From The Washington Post: "The number of U.S. 'dropout factory' high schools declined from 2002 through 2008, a new report says, but close to 40 percent of minority students continue to fail to graduate with their class. According to the report, called 'Building a Grad Nation' and being released today, the pace of improvement is too slow to meet a national goal of a 90 percent graduation rate by 2020. The number of dropout factory high schools fell by 261, from a high of 2,007 in 2002 to 1,746 in 2008, a decline of 13 percent, the report said, and the actual number of students in these schools dropped by 15 percent."
The article continues: "'Dropout factories,' first identified by Johns Hopkins University researchers early in this decade, are defined as schools at which less than 60 percent of students who started as freshmen are still enrolled four years later. Half of the nation’s dropouts are believed to come from these schools. There was no single approach that resulted in the decline in dropout factories, according to Johns Hopkins researcher Robert Balfanz, one of the report’s authors. Different school districts tried varying approaches that combined academic efforts along with out-of-school support for children."
More: "According to the Education Department, the national graduation rate increased from 72 percent to 75 percent between 2001 and 2008. In 1970, it was 78 percent. It should be noted, however, that the data are not exact because states do not use a uniform method of calculating dropouts. Some progress is being made on that score; in 2005, all 50 governors agreed to a common calculation of high school graduation rates, and by the end of this year, 33 states will be using this calculation, making it easier to compare across state lines."
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Report: Number Of 'Dropout Factories' Declines
