Dropout statistics under fire

[sonias]

San Antonio Express News 7/26/10
Dropout statistics under fire

AUSTIN — A report about Texas school dropouts from the Texas Education Agency paints a rosy but distorted picture of the real problem, says the leader of an organization that has been studying the issue for 25 years.

School dropout experts at two Texas universities agree.

The TEA last week touted a dropout rate of 9.4 percent for the high school graduating class of 2009. But the agency's own report shows that class, which started with 392,051 ninth-graders, had dwindled to 280,044 students by the time it graduated three years later, creating a combined dropout and attrition rate of nearly 29 percent.

The San Antonio-based Intercultural Development and Research Association put the statewide dropout/attrition rate of the class of 2009 at 31 percent, and said it's much higher for Hispanic and African American students and for large urban school districts.

The best way to assess the dropout problem is to compare the number of ninth-grade students with those who graduate while making adjustments for high school students who transfer in and out during those years, said IDRA director Maria "Cuca" Robledo Montecel. "Continuing to disregard the large number of students that are dropping out is an affront to those Texas high school students who have already dropped out and who have few options in life," she said. "It's an affront to all of the hundreds of thousands who will drop out in the next several years unless we do something about it."

This is a huge problem that republicans like Rick Perry and his lackey at TEA Robert Scott are glossing over. The population in Texas is not dwindling so the numbers of kids in school and those graduating shouldn't be dwindling.

The 30% dropout rate are the real numbers. We can not afford to ignore this problem.
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