This year’s graduating class of 261 had 451 students in ninth grade—which means the dropout rate should be huge, right?
Try 3 percent. That’s the official number for the Charlottesville City Schools division from 2005-06, a number derived by the number of students who drop out in a year divided by the total number of students in grades seven through 12.
Three percent’s not a big number. It must not be bad, right?
Actually, it’s in the bottom fifth of school divisions across the Commonwealth of Virginia, where the overall dropout rate is 1.9 percent. If 3 percent drop out over six years, that’s an 18 percent dropout rate for a group of kids who start seventh grade. Albemarle County’s is 1.6 percent, but both divisions have significantly higher dropout rates for black students.
If it’s bad, then Freshman Academy must not be working.
Over the past several years, dropout numbers have trended upwards. But before concluding that Freshman Academy isn’t working, you have to consider that the numbers have recently become more accurate, in part thanks to NCLB. In Virginia, for instance, every kid now has a unique testing code for SOLs. Little Johnny doesn’t show up in the fall. A counselor talks to little Johnny’s parents, who say he’s in Richmond schools. If Johnny is in a Richmond school, then a Charlottesville administrator can look him up by his testing code and verify that. If Johnny’s not there or elsewhere in Virginia, then he’s a dropout.
Such verification doesn’t work for out-of-state students or those who go to private schools. But it has upped the reported dropout numbers—city schools only reported a 1.9 percent rate in 2003-04.
I’m still confused. How come I hear of 30 percent dropout rates?
That comes from the graduation rates—which are different from dropout rates. Depending on which agency or think tank you ask, you’ll hear of nationwide graduation rates of anywhere from 70 to 90 percent, depending on how they’re calculated.
Virginia’s graduation rates show the percentage of kids who got either standard or advanced studies diplomas in four years. For CHS, that number is 77 percent. But don’t confuse that with completion rates—those include kids who got any kind of certificate, from a GED to an IB diploma. For the Charlottesville system, that figure is 87 percent.
I’ve got a headache.
So do I.
