Officials: High school dropout rates source of contention

~ Study underscores the cost of America's dropout problem.

About a third of students in the United States don't finish high school in four years or at all.

But exact numbers are hard to come by, school officials say.

"There is probably no more highly contested high school statistic in America than the dropout rate," said Cape Girardeau Central High School principal Dr. Mike Cowan. "It varies dramatically."

States calculate the dropout rate differently. Even school districts within a state often vary in how they determine the dropout rate, Cowan said.

National research shows that the overall dropout rate is about 30 percent. It's higher in many urban school districts than in rural districts, he said.

In many urban school districts, more than half of the high school students drop out of school, Cowan said.

Dropping out of high school has its costs around the globe, but nowhere steeper than in the United States. Adults who don't finish high school in the United States earn 65 percent of what people who have high-school degrees make, according to a new report comparing 30 industrialized nations. No other country had such a severe income gap.

Adults without high-school diplomas typically make about 80 percent of the salaries earned by high school graduates in nations across Asia, Europe and elsewhere, according an annual study by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Unlike the United States, other nations protect people with weak education qualifications through regulations or tax system that favor the low skilled, said Barbara Ischinger, director of education for the OECD.

The findings underscore the cost of a persistent dropout problem in America's high schools.

At Central, Cowan estimates about 20 percent of beginning freshmen don't graduate within four years.

The school typically starts each fall with about 350 freshmen. About 70 of those students will drop out during their high school career, he said.

"We are probably about 10 percent better than the national average," Cowan said.

The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education reports much lower dropout rates for school districts.

The state listed the 2005 dropout rate for Central High School at 7.8 percent. Jackson's rate is reported at 1.2 percent; and Scott City at 2.3 percent. Those percentages are based on calculations that take into account the total high school enrollment, ninth through 12th grade.

Cowan and Jackson principal Rick McClard said Missouri graduation rates don't take into account students who take more than four years to finish high school or those who drop out but then obtain their GEDs.

"Most of the kids you lose, they drop out as freshmen," Cowan said. "In some cases, they may be second- or third-year freshmen. They aren't able to make sophomore."

Hispanic and black students have the highest dropout rates among the study body at Cape Central. In 2005, Hispanic students had a 44 percent dropout rate and black students had a 13 percent dropout rate. In contrast, the dropout rate among white students was 6.3 percent.

According to DESE, Cape Girardeau Central High School had 110 dropouts in ninth through 12th grade. The next highest locally was Jackson with 20. Scott City High School had eight dropouts.

Cowan said high school staff members are working to address the dropout problem, including providing after-school tutoring.

High school staff regularly monitor the academic progress of at-risk students, he said. The school has identified some 50 freshmen who are at risk of not graduating based on their academic problems in eighth grade, Cowan said.

Cowan said the federal No Child Left Behind Act has focused more attention on school dropout rates.

McClard agrees there's more public attention paid to the dropout problem today. "The dropout rates were higher decades ago, but nobody cared," he said.

McClard credits his high school's homework policy for helping keep Jackson's dropout rate low. Students face in-school suspensions if they don't do their homework, he said.

Study sessions for ninth-graders in Jackson's junior high school has helped prepare students for sophomore classes, McClard said.

Jackson High School students increasingly are returning for a fifth year rather than dropping out of school, he said.

Summer school has made a difference, too, he said. "We have a lot of kids who struggle. If it weren't for summer school, they wouldn't make it," said McClard.

The Jackson principal believes it's unfair to compare all schools equally. Some schools have a greater population of students who are at risk of failing in school, he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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