Education - Dropping Out

When students drop out or fail to complete high school, both the individual and society suffer. Dropping out of school often results in limited occupational and economic opportunities for the individual. For society, it may result in increased costs of government assistance programs to the individuals and their families, costly public training programs, and higher crime rates.

The Dropout Rate

In 2000, according to the NCES, 10.7 percent of sixteen-to twenty-four-year-olds had dropped out of high school. White students dropped out at a rate of 7.3 percent. African-Americans dropped out at a rate of 10.9 percent, while the Hispanic dropout rate was 27 percent. These figures represent significant improvement since the 1960s and 1970s, when more than 20 percent of African-Americans and more than 30 percent of Hispanics dropped out of school. (See Table 7.9.) Asians and Pacific Islanders had the lowest dropout rate, with only 3.8 percent

TABLE 7.7
Reading achievement, average scale scores of students ages 9, 13, and 17 by age and child and family characteristics, selected years 1980–99

Characteristic	1980	1984	1988	1990	1992	1994	1996	1999
Age 9
Total	215	211	212	209	211	211	213	212
Gender
Male	210	208	208	204	206	207	207	209
Female	220	214	216	215	215	215	218	215
Race and Hispanic origin
White	221	218	218	217	218	218	220	221
Black	189	186	189	182	185	185	191	186
Hispanic*	190	187	194	189	192	186	195	193
Age 13
Total	259	257	258	257	260	258	258	259
Gender
Male	254	253	252	251	254	251	251	254
Female	263	262	263	263	265	266	264	265
Race and Hispanic origin
White	264	263	261	262	266	265	266	267
Black	233	236	243	242	238	234	234	238
Hispanic*	237	240	240	238	239	235	238	244
Parents' education
Less than high school	239	240	247	241	239	237	239	238
Graduated high school	254	253	253	251	252	251	251	251
Some education after	271	268	265	267	270	269	269	270
high school
Age 17
Total	286	289	290	290	290	288	288	288
Gender
Male	282	284	286	284	284	282	281	282
Female	289	294	294	297	296	295	295	295
Race and Hispanic origin
White	293	295	295	297	297	296	295	295
Black	243	264	274	267	261	266	266	264
Hispanic*	261	268	271	275	271	263	265	271
Parents' education
Less than high school	262	269	267	270	271	268	267	265
Graduated high school	278	281	282	283	281	276	273	274
Some education after	299	301	300	300	299	299	298	298
high school
*Persons of Hispanic origin may be of any race.
Note: Parents' level of education is the highest educational attainment of either parent. Data on parents' level of education are not reliable for 9-year-olds.
The reading proficiency scale has a range from 0 to 500: Level 150: Simple, discrete reading tasks Level 200: Partial skills and understanding Level 250: Interrelates ideas and makes generalizations Level 300: Understands complicated information Level 350: Learns from specialized reading materials
SOURCE: "Table ED3.B. Reading Achievement: Average Scale Scores of Students Ages 9, 13, and 17 by Age and Child and Family Characteristics, Selected Years 1980–99," in America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2001, Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, Washington, DC, 2001

leaving high school without receiving a diploma in 1999. (See Table 7.10.)

While whites have a lower dropout rate than most other racial groups, whites made up most of the total dropout population. Whites comprised 41.4 percent of all high school dropouts, followed by Hispanics at 38.6 percent, African-Americans at 17.6 percent, and Asians and Pacific Islanders at 1.4 percent. (See Table 7.10.)

In 2004 Christopher B. Swanson of the Urban Institute issued "Who Graduates? Who Doesn't? A Statistical Portrait of Public High School Graduation, Class of 2001," a report that challenged the conventional way that dropout statistics are calculated—i.e., subtracting the number of graduates from the number of twelfth graders that started the school year. Swanson devised a "cumulative promotion index," which took into account the number of students who left school over the course of four years of high school. According to this method, the dropout rates, especially for minorities, are far worse than generally reported. As calculated by the Urban Institute, of those students who enrolled in 2000 only 68 percent were expected to graduate in the spring of 2004. Moreover, just half of all African-American students, 51 percent of Native Americans, and 53 percent of Hispanics were expected to graduate.

TABLE 7.8
Mathematics achievement, average scale scores of students ages 9, 13, and 17 by age and child and family characteristics, selected years 1982–99

Characteristic	1982	1986	1990	1992	1994	1996	1999
Age 9
Total	219	222	230	230	231	231	232
Gender
Male	217	222	229	231	232	233	233
Female	221	222	230	228	230	229	231
Race and Hispanic origin
White	224	227	235	235	237	237	239
Black	195	202	208	208	212	212	211
Hispanic*	204	205	214	212	210	215	213
Age 13
Total	269	269	270	273	274	274	276
Gender
Male	269	270	271	274	276	276	277
Female	268	268	270	272	273	272	275
Race and Hispanic origin
White	274	274	276	279	281	281	283
Black	240	249	249	250	252	252	251
Hispanic*	252	254	255	259	256	256	259
Parents' education
Less than high school	251	252	253	256	255	254	256
Graduated high school	263	263	263	263	266	267	264
Some education after high school	275	274	277	278	277	278	279
Graduated college	282	280	280	283	285	283	286
Age 17
Total	299	302	305	307	306	307	308
Gender
Male	302	305	306	309	309	310	310
Female	296	299	303	305	304	305	307
Race and Hispanic origin
White	304	308	310	312	312	313	315
Black	272	279	289	286	286	286	283
Hispanic*	277	283	284	292	291	292	293
Parents' education
Less than high school	279	279	285	286	284	281	289
Graduated high school	293	293	294	298	295	297	299
Some education after high school	304	305	308	308	305	307	308
Graduated college	312	314	316	316	318	317	317
*Persons of Hispanic origin may be of any race.
Note: Parents' level of education is the highest educational attainment of either parent. Data on parents' level of education are not reliable for 9-year-olds.
The mathematics proficiency scale ranges from 0 to 500: Level 150: Simple arithmetic facts Level 200: Beginning skills and understandings Level 250: Numerical operations and beginning problem solving Level 300: Moderately complex procedures and reasoning Level 350: Multi-step problem solving and algebra
SOURCE: "Table ED3.A. Mathematics Achievement: Average Scale Scores of Students Ages 9, 13, and 17 by Age and Child and Family Characteristics, Selected Years 1982–99," in America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2001, Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, Washington, DC, 2001