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Dropping California's dropout rate starts with accountability, researchers say
By Deb Kollars - dkollars@sacbee.com
Last Updated 6:55 pm PST Wednesday, February 27, 2008
A panel of educators, researchers and politicians on Wednesday announced 15 recommendations for reducing the state's serious and entrenched dropout problem.
The exact dropout tally is not known because the state does not have an adequate data collection and reporting system. But according to the California Dropout Research Project, about 170,000 California ninth-graders in 2002-03 dropped out of high school or failed to graduate with their classes four years later. It is a trend that repeats year after year, and costs the state billions in lost income and economic activity, as well as higher crime and welfare expenses, said Russell W. Rumberger, a University of California, Santa Barbara, professor who directs the project.
Rumberger and other members of the project recommended a range of solutions Wednesday, including better state data collection, the creation of "lighthouse districts" to research and model successful anti-dropout programs, re-examining high school graduation requirements, and reforming middle schools to stop early patterns of academic failure and truancy that eventually lead to dropping out.
State Sen. Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, who served on the panel, said Wednesday that reducing the state's dropout rate is his top legislative priority.
"For me, it begins with accountability," he said, noting that the the state must develop an accurate system for tracking students after years of delays.
Wednesday's report follows a study released last week by the same group that found a disproportionate number of California's dropouts come from non-traditional schools such as charters and continuation schools.
To view Wednesday's report online, go to www.lmri.ucsb.edu/dropouts
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