GRADUATION RATE DROPS IN STATE

An education department report proclaiming improvement in Missouri high-school graduation rates appears to have been premature. Instead, the state graduation rate dropped last year.

A year ago state education officials reported that the graduation rate in Missouri's public high schools had improved for the first time in seven years. They said they were hopeful an upward trend was beginning.

But Missouri's education department reports that the completion rate in 1993 was down to 72.8 percent in public high schools, compared with 73.2 percent in 1992. In 1983 the completion rate was 76.2 percent.

Cape Girardeau and Jackson public schools consistently graduate 90 percent or better of their students, but school officials say dropouts are always a concern.

Although the statewide drop was less than one-half of 1 percent, Commissioner of Education Robert E. Bartman said he is disappointed by the decline.

"Last year I thought we had turned the corner and would start seeing some steady improvement in the graduation rate," said Bartman. "We are still graduating less than 75 percent of the students who start high school. This fact should be a serious concern for educators, parents and community leaders.

"The economic connection between dropouts and social problems such as crime, unemployment and welfare is simply too strong to ignore. We all pay the price for a high dropout rate, and we need to turn this trend around in Missouri," Bartman said.

Across the state, the graduation rate ranges from below 50 percent in some school districts to as high as 95 percent in others.

James Englehart, director of secondary education for Cape Girardeau public schools, said the school's graduation rate for 1994 is 92.4 percent, well above the state average. However, the figure is down from last year when the state showed Cape Girardeau with a graduation rate of 95 percent.

While it is above the state average, Englehart said school officials would like to see the rate improve.

He said perhaps state education officials were too quick to see progress from one year's drop in the rate.

One year's change up or down is nothing "to hang your hat on," said Englehart. "You need about a three-to-five-year span to see a trend emerge."

"I know our rate has remained very stable -- not as high as we would like -- but very stable," Englehart said.

Central High School started the year with 275 seniors; 21 of them have dropped out, leaving the 92.4 percent graduation rate.

Jackson Superintendent Wayne Maupin said Jackson High School started the year with 268 seniors; nine dropped out, leaving a graduation rate of 95 percent. He said four girls and five boys quit school.

"That's a high percentage of seniors who go ahead and graduate," Maupin said. "But we're always concerned about reasons students drop out.

"A lot of these kids bring a lot of problems with them to school, and other things assume priority over school," Maupin said. "For us to try to convince them to stay in school another year to get their diploma is difficult for a 16- or 17-year-old to comprehend."

Jackson's graduation rate too has remained fairly constant.

"We would like to see the dropout rate even less," Maupin said. "We'd like for them all to stay and finish school, but there are going to be some dropouts. We try to do what we can to keep as many in school as possible."