Is counting dropouts too complicated?

A reader raised a great question about whether there ought to be an easier, cheaper way to count dropouts:

Mr. Blume,

The state will spend millions of dollars trying to track individual students to discern dropout rates. I'm only a sub teacher, not a real teacher, but I do understand real statistics. All one needs to do to figure out dropout rates is to take the number of incoming freshmen in any single year and compare it against the number of graduates of that same school 10 weeks previously. Voila!!! The dropout rate! A hell of lot cheaper isn't it?  No wonder the state is broke.

Chris from Grass Valley, CA

Because I suspect a lot of people wonder about this, here is my answer to Chris:

Chris --

I wish it were that simple. Your method would not account for students who transfer to alternative ed programs or adult school. And it's difficult to separate incoming freshman from returning freshman without individual student-tracking IDs. Also, some students get near-degree equivalents like the GED. Also disabled students are often in alternative programs that only sometimes lead to a traditional degree. Your method also would not account for students who graduate a little late, but still graduate. During periods of increasing enrollment, your method tends to undercount dropouts. During periods of declining enrollment caused by families moving away, your method overcounts dropouts.

(The new method, to be sure, remains flawed; it, too, cannot yet properly account for some of the issues noted above.)

The real promise of individual student tracking is probably to measure student learning. If and when it works properly, it should be able to tell us, for example, if a student has learned a year's worth of material (or more than that or less than that) in an academic year. The federal government is likely to gradually require all states to measure progress this way. 

Having said all that, your method is a lot better than nothing. A substantial improvement on your method (but following the same principal) is to count graduates and compare that to how many students were in the 8th grade 5 years previous.

-- HB

Added note: The entire subject has been one of great debate, especially because the prior official method of counting dropouts was almost completely discredited. L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was following something akin to Chris' suggestion when Villaraigosa argued that he should be given authority over the Los Angeles Unified School District.

-- Howard Blume

Comments

[CP]

Am I the only one to recognize the biggest flaw with Chris' method of calculating the drop-out rate. If I read and interpreted it correctly, he wants to compare the number of students graduating in June of any year to the amount of incoming freshmen in September of the same year. If I am correct in my interpretation, then he would be comparing two separate sets of students that would have nothing to do with each other. For example, let's say that 1000 kids graduated from a high school in June 2008, and they are enrolling 1000 freshmen in September 2008. Does that mean that they have a 0% drop-out rate, even though that graduating class started with 2000 students 4 years ago?

I believe he meant to to ask, why not count the incoming freshmen, then, 4 years later, count the graduates, and there is your drop-out rate. Although this method is also flawed (as Mr. Blume points out), it would be a whole lot more relevant than the apples-to-oranges comparison that Chris proposes.

On an aside: Chris, I originally wanted to take you to task about referring to yourself as "just a sub, not a real teacher." It is this type of apathy that denigrates the hard work and very "real"-ness of the profession of substitute teaching. Students and others will not view you as a "real" teacher unless you do it first. Basically, it is because of people like you that others, especially students, do not respect substitute teachers. If you do not appreciate the responsibility placed in your hands whenever you are given a class, then maybe it is time to seek another line of work where you will respect yourself and your colleagues.