SACRAMENTO — State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell today released revised dropout and graduation rates for the 2006-07 school year that for the first time were compiled using Statewide Student Identifiers (SSID).

"The revised graduation rate is up slightly to 67.7 percent and the dropout rate is down nearly three points to 21.5 percent for 2006-07," said O'Connell. "Of course, I do not want to see any student drop out of school – graduating from high school is critically important for all students' future success. However, I am pleased that districts are finding even more of our students still in our public school system. The updated data indicate that our use of Statewide Student Identifiers is working as intended. School districts now are highly motivated to communicate with each other to track down students lost in the system to determine their status."

Each K-12 student in a California public school is entered into the SSID system and assigned an individual, yet non-personally identifiable, number that is maintained throughout the student's academic career. SSIDs allow for more accurate tracking of how many students are or are not completing their education. Offering districts the opportunity to correct data is a standard part of any data reporting process. The deadline for school districts to submit their corrected dropout and graduation data to the California Department of Education (CDE) was August 29. The data corrections were then reviewed by the CDE's Data Management Division and the revised rates were posted this week.

The revised 2006-07 graduation rate of 67.7 percent is up one-tenth of a percentage point from the 67.6 percent rate preliminarily reported in July. The federal government requests that states provide a four-year derived dropout rate. The revised four-year derived statewide dropout rate of 21.5 percent is down 2.7 percentage points from the 24.2 percent reported in July. In two subgroups of concern in the state's efforts to close the achievement gap, the dropout rates declined. Among African American students, the revised dropout rate is 36.2 percent, down 5.4 percent from the 41.6 percent reported in July. Among Latino students, the dropout rate is now 27.4 percent, down 2.9 percent from the July report.

Students counted as dropouts include students who are known dropouts and students considered "lost transfers," or students who indicated they were transferring to another school but then were not reported as enrolled anywhere else. The revised rates show 3,000 fewer students reported as known dropouts and 14,000 fewer students reported as lost transfers.

The revised rates also include an update on the number of students who are neither graduates nor dropouts, now at 10.8 percent, up 2.6 percentage points from the 8.2 percent reported in July. The latter group consists of students who completed or withdrew from school, such as students who transferred to a private school, left the state, took the General Educational Development Test (GED®) to earn a California High School Equivalency Certificate, or became a "completer," such as a special education student who received a certificate of completion or other credential in lieu of a diploma. Each student, whether they graduated, withdrew from, or completed school is assigned one of 28 "withdrawal codes." For the complete list of withdrawal codes, please visit Exit/Withdrawal Codes Descriptions, Version 8.0.3.

The 2006-07 dropout rate cannot be compared to the prior year's dropout rate of 13 percent because the numbers are based on different information. Before SSIDs, dropout rates were derived using only aggregate data of enrollment and dropouts collected annually through the California Basic Educational Data System. Now, individual student-level data allow districts and the state to collect and report what becomes of students who leave school.

For example, in the past if a parent told a school that a student was transferring to a different school, the school would mark that student as having transferred to another public school. With SSIDs, the state can determine whether students marked as transfers indeed did enroll in another California public school. If the student does not register at another California public school, schools are highly motivated to try and find out what happened to the student so the record will not reflect a dropout.

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 also must be used when calculating or analyzing dropout rates for other schools with high mobility, including alternative schools or schools eligible or participating in the Alternative Schools Accountability Model. These schools are designed for students who are already at risk of not graduating because they are deficient in credit, have poor attendance, or prior academic challenges, and should not be compared to regular comprehensive high schools. Students may stay in these schools for short periods of time with the intent of returning to their local comprehensive high schools. The dropout-rate calculations compare the counts of dropouts over the entire school year with a single day enrollment count on the California Basic Educational Data System's Information Day (the first Wednesday in October). Thus, calculating dropout rates for schools with a high volume of short-term students may result in overstated rates in excess of 100 percent because the point-in-time enrollment count will significantly understate the actual enrollment over time.

SSIDs will eventually be tracked through the California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System, or CALPADS, which will maintain longitudinal, individual student-level data including student demographics, program participation, grade level, enrollment, course enrollment and completion, discipline, state assessment, teacher assignment, and other data required to meet state and federal reporting requirements. CALPADS is scheduled to be fully implemented with all districts in the 2009-10 school year. Until student-identifier data are collected over four years, CDE will still be reporting an estimated four-year graduation rate and a derived four-year dropout rate.

"Schools and districts are working hard to accurately collect and report data using Statewide Student Identifiers, but they still need training and assistance to ensure ongoing data quality," O'Connell added. "The Statewide Student Identifier system is a great tool, but it will be unable to provide a true picture of our schools unless accurate data are collected and reported. There is a high rate of turnover among data coordinators at the local level. I continue to urge the Governor and Legislature to provide funding – just $5 per student – to support local data collection and reporting efforts."

Senate Bill 1453, authored by former state Senator Dede Alpert, was signed into law in September 2002 to require the assignment of SSIDs. Local educational agencies have completed assigning all California kindergarten through grade twelve public school students a SSID. To download state-, county-, district-, and school-level dropout data, please visit CDE's DataQuest at: DataQuest. Downloadable data files will be uploaded in the about two weeks and will be found at Student Data Files.