For several years, ending in 1998, I did a newsletter on education
around here. The dropout brouhaha drove me to my file of back issues.
In 1997 we did an issue on dropouts. Among others things it reported:
--That drop out statistics are figured in at least three ways (event,
status and cohort, I can provide definitions to anyone interested) and
are almost always used in ways that confuse matters.
--A DCFL study of the class of 1996 showed rates of "completion on time"
of 79 percent statewide and 42 percent in Minneapolis. The dropout rate,
which took into account kids who were behind or otherwise in the system,
was 10 percent and 15 percent, respectively.
--A study/projection presented to the State Board of Education in 1995
by Ruth Anne Olson, the preeminent education evaluation person in this
area, projected the Minneapolis numbers for the class of 1998 based on
1992 percentages. Example: She projected the American Indian dropout
rate of 86 percent and African Americans of 68 percent in Minneapolis.
--In 1996 Minneapolis schools reported to the state a dropout rate of
8.7 percent in one place and 12.5 in another. A city of Minneapolis
report on children in 1994 reported the MPS rate as 14.5 percent.
Some on this list may remember the contentious school board election of
1987, in which three board members were elected to turnaround the
district (and send a message to the soon-to-depart superintendent
Richard Green) in which dueling school dropout figures were a key issue. (Judy
Farmer was the one incumbent able to hold on in that election, if my
memory serves.)
We have a problem, a big, serious, future-of-democracy-type problem.
Anyone who has been watching has known it for a long time. This is
nothing new. Stewing over drop-out numbers is only marginally helpful.
Beware those who ignore it. Beware, also, those who think this is
something new and a few programs, high school reform initiatives or
demonstrations are a solution.
Dennis Schapiro
Linden Hills
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