Jul 19, 2008

Charter school disputes state dropout findings

Academy: Statistics up to 30 percent too high

By Banks Albach / Daily News Staff Writer

Officials at East Palo Alto Academy: High School said Friday they are disputing figures in a state report that show the dropout rate at 37.5 percent over the past four years.

According to charter school officials, that figure is 20 to 30 percent too high.

The California Department of Education on Wednesday released the dropout rate report for all of the state's schools, based on a new formula from the federal government.

The report showed that the dropout rate at the East Palo Alto charter school of 295 students is almost 13 percentage points higher than the state average and roughly 21 percentage points higher than San Mateo County average. In the 2006-2007 school year, 8.8 percent of the academy's students dropped out.

The state formula factors in the loose definition of "lost transfer" - departed students that the schools lost track of because they left the country or for other reasons, such as misplaced paperwork. According to the state report, East Palo Alto High had 10 lost transfers among the dropouts.

But Nikki Lasley, director of programs and assessment for Stanford New Schools, which runs the charter, said the transfers could be higher. A data analyst and she are attempting to track down several students she said may already be enrolled in other schools.

"Some of those students shouldn't be dropouts," Lasley said. "The numbers are all still in flux."

The final state deadline to submit additional information is Aug. 28. State education spokeswoman Tina Jung said her agency will update the rates after that.

"It's not unusual for there to be errors in the self-reporting process," Jung said.

East Palo Alto High is the only public school catering to high school students in the Ravenswood City School District. The vast majority of the students from Ravenswood feed into the Sequoia Union High School District, mostly at Carlmont and Menlo-Atherton. The graduation rate among those students is only 35 or 40 percent, lower than at the academy.

Officials from both districts, along with Americorps, are hoping to boost that percentage in coming years with the Built to Last program, which will offer academic coaching at a ratio of 10 students to one coach. Gail Ortega, director of community services at Menlo College, has worked on the project since before it launched this past semester and said the program already has 36 coaches on the payroll.

"It looked good to all of us this last semester, which is the reason we are moving forward," Ortega said.



E-mail Banks Albach at balbach@dailynewsgroup.com.