Question 8: Recently a national study labeled some Tacoma schools as “Dropout Factories,” and school officials disputed the study. What is going on?

Here is a link to the report mentioned at the Dec. 6 Board session, What Your Community Can Do About The Dropout Crisis.

Here are some details about Tacoma’s dropout rate. As you can read for yourself in this powerpoint presentation and this paper which uses approximately the same data set, a detailed look at Tacoma students shows that we graduate 46% of students. That’s right, 46%. An additional 23% (this is an estimate) eventually get their GED, or get a degree from another school, and so on. Should Tacoma school officials say our graduation rate is 69%, counting even those students who drop out and get a GED four years later? It sounds like Tacoma Schools produce that 46%, and mostly other people get the other 23% through. So, in a nutshell, we lose somewhere between a third (a generous estimate) and a half of students. As this paper demonstrates, the key transition year is the 9^th grade. Students who don’t do well then drop out at astonishing rates. Students who don’t do well don’t attend regularly. And that is also a strong predictor of dropping out.

Johns Hopkins University Center for the Social Organization of Schools focuses on the graduation gap, among other things. A presentation of their overall approach is here. They produced the report that uses the term “dropout factory.” The report that hit the national news is found here. The writing style is somewhat popularized and breezy, and education professionals bristle (or worse) at the term—especially when applied to one of their schools.

The Johns Hopkins Center data about Tacoma are found here, as are explanations of their methods. Their data is nowhere near as detailed or carefully checked as are the data linked in the first paragraph, above. As noted at the November 19 2007 meeting of the Tacoma School Board, educators in several districts dispute the methods used to arrive at the designation of some schools as “dropout factories,” and at least one school district reported that one or more of their schools was taken off the list after complaining to the study authors. Tacoma schools were also disputing the designation, and retractions were being published on the authors’ website. (Although, go ahead and try to find it…. One person familiar with their site could not find any retractions.)

Three members of the audience at that November 12 Board meeting heard the discussion of the study, and the dispute over results. It was our shared understanding that the Board and administrators were visibly relieved that Tacoma schools might be taken off the list. There was no discussion of the magnitude of Tacoma’s dropout problem, or of the possibility that the publication of the study can serve as a useful wakeup call. Are Tacoma educators ‘off the hook’ if the authors of the study retract some of the results? Let’s keep our eyes on the prize, people. What matters is what is happening with the kids. What is the magnitude of Tacoma’s dropout problem?

These same members of the audience know of a program at Foss High School that demonstrated some success in reducing the number of dropouts and in getting many ‘problem kids’ into college. The program was cut. We see it as a sign that the District can focus much more directly on the dropout gap.

The strategies researchers suggest for tackling the dropout gap are very similar to those advised by the Harvard program on the achievement gap. One of the reports from the group at Johns Hopkins is entitled What your community can do to end its Dropout Crisis.

[back to the Achievement Gap page]