Dropout Rate Progress in Dallas ISD

This past week the Dallas Independent School District released current enrollment numbers which indicate very positive progress in lowering the dropout rate. Using these enrollment numbers it was determined that the Cumulative Promotion Index has gone from 46.6% last year to 54.0% this year! This 7.4 percentage point gain is wonderful! Current enrollment numbers indicate it will continue to go up next year as well.

Other good news is that the improvements were spread all across Dallas, and were especially positive in North Dallas where the 6 high schools went from an average 9th to 12th grade promotion rate of 39.6% in 2008-2009 to 53.6% for 2009-2010! The graph below shows this years progress compared with the past 11 years. DISD well on the road to setting new records with the 2010 graduation rate.

If anyone is interested in copies of the spreadsheets going back a decade that were used to come to these conclusions and create the above graph, please email bbetzen@aol.com. Copies of both spreadsheets will be emailed.

How to set up and manage a School Archive Project

Now that we are starting five new School Archive Projects in Dallas ISD schools at all levels (three middle schools, one high school, and one elementary school), and now that we have the first nationally published article on the Archive Project by America's Promise, there's need for more detailed instructions to help in starting additional School Archive Projects.

The School Archive Project is a simple reinforcement for the work teachers already do to focus students onto their own futures. It helps focus students on what they need to succeed in life as an adult. It provides an additional tool for teachers that is also very popular with students.

The basic steps in setting up a School Archive Project are:

1) You must have the full commitment of the school administration for the project. This is not a one person project, though one person can get it started. With administrative support it is easier to obtain the 30 or so minutes needed every year with all school staff to help everyone understand how the Archive Project reinforces work already being done to motivate students to prepare for their own futures. The better all staff in a school understand the Archive Project the greater the success will be!

2) The vault must be visible by all students as many times every school day as is possible. Location is critical. A bright spotlight focused on the vault helps draw attention to it.

3) Start the school year with an initial writing project for the incoming students no matter their grade level. It could be as simple as a letter about their current life and work and their plans for the school year, or a more researched family & personal history with plans they have for their life. This letter will be placed into the vault with the understanding that students will take it out of the vault to update it or to write another letter before they leave that school to go on to middle school, or high school, or college. As student pass the vault they may think of the letter they already have in it as well as the letter they will be writing before they leave to their next level of education.

4) End the school year with the final letter writing project by the departing class be they 5th graders going to middle school, 8th graders going to high school, or seniors going out into the world and/or other studies. That project is the final draft of the letter for the vault. This is where it is highly recommended that photos be taken and a copy of that photo given to students as a reminder of their letter and their class reunion.

More details for this process are on the http://www.studentmotivation.org/ web site. Do not hesitate to write bbetzen@aol.com if there are questions.

The 9th to 12th grade promotion rates for Bryan Adams and Sunset were as follows for the past 5 years up to and including 2008-2009:

Bryan Adams: 44.7%, 44.2%, 39.9%, 29.4%, & 35.9%.
Sunset H. S. : 43.6%, 38.7%, 45.5%, 55.8%, & 57.3%.

If Bryan Adams does not have higher TAKS scores in recent years due to the volumn of 9th graders missing, then something really is wrong, in addition to loosing 2/3 of the freshman class.

This data is taken from the enrollent by grade spreadsheets for each non-magnet DISD high school that can be found at http://www.studentmotivation.org/dallasisd/. On that page Bryan Adams is school # 6 and Sunset is school # 20.

Progress in Oak Cliff with dropout rates

The above graph reports on the 21 non-magnet high schools within DISD who are also over 10 years old. It separate them into three groups: Oak Cliff, Southeast Dallas, and North Dallas. There are 6 high schools in North Dallas, the area north of the Trinity on the west side of Dallas and north of I-30 on the east side of Dallas. There are 6 high schools in southeast Dallas, the area south of I-30 and east of the Trinity River. There are 9 high schools in Oak Cliff, the area south and west of the Trinity River. When you take the enrollment numbers for each of the schools in each of these areas of Dallas and put those enrollment numbers into one spreadsheet for each area of Dallas the results indicate many common Dallas myths that are not true.

A major indication of dropout rate is the percentage of 9th graders who make it to the 12th grade. It is called the promotion rate. Sadly it must be used in this report because the TEA web site does not give graduation numbers by school, only by district and larger geographic area. However enrollment numbers are given, so the promotion rates can be calculated. It is this same promotion rate that was used by John Hopkins University in their 2007 study that designated 1700 "dropout factories" in the US, a list in which all the non-magnet high schools in Dallas were included.

Using enrollment numbers going back for the past 10 years you quickly see that the 6 North Dallas high schools within DISD during that time period had a promotion rate than has dramatically fallen in recent years while Oak Cliff had consitently risen. In the 2008-2009 school year the lead of Oak Cliff over North Dallas has grown to the extent that the 9 Oak Cliff high schools have a promotion rate over 11 percentage points above the 6 North Dallas high schools. See the details that help explain the following spreadsheet at www.studentmotivation.org/dallasisd.

Another Dallas Dropout myth bites the dust!

We have something to celebrate in Oak Cliff! Now to continue the same progress we have had for the past 8 years for the next 8 years!

Let students set the standards

(The following email was sent 12-28-08 to the Interact web site for Jacksonville Florida in response to the article at http://www.jacksonville.com/interact/blog/2008-12-28/lowering_standards regarding the need for higher standards for passing in high school.)

Yes, I said let the students set the standards. This is a long term process.

I teach middle school and helped start a 10-year time-capsule and class-reunion project targeted at student retention and motivation. When students return 10-years after 8th grade they are invited to speak with then current 8th grade students about their recommendations for success. That is when they are able to set the standards. They speak about what it takes to best succeed in the world after 8th grade. Who better can set the standards than those who have lived life after school and know what it takes to succeed?

This project started 4 years ago in an inner-city Dallas public school as a focus on the future to lower dropout rates. Since starting the 9th to 10th grade attrition rate has gone down 40%. Not bad for a $2 per student investment for supplies and a photo given to each student. It is a photo of their Language Arts class posing in front of the 350-pound vault bolted to the lobby floor in the middle school lobby to function as the time-capsule. In this pose they each hold the self addressed letters they have written to themselves, that are then placed by them into the vault after the photo is taken. The letters stay there for the next decade. On the back of the photo is a label with details about the Archive Project and the planned class 10-year reunion, and their planned presentation to decade younger students at that reunion.

Who would better know the standards current students should meet than young adults who were in those same students places 10-years earlier, and therefore know what it takes to best survive the next decade?

9th to 10th grade attrition rate down 40%!

In the September posting below I wrote that "the 9th to 10th grade dropout rates at Pinkston and Sunset have actually gone down over 25% over the past 3 years!" Since then the 2008-2009 enrollment numbers have come in. They indicate that in this, the fourth year, the 10th grade enrollments show that 76.5% of last years 9th grade number is represented in this years 10th grade number, up from the 71.5% for last years 10th grade. Thus in 4 years we have had a 40% improvement in the percentage of 9th graders making it to the 10th grade at Pinkston and Sunset combined.

Sunset is now planning its own School Archive Project, as are several other schools.

Dallas Mayor Leppert working on dropout rates!

The work of Mayor Leppert is increasingly impressive.

I was at a meeting recently when Mayor Leppert very accurately spoke of the dropout crisis Dallas is facing. He described the dropout rate as "56% to 61% depending on the source of the statistics." He was speaking of the percentage of the 9th grade enrollment who do not make it to graduation. It was the first time I had ever seen a Dallas leader give such accurate numbers for our dropout crisis!

The graduation classes for Dallas ISD for the past 8 years, 2001 through 2008, had an average of 14,816 classmates enrolled in their 9th grade classes. Yet the average number of diplomas given out at the end of 4 years of high school, after that 14,816 enrollment in the 9th grade, was only 6,433 during these 8 years. This means the average graduation rate for the past 8 years has been only 43.4%. That also means that 56.6% of our 9th grade students were missing at graduation. (www.studentmotivation.org/dallasisd.htm)

It is very painful and hard on our city to admit how bad the dropout problem is. Fortunately it appears we finally have a leader who is facing this truth. Now change is finally possible! Our children, and our city, will be the ultimate winners!

Mayor Leppert sees that vision. He is willing to admit the hard truth of current dropout numbers. That is the only way to begin to work to change them so our children ultimately win!

Other positive news is that the 9th to 10th grade dropout rates at Pinkston and Sunset have actually gone down over 25% over the past 3 years! The power of the School Archive Project is slowly being manifested. In 2008-2009 it is planned to have 6 more Dallas ISD schools start School Archive Projects.