GILROY
– More Gilroy students are staying in school and earning their
high school diplomas, according to the state’s count of the number
of graduates and dropouts in the district last year.
GILROY – More Gilroy students are staying in school and earning their high school diplomas, according to the state’s count of the number of graduates and dropouts in the district last year.
Gilroy High School had fewer dropouts and more graduates in 2002-03 than the year before and bettered the state and county rates for each.
However, many education officials consider the graduation and dropout rates unreliable because the state does not track individual students through their high school career. Also, the state slightly changed the way rates are calculated this year and plans to implement a more accurate system in a couple years.
According to the recently released 2002-03 numbers, 10 Gilroy high school students dropped out, or 0.4 percent of the student population. Eight were enrolled in GHS and two in Mt. Madonna Continuation High. The previous year, 11 students – all from GHS – dropped out, also equaling 0.4 percent.
Gilroy Unified School District graduated 92.9 percent of students last year, compared with 88.3 percent the year before.
“That’s very good news,” Superintendent Edwin Diaz said of the graduation and dropout rates, although he had not reviewed them in detail.
He noted that when calculations are revised, as they were this year, the first round of data may be unreliable.
The GUSD dropout rate steadily has decreased in recent years. It was 2 percent in 2000-01 and in the three years prior, varied between 2 and 3 percent.
GHS Principal Bob Bravo said he had not yet reviewed the data.
Across the state, both graduation and dropout rates climbed, which state education officials attributed to a change in calculation methods implemented this year.
Under the new system, the number of graduates for 2003 was divided by the sum of graduates plus dropouts from each year of high school enrollment for the past four years. In the past, the rate was calculated by taking the number of graduates divided by the ninth grade enrollment carried through for four years.
The rates are only for one school year. Student turnover aside, the four-year dropout rate for the class of 2003 totaled 38 students or 1.5 percent.
There is a noticeable discrepancy between dropout rates versus graduation rates because dropout rates also are not good measures for determining graduation rates, state officials said.
At issue is the fact that the state has no way to track individual students from the time they enroll in high school until they leave.
Hilary McLean, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education, said the system for tracking both dropout rates and graduation rates is imperfect because, for example, some students who move to another district could be counted as both dropouts and graduates.
“Part of the problem is that schools don’t often know if a student moved to a new school district or went on to adult education or, in some cases, enrolled in college early,” she said.
Sometimes, schools have trouble following a student’s paper trail, said Esther Corral-Carlson, GUSD’s director of student assessment. When a student moves to a new school, that district is supposed to contact GUSD for the student’s file. That doesn’t always happen, Corral-Carlson said, and sometimes the student must be tracked down at his or her new school.
The system is so complicated, many have trouble understanding its accuracy, Corral-Carlson said.
Add to that the federal government’s graduation rate calculation for Adequate Yearly Progress, which is different from the state’s rate.
“They had three ways that you could actually calculate that to meet your graduation rate,” Corral-Carlson said. “So it was kind of confusing. They’re giving us this data, and we’re having to take it at just face value.”
The state says the best way to calculate both graduation and dropout rates is to track each student from kindergarten through 12th grade. A program to do that is being developed, and the education department plans to implement it by 2005.
California Parents for Educational Choice, an activist group that supports school choice, says the dropout rate should be looked at for each graduating class rather than in one-year increments as is currently done.
The group claims GUSD’s dropout rate last year would be nearer 26.7 percent, because 687 freshmen enrolled in 1999 and 497 graduated in 2003. That number does not account for student’s moving or enrollment changes because, according to the group’s board president, students exiting and entering a district usually even out.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Lori Stuenkel covers education for The Dispatch. She can be reached at 842-6400 x277 or via e-mail at lo***@************ch.com.
