Gary Thomas, Ed.D. County Superintendent

Superintendent's Message

County Graduation, Dropout Rates Show Dramatic Improvements

Bolstering graduation and decreasing dropout rates has been an ongoing priority for the County Superintendent of Schools office and local school districts. The reasons are many and relatively clear: In our county, we need a more highly skilled and educated workforce to meet the demands of employers and sustain the economic viability of our region. It's also true that individuals with more education earn higher incomes and are healthier, are less likely to be involved in crime and also less likely to need public services.

Unfortunately, dropping out of high school has significant negative consequences for the individual and society. Dropouts have higher rates of unemployment, lower earnings, poorer health, higher rates of mortality, higher rates of criminal behavior and incarceration, are less likely to have access to preventive health care and more likely to have increased dependence on public assistance. Dropouts are more than twice as likely as high school graduates to slip into poverty and drive up criminal justice costs - more than 40 percent of the men in state and federal prisons have less than a high school education.

So I was extremely pleased to see last month when the California Department of Education released cohort graduation and dropout data for the 2010-11 academic year, that graduation rates for San Bernardino County students jumped 3.5 percentage points from the prior year, while cohort dropout rates during the same period fell 3.8 percentage points.

Overall, San Bernardino County students still trailed state averages for both graduation and dropout rates, but the gaps between subgroups of underrepresented students were significantly closer. The graduation rate of 74 percent shot up 3.5 percent from 2009-10, while the state averages only improved 1.5 percent to 76.3 percent.

For dropout rates, San Bernardino County improved 3.8 percentage points to 15.3 percent, nearly 2 times the improvement of the state average that fell to 14.4 percent.

This was the second year the state released data using the California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System, or CALPADS, which uses student identifier codes to track students across the state.

Among subgroups, the improvements in graduation and dropout rates were even more pronounced.

The graduation rates for African American students in the county rose 6.5 percentage points to 67 percent. That was 4.1 percent above the state grad rates for similar students. Correspondingly, the dropout rates for county African American students fell 5.5 points to 20.2 percent, which was well under the state average of 24.7 percent.

County Hispanic students also posted better averages for both grad and dropout rates than the state averages. With a grad rate of 71.4 percent countywide, Hispanic students were 1 percent above the statewide average. For the dropout rate, the countywide rate of 17 percent was .7 percent lower than the state average.

White students in the county, which had a grad rate of 81 percent, improved 3.7 percentage points, but trailed the state average of 85.5 percent. The dropout rate for White students fell 4.1 points to 10.7 percent, compared to the overall state rate of 8.9 percent.

Among county English learners, grad rates improved 2.5 percentage points to 60 percent (state average of 60.3 percent). Socioeconomically disadvantaged students in the county jumped 4.6 points to a grad rate of 69.6 percent, just about even with the state average 70 percent.
The results certainly are going in the right direction, but there is plenty of work still to do for our students, schools and districts. It's particularly gratifying to see the increases taking place among some of our student subgroups.

Our ongoing commitment to this work at County Schools remains steadfast. Early on in my position as county superintendent, I issued a Call to Action initiative to focus on research proven strategies to improve graduation and dropout rates in San Bernardino County. The Call to Action brings together educators with leaders in business and labor, community and faith-based organizations, government and parents to share best practices and common resources to keep students engaged in school through graduation and beyond. Many of our schools and districts are making tremendous strides and we must continue along this path.

Unfortunately, a program that nearly guarantees high school graduation and proves to be one of the most successful college readiness programs was recently cut from the state budget. While state legislators approved $8.1 million for the Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) program in the budget they sent to Gov. Jerry Brown, funding for the program was line item vetoed by the governor.

AVID is a program that has provided outstanding educational opportunities for students statewide. Our office works collaboratively to provide AVID to the four-county region of Riverside, Inyo, Mono and San Bernardino (RIMS). AVID targets academically capable, under-represented students by challenging them to succeed in rigorous, college-required curricula and boosting support in the form of specialized teaching and tutoring. More than 39.000 students at 217 schools in the four-county region participated in the program last year. Among them, 4,150 seniors graduated with 87 percent having been accepted into four-year colleges or universities.

In this high-demand economy seeking highly skilled and educated students, it does not make sense to cripple such a worthwhile program. AVID will remain intact in our region for the 2012-13 school year. Additionally, I will continue to advocate on behalf of AVID with the hope that funding will be restored. A program with such a high success rate deserves the appropriate and adequate support of policymakers.