On May 12th, 2009 the State School Chief Jack O’Connell released the annual report on dropouts and graduates using individual student level data. He states that there are several factors that could affect the accuracy of those counts and that initial records show numbers that most likely will change as more accurate data is filtered. When speaking about this data issues Mr. O’Connell states: “ The dropout and graduation rates that CDE currently posts using an aggregate formula provide a reasonable estimate in most cases. However, there are school-level configurations where these estimates do not work well. County-run schools, alternative schools, and dropout recovery high schools will often have inflated aggregate dropout rates because the dropout calculation is based on a single day of enrollment. It is important to note that these schools have very high mobility and may enroll many more students and almost always at-risk students. Therefore, dropout-rate calculations are not posted for schools that are operated by County Offices of Education because of constraints in interpreting these calculations with high-mobility schools. Caution must also be used when calculating or analyzing dropout rates for other schools with high mobility, including alternative schools, dropout recovery high schools, or schools eligible for participating in the Alternative Schools Accountability Model (ASAM).”
Media reports informed that this District has a 50% dropout rate. However, looking at the statement of Jack O’Connell’s release; and making the changes as suggested in it one will find that our dropout rate is much lower. A full copy of the release statement is located on our website.
The McFarland Unified School District has several schools grouped together at the McFarland Learning Center building that fall under the classification of alternative schools such as the San Joaquin Continuation High School and the Independent School as defined in the statement. The only high school in the district that is a regular High School is McFarland High School. By running the dropout report for the McFarland High School, one will see that the drop out rate for McFarland High School is 19.9% which is below the countywide level of 20.8%. If you look farther to the right, you will see the derived drop out rate for the High School is 19.9%, the district is 52.3%, the county is 21.5% and the state is 20.1%. This means that our one and only regular high school shows a better derived drop out rate than both the state and county average. Jack O’Connell’s numbers for the district (52.3%) is an inflated number because it includes the schools (Learning Center Schools) which are determined to be skewers of the dropout rates; causing the number to be inflated.
Please Click on the links below for full documents.
The Drop Out Report from the California Department of Education for the High School is posted on the website to show the accurate numbers to be used as stated by Jack O’ Connell in his release. The complete report can be generated by going to
http://dq.cde.ca.gov/dataquest/ , selecting the McFarland High School and running the report.
