The DOE surely did the right thing by commissioning a study of the city’s high school dropouts, as the NY Times reported Sunday. The DOE was scheduled to report the results to the State Board of Regents today, showing that nearly 140,000 people aged 16-21 in NYC have either dropped out of high school or are unlikely to graduate.
But the study, at least what we know of it, reveals almost nothing that we didn’t already know. Hopefully, the $2.6 million that the Gates Foundation paid on NYC’s behalf to a Boston group that did the study bought more than the highlights summarized in the Times. And hopefully, the Regents and/or the DOE will release it. If it’s privately paid for, do we get to see it?
We learn that students who fall behind in their credits have a hard time getting back on track. We learn that the Regents exams are not the main stumbling block to graduation (credit accumulation is). And we learn that serving the group of kids who are still enrolled after four years of high school is critical to improving the city’s graduation rate.
Well, falling behind in credit accumulation is kind of the definition of not being ready to graduate. Commissioner Mills did the analysis two years ago to show that kids take and pass their Regents in much greater numbers than they get their credits. And the still-enrolled have been the focus of many excellent dropout prevention programs over the years.
What else do they say? Many students come into high school with unsufficient math and reading skills. No kidding. Though here’s an interesting fact: 30% of students who eventually fall behind actually begin their freshman years with proficient or nearly proficient reading skills. So we can’t lay it all on the middle schools. Black and Hispanic students are more likely to drop out than whites or Asians. I hope they didn’t pay $2.6m for that information.
And finally, Michelle Cahill says the findings point to a need for more transfer schools. Aren’t those some of the very programs this Chancellor wiped out a couple of years ago, then rediscovered when the state outed our abysmal graduation rates?
But let’s take a page out of the more charitable book of Elisa Hyman, director of Advocates for Children, who called the study an important first step. It is, and for those who work with these students all the time, it’s essential to reframe this issue. For a long time kids who didn’t graduate on time were either ruining our statistics or they were someone else’s problem. Actually, they’re our kids and deserve our best efforts.
