SLPS responds to faulty data – and school violence
By Bill Beene
Of the St. Louis American
The St. Louis community rejoiced last week when (incorrect) dropout rates among city high school students indicated a profound decline.
Correct data from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) quickly turned those smiles to frowns.
According to DESE, black students in the city dropped out at an alarming rate of 16.3 percent (1,333 students). That rate almost doubled the 2001 rate of 9.20 percent.
“That’s very high and significantly higher than the state average,” said Becky Kemna, coordinator of school improvement and accreditation for DESE’s Missouri School Improvement Program (MSIP).
The state average dropout rate is 4 percent.
Dropout standards are currently evaluated by MSIP, which has the responsibility of reviewing and accrediting the 524 school districts in Missouri within a five-year review cycle.
While the current rate contributes to the district’s provisional accreditation status, a 4th cycle draft from MSIP reveals that graduation rate will replace the dropout rate standard beginning in the 2006-2007 school year.
Graduation rates among city students are nothing to smile about either.
With a graduation rate of only 57.7 percent, SLPS would not meet the standard had it gone into effect this school year. The district will be reviewed for accreditation in 2009.
According to DESE, most city school graduates (24.6 percent) enter the workforce; 22 percent go on to a four-year university, and 19 percent enter a two-year university or college such as St. Louis Community College.
Some cynics in St. Louis refer to community college as high school all over again. That reference receives some support from dismal data provided in the St. Louis Public Schools’ High School Renewal Plan.
Of the 354 graduates from the class of 2003 who enrolled at SLCC that fall, 83 percent required developmental mathematics, 61 percent required developmental English and 72 percent tested into a developmental reading program.
All of those courses are noncredit, thus aren’t counted toward graduation.
Both colleges and businesses have expressed concern that too many high school graduates require remedial assistance upon entering college and don’t meet the 10th-grade reading level necessary for job applicants.
High school dropouts are more likely than graduates to be unemployed, as a diploma is required by many employers, according to Child Trends Data Bank.
Dropouts are also more likely to stay on public assistance longer than their graduating counterparts and more likely to become involved in a crime.
In 2001 the dropout rate among blacks across the nation reached a historic low of 11 percent. That drop was at least in part related to the dramatic increases in incarceration rates among black high school dropouts since 1980, which takes them out of the civilian non-institutionalized population on which estimates are based.
Many students are convicted while attending high school (usually for drug dealing, auto theft, gang activity and petty crimes), causing them to drop out, though some juvenile detention centers offer schooling.
Vashon throwdown
Last week at Vashon High School eight students were arrested for fighting, inspiring SLPS Superintendent Creg Williams to call for a community meeting.
More than 300 community members, including students, parents and concerned citizens, attended the meeting at Vashon last week.
“I have heard you. You are not preaching to the choir,” Williams said to people in the school’s auditorium. However, Williams scoffed at the local media’s coverage of the fight, saying the constant tarnishing of city youths is bad.
“These issues are not new, and they are not news,” he said.
Williams pointed to issues like poverty, addiction, teen pregnancy and obesity among urban students across the nation that contribute to academic failure.
Of the educational problems the district faces, Williams said the quality of education being offered is frustrating. “I’m the superintendent, so it’s hard to say that,” Williams said.
He added that of the 1,700 students who graduated from SLPS last year, only 700 took the ACT test and only 150 of those scored at the national average.
To curb the violence, Williams created a response team of staff and community members led by John Windom, executive director of SLPS Community Education.
The team did not have to wait long for a challenge, as it successfully responded to a fight at Vashon on Tuesday.