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Berkeley Dropout Rates Still High for Minorities

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Thursday May 14, 2009 - 06:23:00 PM

State schools chief Jack O’Connell released the 2007-08 dropout and graduation rate report Tuesday, May 12, calling for comprehensive reform to address the large number of California students leaving high school before getting a diploma. 

Berkeley Unified School District’s dropout rate was significantly lower than both the county and the state dropout rates, but rates for the city’s minority students were still high. 

The report shows that 68.3 percent of public school students in California graduated in 2007-08, a slight increase from the 67.7 percent reported for 2006-07. The high school dropout rate declined from 21.1 percent to 20.1 percent for the same period. The remaining 11.8 percent of students in this year’s figures include those getting General Education De-grees outside the school setting, fifth-year seniors, those completing special education programs without graduating, and students who died.  

O’Connell told reporters at a press teleconference Tuesday that the data showed alarmingly high dropout rates among African American and Hispanic students. 

“There are long-term economic repercussions from not graduating, for the student, for their communities, and for our statewide economy,” O’Connell said. “These data provide even more evidence of the challenge and the moral imperative of closing the achievement gap, as well as increasing graduation rates among all students.” 

In 2007-08, 34.7 percent of the state’s African Americans dropped out of school compared with 35.8 percent the previous year—a 1.1 percent improvement that O’Connell characterized as “slightly encouraging.”  

He attributed the high dropout rates for African Americans—which he said included immigrant students from Africa—to the achievement gap, asking the state for more funds for qualified teachers and additional resources. 

“We need to build bridges to colleges and community colleges,” he said. “It’s no longer acceptable to say that some students are falling through the cracks.” 

The state Department of Education will start reporting middle school dropout rates from next year, O’Connell said, to help the public understand that dropouts are not only a high school problem. 

In 2007-08, 25.5 percent of Latino students quit school compared with 26.7 percent in 2006-07. Dropout rates for Asians declined from 9 to 8.4 percent while rates for white students declined from 13.3 percent to 12.2 percent. 

O’Connell said students were not dropping out because of stress over the California High School Exit Exam, which all students need to pass in order to obtain a high school diploma. The number of students citing the exam as a factor, he said, “was insignificant.” 

The Berkeley Unified School District’s overall dropout rate was 14.2 percent, lower than Alameda County (17.2 percent) and the state (20.1 percent). This includes students at Berkeley High and from a non-public, nonsectarian school that serves special education students, but does not include students at Berkeley Technology Academy, the public continuation school. 

The dropout rate for Berkeley High School for grades 9 through 12 was 11.1 percent, with a 2.8 percent “one-year dropout rate” for 2007-2008, both of which are lower than the state and county rates. The one-year rate is derived by adding up dropouts in all grades and dividing the sum by the total number of students enrolled. 

Berkeley Technology Academy did not receive its own separate four-year dropout rate calculation, which B-Tech Principal Victor Diaz attributed to the absence of a ninth grade in the continuation school. 

However, a 25.4 percent one-year dropout rate is listed for B-Tech—higher than the county (4.5 percent) and state (5.3 percent) rates and than Berkeley High’s rate—since no ninth grade data is required to calculate it. 

Fifty-three percent of Latino students and 19 percent of African Americans dropped out of B-Tech last year. Diaz acknowledged that the school was having a really difficult time retaining Latino students, especially boys.  

“We as a district are just coming up with materials that are bilingual,” he said. “The school governance council is just trying to reach out to bilingual families. We have had a lot of difficulty trying to hire bilingual staff who will work with the kids and their families. A lot of Latino students also need support outside school.” 

The school, which has about 160 students and an attendance rate of 77 to 80 percent, currently has only one Latino teacher. 

Berkeley High shows a graduation rate of 83 percent for 2007-08, higher than both the county (82.6 percent) and the state (79.7 percent) rates, while B-Tech’s graduation rate is 54.2 percent.  

“We are graduating more kids in terms of numbers every year,” Diaz said. But the fact that students often transfer from Berkeley High to B-Tech in April or May, at the end of the school year, affects the school’s statistics, he said. 

“If they don’t graduate, their non-graduation ends up in my book, even though they have been with Berkeley High for 3.8 years,” said Diaz. “Some people expect them to make up credits in those few months, but that is not always the case.” 

Diaz stressed that B-Tech’s goal was to get students to “some destination” after continuation school, but that it may not always be in the form of a high school diploma. 

This is the second year the state education department has collected and reported dropout rates based on individual student identification numbers, which state educators said increases accountability for districts to find students who stop coming to school. These numbers are used to track the students through their entire school career. 

After collecting two more years of student exit data, the state Department of Education will have four years of data for each individual student, which will produce more accurate student graduation and dropout rates at the school level. 

“The time has come for a national student identifier, which will help us to transfer records more quickly,” O’Connell said. 

For more information on school dropout and graduation rates, see dq.cde.ca.gov/dataquest.