In America’s push for education reform, the college completion problem is now under the microscope. The Obama administration’s goal, for instance, is to have 60 percent of young people (aged 25-34) across the country with some postsecondary credential by 2020. But experts say this can’t be reached until another problem is solved: 1.2 million students drop out of high school annually.
There is a particular crisis in California. To focus on the dropout problem in California, the California Dropout Research Project (CDRP) was created at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Since 2006, it has produced a large battery of research papers and statistic sheets and made policy recommendations that have been incorporated into four Senate bills. To learn more about the efforts in California, The Hechinger Report spoke with Dr. Russell Rumberger, CDRP’s director and recent author of “Dropping Out: Why Students Drop Out of High School and What Can Be Done About It.”
HR: You’ve done a lot of research on dropouts as part of the California Dropout Research Project. Could you talk more about what you’ve learned regarding why people drop out?
RR: It’s mostly just reinforced what I and other researchers have found and known for quite some time, which is that there are markers in high school that kind of are the most immediate predictors of kids dropping out, like failing courses and severe attendance problems. We commissioned a couple of studies at middle schools and Robert Balfanz has done this work in Philadelphia that has gotten the most attention with respect to middle school predictors.
HR: Is there anything specific to California in regard to the dropout problem in America?
RR: There’s nothing totally unique about California, but there are certain things that are more important in our state than others. One of those things is English language learners because we have such a high concentration of them. If you look at our state and how it disaggregates our graduation and dropout rates by what they call program areas, one of which is English learners, and they have just over 50 percent graduation rate, so quite low. And students who are classified as special ed[ucation] are close to identical and have a grad rate just above 50 percent.
HR: You spoke recently at Teachers College, Columbia University about School Improvement Grant (SIG) money and where it’s not going. Could you talk more about that?
