts for whom the last district of attendance cannot be determined.

According to TEA, there are two major reasons for these differences. The largest numerical difference is attributable to the count of students who withdraw to enroll in approved adult education GED preparation programs. The second largest numerical difference occurs because NCES counts a student as a dropout if he or she is unaccounted for on the first day of school.

Because of the definitional and procedural issues, NCES has determined that Texas would need to recalculate dropout counts for inclusion in NCES publications. In its study presented to the 76th Legislature, TEA recommended that it submit dropout rates compatible with the NCES definitions. Results for the state and districts for 1999-00 were submitted to NCES and will be published in August 2002.

Counts. TEA publishes two sets of annual dropout rates – one for grades seven through 12 and one for grades nine through 12 (see Exhibit B). It also publishes a longitudinal completion/status rate and an unadjusted attrition rate (see Exhibit C). Exhibit D shows the differences in TEA and NCES dropout data for the 1999-00 school year.

For grades seven through 12 in 1999-00, NCES identified more than 35,000 additional dropouts in Texas. For grades nine through 12, NCES reported a Texas dropout rate of 5 percent, compared to TEA’s 1.8 percent. The lag in aligning state and NCES accounting procedures has denied Texas schools access to millions of dollars targeted to dropout prevention.

Another measure of Texas dropouts involves the calculation of an attrition rate, which compares a group of entering freshmen to the number of seniors enrolled three years later, adjusting the latter by the increase or decrease in enrollment in the class for the intermediate years that the class is followed. IDRA uses such an attrition method as a way of providing an alternative measure of Texas schools’ holding power and providing a way of triangulating findings from related dropout research.

IDRA Attrition Data

Exhibit E shows IDRA attrition rates for the 1994-95 school year through the 2001-02 school year as I summarized earlier. The percent of students lost from public school enrollment has remained relatively unchanged over the past eight years. An estimated 143,175 students from the class of 2002 were lost from enrollment due to attrition.

The cumulative costs of students leaving public high schools prior to graduation with a diploma are continuing to escalate. Between the 1985-86 and 2000-01 school years, the cumulative costs of public school dropouts in the state of Texas were in excess of $441 billion.

What is Needed

In order to make the state dropout counting and reporting system credible, IDRA continues to insist that the dropout counting and calculation procedure must be made simple and clear. Specifically IDRA recommends the following.

Recommendation 1: Put the dropout definition back into the law as follows: “For the purposes of local, district and state dropout reporting, ‘dropout’ means a student:

• Who does not hold a high school diploma;
• Who is absent from the public school in which the student is enrolled for a period of 30 or more consecutive days; and
• Whose attendance within that period at another public school or private or parochial school cannot be verified.”

Rationale: Prior to the re-writing of the Texas Education Code in 1995, a similar definition for dropouts had been included in state statutes, specifically upon the adoption of HB 1010 by the 1989 Texas Legislature. At that time, dropouts were defined as follows: “Section 11.205 Subsection (e) For the purposes of this section ‘dropout’ means a student:

• Who does not hold a high school diploma or the equivalent;
• Who is absent from the public school in which the student is enrolled for a period of 30 or more consecutive days; and
• Whose attendance within that period at another public school or private or parochial school cannot be evidenced.”

Employers know that a GED is not equal to a high school diploma. Therefore it should be included in dropout calculations, thus the exclusion of its “equivalent” in the new proposed wording.

On the question of substituting the terms “cannot be verified” rather than “cannot be evidenced,” we propose that verification is a clearer, more easily understood term than evidenced, which is more suited to legal proceedings.

Recommendation 2: Adopt a new high school dropout counting and dropout rate calculation procedure into state policy that reads as follows: “State, school district, and local school campus dropout counts (DC) and DR (dropout rates) shall be calculated as follows: DC= A+B- (C+D+E+F).

Where:

DC = Dropout count
A= students enrolled in ninth grade
B= additional students enrolled in subsequent years that become part of the original ninth grade class
C= students still enrolled in the same school when the ninth grade class enrolls in the 12th grade
D=students who enroll at another parochial or private school that grants a high school diploma, and whose enrollment has been verified by the receiving school
E= students from the original ninth grade who are deceased
F= students from the ninth grade class who graduated early and received a high school diploma.

The dropout rate (DR) shall be calculated as follows:

DR=

Rationale: The current dropout counting procedures and the use of excessive numbers of leaver categories tends to both complicate and confuse public understanding of the dropout issue in Texas. Use of this shorter, more streamlined approach allows for recognizing those legitimate adjustments to the dropout counts, while at the same time presenting a more accurate picture of the number and percentage of pupils from a freshman class who actually wind up earning a high school diploma.

Recommendation 3: The state should maintain the goal as stated in the Texas Education Code: “Through enhanced dropout prevention efforts, all students will remain in school until they obtain a high school diploma” (TEC Section 4.001).

Rationale: The goal of the state of Texas is simply and clearly that all students obtain a high school diploma. In Texas, all must mean all.

Recommendation 4: The state dropout definition should be amended and simplified by defining a dropout as a student whose re-enrollment or graduation from a high school (diploma granting school) has not been verified.

Rationale: Much of the current confusion about actual dropout rates is created by the state’s complex process for counting and reporting dropouts.

A streamlined procedure is needed that informs us of whether a student who was formerly enrolled in a Texas school has actually re-enrolled, has graduated, has dropped out, or whose status is in reality unknown due to a lack of verifiable information on actual re-enrollment. Current state reports indicate that the group of “unknown status” students continue to account for over one-half of those reported as non-dropouts. In response to a request for verification of the re-enrollment of approximately 113,000 students whom the school leaver system identified as purportedly “other school leavers,” TEA was unable to account for more than 57,000 of those pupils who were recorded as “intending to enroll in another school.” In fact, this number of students who disappeared from Texas schools is actually greater than the 17,000 dropouts “officially” reported by the agency in that year. Emerging data however, suggest that many of those same students actually never re-enroll in any school.

It is this type of discrepancy that weakens the credibility of the Texas dropout reporting system as well as its highly touted school accountability system because the latter incorporates these highly suspect dropout rates into the state’s current accountability and school rating system.

Recommendation 5: Modify the state dropout reporting system to include fewer major categories, specifically the numbers of: (a) students actually enrolled in a specified graduating class; (b) students in that class who are still enrolled in any public or private high school (diploma granting institution) or who are verified as home schooled; (c) students known to have dropped out; (d) students who received a GED; and (e) students who completed all requirements but were denied a diploma for not passing the exit level Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS).

Rationale: Further confusion and related credibility of the state dropout reporting system can be attributed to the complexity that has been built into it by the state agency. With 43 student leaver codes, separating the number of pupils who actually received a regular high school diploma from the myriad of other reporting categories has rendered the new school leaver reporting system even less useful than the one it is replacing. The cumbersome 43 school leaver codes can be combined into several major categories that would provide a much clearer picture of students’ status and enable anyone to calculate rates using these numbers. These new categories would include:

• students actually enrolled in a specified graduating class;
• students in that class who are still enrolled in any public or private high school (diploma granting institution) or who are verified as home schooled;
• students known to have dropped out (this could include a subcategory of the number of students whose re-enrollment or high school graduation cannot be verified);
• students who received a GED; and
• students who completed all requirements but were denied a diploma for not passing the exit level TAAS.

Much of the insistence to modifying dropout reporting procedures lies in the fact that schools and the state agency continue to oppose reporting – as dropouts – students who have enrolled or indicated an intent to enroll in another public or private school but for whom no actual verification of enrollment is available. The creation of the “unknown” subcategory allows for this distinction – without automatically assuming that these students actually re-enrolled at a subsequent school. Similarly, by accounting for GEDs in a separate category, the public can distinguish those students who get a regular high school diploma from those who completed a GED.

A final category would involve those students who have completed all requirements – but who failed to pass the exit level TAAS. Such students are not reported either as dropouts or as high school graduates in the current reporting system. Like for GED recipients, the new system would account for these students, further allowing for calculating dropout and/or completion rates by combining or disaggregating the various subcategories.

Recommendation 6: Require that each local school district establish local dropout oversight committee(s) or task force(s) including parent representatives, private sector representatives and school staff. These committees should regularly and systematically monitor the dropout identification, counting, and reporting process and dropout prevention efforts at their campuses and districts. Such efforts should be part of the regular school program involving regular school staff.

Rationale: There is currently no local oversight committee to monitor the local dropout reporting or intervention. Schools and communities must be directly involved in addressing the issue.

School Holding Power

In addition to the more formal state policy recommendations, IDRA is calling on school leaders to focus less on dropouts and more on holding on to students until high school graduation. Rather than blaming the children who are being ill-served by system, the responsibility should be on the adults who run the system. Schools must do whatever it takes to work with students where they are and to keep them in school and learning through graduation. I call this “school holding power.”

To support this major shift we propose the following:

Schools should re-examine their practices to increase student academic achievement and strengthen their student holding power.

Effective schools that produce high student achievement and keep students in school know what it takes to be truly successful:

• All students must be valued.
• There must be at least one educator in a student’s life who is totally committed to the success of that student.
• Families must be valued as partners with the school, all committed to ensuring that equity and excellence is present in a student’s life.
• Schools must change and innovate to match the characteristics of their students and embrace the strengths and contributions that students and their families bring.
• School staff, especially teachers, must be equipped with the tools needed to ensure their students’ success, including the use of technology, different learning styles and mentoring programs. Effective professional development can help provide these tools.

1. Schools must establish the strengthening of their student holding power as a high priority along with the priority assigned to increased student academic achievement.
2. Schools must examine student, school and community data in a way that holds the institution accountable for student success and uses it to design their school improvement plans.
3. Schools must incorporate into their professional development plans effective teaching strategies that engage students in the educational process and increase the school’s holding power.
4. Schools must partner with communities and families in an effort to strengthen the educational opportunities of students.
5. Schools should implement strategies to truly recover and provide educational opportunities to students who have dropped out of school in their community.
6. Schools should re-assess their effectiveness in increasing their student holding power regularly.
7. Evaluation must be an integral part of any dropout prevention and recovery program and should address three primary questions:

• To what extent is the program being implemented as proposed?
• What is the impact of program activities on participants?
• Is the program working and, if not, what modifications should be made?

Dr. Slavin and Dr. Fashola reported that only two programs in the country designed to increase high school graduation rates of at-risk students actually present rigorous evaluation evidence of success. One of these two dropout prevention programs is the Coca-Cola Valued Youth Program. Developed in Texas by IDRA in 1984, it is now an internationally-recognized cross-age tutoring program.

The Coca-Cola Valued Youth Program has kept 12,000 students in school – middle and high school students previously thought to be at risk of dropping out of school. More than 136,000 students, families and educators have been impacted by the program. The Valued Youth philosophy, “all students are valuable, none is expendable,” is helping more than 150 schools in 17 cities keep 98 percent of valued youth in school.

As effective as the Coca-Cola Valued Youth Program is, it is not a magic bullet. No one program can increase a school’s holding power. What is needed are real institutional changes that shift the paradigm from “dropout prevention and recovery” to graduation; from “some students at-risk of dropping out” to all students will graduate from high school. IDRA stands ready to continue working with schools to significantly increase their holding power.

Closing Comments

IDRA also will continue to compile attrition data for the state. But it is critical that the state upgrade its own dropout reporting process. Whether referred to as “leavers” or “dropouts,” far too many Texas students are leaving our schools without ever earning their high school diplomas. This state can continue to delude itself by resorting to tricks like cumbersome definitions and unwieldy reporting and counting systems, or we can simplify the process so that it is both understandable and believable. Texas needs diplomas, not delusions.

IDRA is an independent, non-profit organization, directed by María Robledo Montecel, Ph.D., dedicated to creating schools that work for all children. As a vanguard leadership development and research team for three decades, IDRA has worked with people to create self-renewing schools that value and empower all children, families and communities. IDRA conducts research and development activities, creates, implements and administers innovative education programs and provides teacher, administrator, and parent training and technical assistance.

Source: Texas Education Agency Department of Accountability Reporting and Research, Division of Research and Evaluation. Secondary School Completion and Dropouts in Texas Public Schools, 2000-01 (August 2002). U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, National Center for Education Statistics. Documentation to the NCES Common Core of Data, Local Education Agency Universe Dropout File: School Year 1999-00.

Exhibit D: Comparison of TEA and NCES Dropout Data, 1990-00

María Robledo Montecel, Ph.D., is the IDRA executive director. Comments and questions may be directed to them via e-mail at feedback@idra.org.

[©2002, IDRA. This article originally appeared in the September 2002 IDRA Newsletter by the Intercultural Development Research Association. Permission to reproduce this article is granted provided the article is reprinted in its entirety and proper credit is given to IDRA and the author.]