- Originally published in the Los Angeles Times on March 24, 2005 Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times
By Duke Helfand, Times Staff Writer
Nearly half of the Latino and African American
students who should have graduated from California high schools in 2002
failed to complete their education, according to a Harvard University
report released Wednesday.
In the Los Angeles Unified School District, the situation was even
worse, with just 39% of Latinos and 47% of African Americans
graduating, compared with 67% of whites and 77% of Asians.
The
report concluded that the public remains largely unaware of the true
extent of the problem because the state uses "misleading and
inaccurate" methods to report dropout and graduation rates.
The
California Department of Education reported that 87% of students
graduated in 2002, but researchers pegged the rate at just 71%.
Nationally, about 68% of students graduate on time, according to the
analysis.
The troubling graduation rates
are most alarming in minority communities, where students are more
likely to attend what researchers call "dropout factories."
The
exodus of tens of thousands of students before 12th grade is exacting
significant social and economic costs through higher unemployment,
increased crime and billions of dollars in lost revenue, according to
the report by researchers from Harvard, Johns Hopkins, UCLA and UC
Santa Barbara, among others.
"A diploma is
a passport to economic success. If our high schools can't get students
the education they need, that will be ... an economic and social
problem moving forward into the next generation," said researcher
Christopher Swanson of the nonprofit Urban Institute in Washington,
which produced data for the report released by Harvard's Civil Rights
Project.
Statewide, just 57% of African Americans and 60% of Latinos graduated
in 2002, compared with 78% of whites and 84% of Asians, the report said.
Using
enrollment data, researchers produced what they believe are the most
definitive graduation rates for California and its largest school
systems.
They cast aside the state's
method, which even California Education Department officials
acknowledge is flawed. The state officials say they are forced by the
federal government to use a formula that relies on undependable dropout
data from schools.
The Harvard report found that African Americans
and Latinos in the state were far less likely to graduate than their
white and Asian peers, reflecting an achievement gap that first appears
in elementary schools.
UCLA researchers
noticed one troubling pattern in Los Angeles Unified: Most students who
leave high school do so between ninth and 10th grades.
In
several Los Angeles high schools, UCLA researcher Julie Mendoza found
that less than one-third of ninth-graders graduated on time.
Principals
at two of those high schools -- Jefferson and Manual Arts -- said
students leave for a number of reasons but that their schools are
taking steps to boost graduation rates.
Jefferson
High School Principal Norm Morrow attributed his school's graduation
rate -- pegged by UCLA at 31% -- partly to a transient student
population and overcrowding that leave little opportunity for personal
attention.
"If you don't connect with
[students], they are going to drop out," said Morrow, who disputed the
UCLA graduation figure and put the rate at about 45% last year.
He
said that gangs, drugs and students working to support their families
also figured into high dropout numbers. Jefferson serves large numbers
of students from immigrant Latino families.
To
retain more students at the South Los Angeles campus, Morrow said, he
has been working on dividing the school of 3,800 students into smaller
learning centers.
Manual Arts High School
Principal Edward Robillard called the more personalized approach "one
of the most powerful tools for inner-city schools to increase
graduation."
Administrators created some
smaller programs at Manual Arts three years ago. Next year, Robillard
said, the 4,200-student school will be broken up into nine academies
with about 450 students each.
Los Angeles
Unified Schools Supt. Roy Romer said the district is aggressively
tackling the graduation problem by dividing large schools into smaller
units and by better preparing elementary school students with new
reading and math programs.
"We've got to
raise performance beginning in elementary school," Romer said. "The
problem is severe. It's something we have to cure."
Inaction, researchers said, could prove costly.
UC
Santa Barbara education professor Russell Rumberger estimated that the
66,657 dropouts reported by California in 2002-03 could cost the state
$14 billion in lost wages over the students' lifetimes, and add 1,225
inmates to state prisons. The real costs could be far higher, he noted,
because of the state's underreporting of dropout data.
"There
are huge social costs" associated with high dropout rates, including
"lower wages, higher unemployment, poorer health, lower tax revenues,
increased crime," Rumberger said. "If we are going to make a dent in
these problems, we need to start with kids [when they] are little."
Rumberger and the other researchers will present their findings today during a conference at Cal State Los Angeles.
The
Harvard report said that current education policies -- including those
that require annual standardized testing of students -- may exacerbate
the dropout crisis by creating "unintended incentives for school
officials to push out low-achieving students."
The
federal No Child Left Behind education law requires annual testing in
most grade levels and also calls for schools to report their high
school graduation rates annually.
Under the law, schools must raise their test scores and graduation rates or face possible sanctions.
In California, high schools can meet their graduation targets each year by showing any increase over the preceding year.
The
Harvard researchers accused the state of failing to demand more from
its high schools. State officials said they did not want to place
demands on campuses based on data they believe are unreliable.
Any
true gauge of graduation rates, they said, would depend on developing a
system for tracking individual students as they move from school to
school. Such a system has been in the planning stages for years but
could begin tracking data next year.
"We
know this is a serious issue, and that's why we have focused on high
school reform," said state Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell,
who has urged districts to increase graduation requirements.
Sponsors
of the Harvard report urged the state to reexamine its approach to
producing dropout and graduation data, and called for schools to
redouble their efforts to retain students.
"Whether
or not students graduate is the most important thing that happens to
them in school," said Gary Orfield, director of the Harvard Civil
Rights Project. "If students don't make it through high school, they
really have no chance in our economy."
*
Graduation rates
A study found that less than three-quarters of California's high school students graduated with their class in 2002.
Statewide: 71.3%
Asians: 83.5
Whites: 77.8
Latinos: 60.3
Blacks: 56.6
Source: Urban Institute
*
By district
Graduation rates in California's five largest school districts
| Enroll- | All |
|
|
|
|
| Ment | students | Asians | Latinos | Blacks |
|
| Los Angeles |
| Unified | 735,058 | 45.30% | 76.70% | 66.70% | 39.10% | 46.50% |
| San Diego City |
| Unif. | 141,599 | 63.80% | 81.20% | 77.50% | 49.20% | 52.00% |
| Long Beach |
| Unified | 96,488 | 69.10% | 82.70% | 78.70% | 62.60% | 59.40% |
| Fresno |
| Unified | 81,058 | 59.00% | 76.60% | 66.10% | 47.40% | 46.30% |
| Santa Ana |
| Unified | 61,909 | 72.50% | 79.80% | 65.80% | 72.60% | 70.50% |
Source: Urban Institute
*
Times staff writer Erica Williams contributed to this report.