OC Hispanics 3 times likelier than whites to quit school
DATE 03/05/92
NEWSPAPER THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
SECTION NEWS
EDITION MORNING
PAGE a01
STORY LENGTH 48 INCHES
HEADLINE OC Hispanics 3 times likelier than whites to quit school
BYLINE/CREDIT Dan Froomkin:The Orange County Register
SUBJECT TERMS EDUCATION:OC:CA:HISPANICS:STUDENTS:SCHOOLS
Seventeen-year-old Tony Valente spends his days picking up trash
in the alleys of his run-down apartment complex in El Modena for $5
an hour.
Not long ago, Valente was in school. But, like more than 4,300
Orange County high school students each year -- more than half of
them Hispanic -- he dropped out.
New figures for 1991 show that the Hispanic dropout rate in
Orange County was 30.5 percent -- almost three times the 10.9
percent rate for white students. Both rates have remained fairly
steady for the past several years.
What led Valente to quit school was that he kept on getting into
fights with gang members on campus.
For other students, the reasons are that they need to get a job,
or that they can't follow instructions in English, or that they
have fallen so far behind that graduation seems impossible, or that
nobody seems to want them there in the first place.
But many dropouts say that if, somehow, schools were safer, more
caring, more welcoming, they'd go back.
Valente says he would.
"I want to get a better job," he said. "I want to learn
something and be someone in life."
The latest Orange County Department of Education figures
indicate a countywide dropout rate of 15.6 percent. That means that
of 100 students beginning 10th grade, about 16 drop out before
graduation.
That rate, for the 1990-91 school year, is 0.2 points lower than
for the previous school year -- and about 5 points less than the
state average.
Students are classified as dropouts when they have not been in
school for 45 days and there is no evidence -- such as a request for
their transcripts -- that they are continuing their education
elsewhere.
As dramatic as the gap is between the dropout rates for whites
and Hispanics, who make up Orange County's largest minority group,
the figures likely understate the number of Hispanic dropouts.
Many school districts classify a disproportionate number of
Hispanic students as ninth-graders. School officials say one reason
is that many are in alternative programs.
But the result is that when they quit school, they aren't
included in the dropout rates because school districts only have to
report dropouts for grades 10 through 12.
Countywide, the number of Hispanic students officially
designated as ninth-graders is out of line with the number in other
grades. There were almost as many Hispanic students classified as
ninth-graders this past fall -- 14,500 -- as there were in eighth
grade and 10th grade combined.
Next year, the state is requiring districts to report dropout
rates for grades 7 and up, which may produce more realistic figures.
Frequently, school administrators in districts with high dropout
rates point to the economic and social disadvantages of the
students they serve.
And indeed, district-by-district comparisons are not necessarily
valid. Differing demographics within Orange County mean some
schools are serving mostly affluent families whose children are
likely to go on to college, while others are serving many
impoverished immigrants who need their children to work.
Dropout rates are not an entirely accurate picture of what's
going on in the schools. In fact, there are at least two ways
district rates can end up with artificially low numbers.
Some districts frequently send students who are about to drop
out to the special programs run by the county Education Department.
That way, when the student quits school, the county department
registers the dropout.
Also, some districts classify many students -- particularly those
considered "at-risk" -- as ninth-graders. When they drop out, they
don't show up in the rates.
The Anaheim Union High School District, for example, has 6,571
students in ninth grade, compared with about 3,700 in 10th grade.
The Fullerton Joint Union district has 5,519 in ninth grade and
2,897 in 10th.
Anaheim Superintendent Cynthia Grennan said the district's
designation of students as ninth-graders is educationally sound and
is not an attempt to hide anything.
The number is high because many at-risk students are in
alternative, non-graded programs in continuation high schools or
"newcomer" programs -- and regardless of their age are designated as
ninth-graders when they start, Grennan said.
Some district officials say their high rates reflect the fact
that, unlike some others, they are not hiding their dropouts.
"We're being very fair and honest in reporting dropouts," said
Frank Boehler, director of child welfare and attendance for the
Orange Unified School District.
Orange's reported dropout rate was 18.6 percent in 1991.
Boehler said personal and social pressures are often behind a
student's decision to drop out.
"Some of these families are absolutely struggling for survival,"
Boehler said.
Some students have quit because they needed to get work to help
support their families, he said. Others dropped out to baby-sit
younger siblings.
"Some of these kids, they get involved in gangs and they
literally have to choose between being members of gangs or going to
school," he said.
But Boehler also acknowledged what many experts say is the prime
reason students drop out: the feeling that no one really cares
about them.
"A lot of the kids that are dropping out, it's because they
really need somebody to take an interest in them," he said.
"When you talk to kids who were absolutely at risk but turned
around and finished school, quite often it's because an adult --
maybe a teacher, or a minister -- cared about them and took the time
necessary to get that fire under them and get them going in the
right direction," Boehler said.
Many dropouts "really cannot see a future," Boehler said. "But
you can't give up on them."
In the Santa Ana Unified School District, the dropout rate in
1986 was 42 percent. In 1991, it was 25 percent. Administrators
there say one reason for the decline is a "Stay in School" program
that brings role models from the community into the schools.
Successful people in the community adopt classrooms and talk to
students about their personal history, district spokeswoman Diane
Thomas said. The goal is for "youngsters to understand that not
everyone they see in a suit was born that way," she said.
"Many of the youngsters in our district don't have the exposure
to successful role models that we'd like," she said. "Therefore,
they don't know where to set their sights."
CHART
Dropout rates 1991 vs. 1990
These rates represent the percentage of students who drop out after
beginning 10th grade.
District 1991* 1990
Anaheim Union 12.9 9.4
Brea Olinda Unified 6.0 8.5
Capistrano Unified 12.3 5.6
Fullerton Joint Union 14.6 19.4
Garden Grove Unified 13.3 14.6
Huntington Beach Union 11.8 14.1
Irvine Unified 6.9 7.4
Laguna Beach Unified 6.2 6.4
Los Alamitos Unified 9.9 4.1
Newport-Mesa Unified 6.5 8.2
Orange Unified 18.6 19.7
Placentia-Yorba Linda 4.0 11.6
Saddleback Valley Unified 8.8 10.2
Santa Ana Unified 24.6 27.9
Tustin Unified 13.1 12.1
Orange County 15.6 15.8
California N/A 20.2
1991 dropout rates
White 10.9
County 15.6
Hispanic 30.5
* 1991 figures were derived using county numbers and the state
dropout-rate formula.
Sources: Orange County Department of Education, state Department of
Education.