Melvin B. Miller
Editor & Publisher

A hidden crisis

Citizens concerned about public education in Boston generally focus on MCAS scores while another problem — a crisis in the dropout rate — often goes unnoticed.

Almost two years ago, Mayor Thomas M. Menino challenged leading organizations to study the problem and propose strategies for substantially reducing the dropout rate. In response to Menino’s challenge, Boston agencies organized a coalition called the “Boston Youth Transitions Task Force.”

Their recently released report is both illuminating and shocking. Upon reading the report, it becomes clear that the lack of uniformity in determining the dropout rate has caused considerable confusion. In fact, it has not always been clear whether a student merely moved with his or her family to another city, transferred to another school system or left school completely.

A common statistic cited in the press is the number of students who drop out in a year as a percentage of the number who graduate that year. With between 1400 and 1600 students dropping out in each of the past five years and about 3000 students graduating every year, that calculation provides a dropout rate of roughly 50 percent. While that rate is dramatic, it is not especially useful.

A more significant analysis comes from data provided by Boston Public Schools (BPS) and the Massachusetts Department of Education (DOE). The BPS counts as dropouts those who enter the ninth grade and fail to graduate in five years. By this calculus, the dropout rate is 21 percent. The DOE analysis covers four years and also includes those students who transferred into the system during that time. The DOE rate is 32 percent.

Another significant statistic shows the great mobility of BPS students. According to the Center for Labor Market Studies, only 51 percent of ninth grade BPS students become BPS graduates in four years. Not all are dropouts. Many move out of the system and graduate elsewhere.

It comes as no surprise that blacks, Latinos and students from poor families are more likely to drop out. Also, males are 30 percent more likely than females to drop out. Opponents of MCAS insist that failure on the test motivates students to drop out. However, in 2003-2004, 45 percent of all juniors and 65 percent of all seniors who dropped out had already passed the test.

Regardless of the reason for dropping out, the failure to have at least a high school diploma is economically disastrous. Boston has a highly educated work force, and most good jobs require post-secondary education. There are few jobs for 16-19 year old dropouts.

Once all the data is gathered, the most important task becomes how to motivate students to thrive in an academic environment. The intervention of an understanding and supportive adult is always helpful. BPS wants to establish smaller, more personal learning environments, but school budgets will limit the pace of development in that direction.

What is sorely missing is a cultural dynamic in the black community that celebrates academic achievement. Many who are academically successful are denigrated as nerds and even threatened with violence. Some families still maintain a profound reverence for scholarship, but for the most part, pop culture prevails in the community at large.

In the days of slavery, blacks understood that academic achievement was the road up. Somehow that understanding has been lost.