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Locating the Dropout Crisis


File number :
IST-DSC-07e

Bibliographic reference :
Balfanz, R., & Legters, N. (2004). Locating The Dropout Crisis. Which High Scools Produce The Nation’s Dropout? Where Are They Located? Who Attends Them? John Hopkins University: Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed At Risck (CRESPAR), Rapport 70.

Abstract :

While various policy efforts expended to fight against school dropout have so far remained focused on the preschool and elementary school levels, there is growing awareness that such efforts must be sustained through high school for students to retain their achievements.

The authors of this report revealed that few American studies have addressed school dropout and achievement rates in senior high schools, the location of problem schools, and the chances of graduating offered to different ethnic groups. The purpose of their report was to identify schools with the highest dropout rates, determine their number and location (in what states and cities) and identify who attended them.

Based on national data, the authors developed a measure to identify the schools with the highest dropout rates, which they refer to as “promoting power”. This measure helped establish the ratio of freshmen to seniors in each high school.

Two groups of schools were thus identified: (1) schools with 50% fewer seniors than freshmen (where a freshman student had one chance out of two of graduating on time) and (2) schools with 60% or fewer seniors than freshmen. As many schools had a 50% to 60% dropout rate, schools with the most problems in which graduation was not the norm were gathered in this last group.

Results
In the United States, one high school out of five (approximately 2000 schools catering to over 2,600,000 students) had low promoting power. This number grew by more than 60% during the 1990s, while there was only an 8% increase in the total number of schools. The promoting power of the 930 high schools with the worst achievement rates was 40 to 60 percentage points lower than the promoting power of schools that achieved the national norm (80%).

A school with a majority ethnic minority attendance was five times more likely to have weak promoting power than a school with a majority white attendance. Nearly half of African-American students and 40% of Latin-American students attended high schools in which graduation was not the norm (compared to 11% of white students). Poverty seemed to be the major cause of weak promoting power. Schools with the same populations but offering selective programmes, having higher per-pupil expenditures or located in affluent suburbs had the same graduation rates as those of majority white schools.

Most schools with weak promoting power were located in a few northern and western American cities and in five southern states (Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida and Texas). In some cities (St. Louis and Indianapolis), students had no other choice but to attend a school with weak promoting power.

Although some preventive measures were applied in these environments (creation of smaller schools, conversion of existing high schools into several smaller learning communities, etc.), the authors emphasized the need to develop a policy encompassing the entire high school level in order to bridge the gap between the freshman and senior years.



Links :
http://www.csos.jhu.edu/beta/csos/index.htm

Key Words :
Promoting Power, Ethnic Minorities, Graduation, Geographical Location, Educational Inequalities, Secondary/High School, Newsletter14

Monitored Countries :
United States