Almost 5,000 students dropped out of high schools in the four-county region last year, according to statistics released by the state Tuesday. This map shows the high school dropout rate over the last four years at every high school with more than 150 students. Schools with a lot of kids in poverty had the highest dropout rates. Notice how many Alternative/Continuation schools have extremely high dropout rates, and often sit next to schools with low dropout rates. Critics sometimes contend many high schools foist likely dropouts onto these schools.
Key: Four year dropout rate ...
: above 15 percent... 
: between 5 and 15 percent ... 
: below 5 percent.View Local Public School Dropout Rates in a larger map
Release notes for data from California Department of Education: This is the initial release of graduation and dropout data. Districts have until July 3, 2009 to thoroughly review the data, verify student exit codes, and correct all data. Traditional high school dropout rates will tend to be lower than the state rate and graduation rates will be higher because many at-risk students are placed in county-run dropout recovery or educational option programs, and if they drop out, the drop out will be attributed to the county-run or educational option program rather than the traditional high school. The rates released today are still calculated using aggregate rate formulas since four years of student-level data are needed to transition to a four-year cohort rate. In two years CDE will have the four years of student-level data necessary to produce longitudinal graduation and dropout rates which will be much more accurate. This will occur starting with the graduating class of 2010. The dropout and graduation rates that CDE currently posts using an aggregate formula provide a reasonable estimate in most cases. However, there are school-level configurations where these estimates do not work well. County-run schools, alternative schools, and dropout recovery high schools will often have inflated aggregate dropout rates because the dropout calculation is based on a single day of enrollment. It is important to note that these schools have very high mobility and may enroll many more students and almost always at-risk students. Therefore, dropout-rate calculations are not posted for schools that are operated by County Offices of Education because of constraints in interpreting these calculations with high-mobility schools. Caution must also be used when calculating or analyzing dropout rates for other schools with high mobility, including alternative schools, dropout recovery high schools, or schools eligible for participating in the Alternative Schools Accountability Model (ASAM). It may also be inappropriate to compare dropout rates for alternative schools and dropout recovery high schools to local comprehensive high schools.
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