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In Search of
An Accurate Student Dropout Estimate

Accurate dropout statistics in Texas have been illusive. With the publication in 2000 of The Myth of the Texas Miracle in Education, doubts about the truth of statistics presented by state agencies were well documented.  Those doubts and similar reports have continued. As recently as 2006 Dallas ISD staff were publically claiming dropout rates below 2% while over 50% of Dallas ISD 9th graders were not graduating with their class.

Due to this apparent inability to trust official dropout reports a more reliable and simple method is needed. It is recommended that spreadsheets like those that follow be placed on every school district web site both for the district and for each school. Simple enrollment counts by grade are all that is needed. They are easier to check and verify. In Texas the information needed can be pulled from the Texas Education Agency web site at http://www.tea.state.tx.us/adhocrpt/Standard_Reports.html. 

The following is neither an official Dallas ISD, nor TEA, compilation of the data.

Dallas ISD

The first spreadsheet below includes the percentage of 9th grade students who made it to the 10th grade in Dallas ISD during each of the 11 most recent school years. A greater percentage of 9th graders made it to the 10th grade in the 2007-2008 school year than at any time in over 11 years! Dallas ISD is making progress and well on the way to the 50% graduation rate goal.

To help check the calculations in this spreadsheet here is a link to an Excel copy.

To help check the calculations in the above spreadsheet here is a link to an Excel copy.

1 Governors Promote High School Redesign During National Dropout Summit

The above enrollment numbers amount to a 9th grade cohort graduation rate from 1997-2007 of about 43.8% for Dallas ISD.

In 2007 a student dropout study was released by The Center for Social Organization of Schools at John Hopkins University. It showed that one out of every 10 high schools in the US was a "dropout factory" with less than 60% of freshmen still enrolled senior year with their classmates in the graduating classes of 2004, 2005, and 2006. Sadly all 21 of the Dallas ISD non-magnet high schools made this "dropout factory" list! A report on those 21 Dallas ISD schools is linked here.  The complete list of all 1,700 schools designated as "dropout factories" is also online at  http://web.jhu.edu/CSOS/images/List_of_Schools_with_a_Weak_Three_Year_Average_Promoting_Power_Ratio.pdf. The above Dallas ISD student enrollment spreadsheet reinforces this tragic listing of all Dallas ISD high schools.  It shows the same statistics with only a 2% difference in calculations for the 56.2% of ninth graders who do not graduate with their classmates according to the above Dallas ISD spread sheet.

All Texas Schools

Enrollment numbers for all the state of Texas, seen in the spreadsheet below, show a statewide 9th grade cohort graduation rate average of only 64.9% for the graduation classes of 2001-2007. This statistic is verified by several studies including Texas School Holding Power Worse than Two Decades Ago  published in 2007 by the Intercultural Development Research Association (IDRA) which is described on their web site as "an independent, private non-profit organization dedicated to strengthening public schools to work for all children."

The following spreadsheet is very similar to the above spreadsheet on Dallas ISD data except that it covers the entire state of Texas.

The bar chart above was created from the annual enrollment averages above taken from the spreadsheet below for all students in Texas for the academic years from 1997-1998 to 2007-2008.  To help check the calculations in this spreadsheet, or to do other calculations, here is a link to an Excel copy of the spreadsheet below.