Collateral Data Damage: Drop Out Rate I

Superintendents across the Commonwealth are required to report certain data to the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE - formerly known as the Department of Education). Some of this data is confidential as it pertains to individual students, while other parts of this massive data collection will be made public sometime after the end of this academic year. You can see the data that the state publicly reports at the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Website by clicking on the link below. This data is available for all to see and is available for all public schools and public school districts in the Commonwealth.

Very recently we prepared our first report for this academic year. In preparation for our submission we engage in a process called “Data Scrubbing.” This is a process by which we look over the information that is going to be submitted and take steps to ensure its accuracy. For example, the state may need to be updated with regard to a student who they have recorded as a drop-out who is currently attending school or they may need to be updated as to a student grade levels, addresses, free lunch status, and so on.

Over the last three years the drop-out rate at Mahar has shown a significant decrease. Our former Superintendent, Dr. Namin took steps to ensure a low drop-out rate and last year Mahar reported a rate that was among the lowest in the state. This has been a statistic that we have been proud of – for it shows our willingness to reach out to students who are not feeling connected to school and offer to them alternative options for completing their high school diplomas. In our creation of two alternative education programs we found that we were able to keep students in school who were considering an early departure to go to work, or to earn a GED.

In our reaching out to this population of teenagers we attracted the attention of Mount Wachusett Community College and their program, “The Gateway to College.” The Gateway to College is a program that was started with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation about four years ago at Mount Wachusett. This program offers students who have dropped out of school as well as students who are on the verge of dropping out a new way to earn their high school diplomas. Since this program is only offered at only 24 community colleges in the United States, Mahar is honored to have been asked to be a partner, and naturally accepted the offer.

In June of this year the Mount Wachusett Gateway to College hosted the single largest high school graduation that the Gateway to College has had nationwide. More than 25 students from more than a dozen towns who would have been high school drop outs received their high school diplomas – and for this we are quite proud. Since all of the Gateway to College students are Mahar students, we are happy to report to the that more students will be earning Mahar high school diplomas than ever before.

I have to report however, that with this excellent news will come what I now call, “Collateral Data Damage.” You see, we are reaching out to a population of students who have either dropped out of school, or are very close to making a departure from the educational scene. So despite our efforts, these students often choose to leave school again. Once a student enrolls in the Gateway to College or is accepted into one of our Alternative Education Programs, if he or she chooses to leave school again the state will record this as a drop out from Ralph C. Mahar High School.

There will come a time next year when the media might report a jump in the number of drop outs at Mahar. This will be true with regard to data collection, but I hope that the media will also report how much Mahar is doing to reach out to students to keep them in school in our towns and in towns across Central Massachsuetts. We can accept the “Collateral Data Damage” because what we are doing is right. The philosophical question at Mahar is changing from “What is our drop-out rate?” to “How many students have you reconnected with education?”

Please don’t hesitate to post questions about data collection, drop-out reporting, or our special programs as they will be the focus of future blogs. I am happy to answer any questions and/or concerns.

http://profiles.doe.mass.edu/profiles/student.aspx?orgcode=07550505&orgtypecode=6&leftNavId=303&