Don’t let student gains mask remaining need

The news would have been so good. If only it wasn’t still so bad.

Spokane’s schools have made strides in combating the dropout rate, a new batch of statistics shows. And – a different new batch of statistics shows – schools all over America have made strides in combating the dropout rate.

Last year, about three-quarters of students, both here and nationwide, graduated with their classmates in four years. So, that’s super. Very nice. And for those who have worked to address a very difficult problem, the improvements should be noted, celebrated briefly, and then set aside in the hope that they will seem, in the not-too-distant future, like the mere start of something bigger.

The new figures are an improvement, and they arise from a variety of ambitious and seemingly effective new initiatives in recent years. Spokane Public Schools raised its on-time graduation rate from 60 percent three years ago to 76.7 percent last year, the final state figure after preliminary reports. They’ve done so through a variety of intervention programs, a grant-funded high school project and help from the community. In particular, graduation rates at Rogers High School and Havermale alternative school showed huge improvements.

Still, it might be worth viewing the empty half of this glass: One of every 4 students does not graduate on time in the Spokane Public Schools. One out of every 4 students – and 2 out of every 5 students of color – does not graduate on time across the United States.

Some of those students go on to graduate later. Last year’s dropout rate was 16 percent – that’s the number of students who enrolled as freshmen four years ago and were technically, officially gone from the school system by graduation, which is better than it was a few years back.

Better. Not good.

Consider the lifelong effects spooling forward from the decision to leave school. Dropouts make less money in their lifetime – a lot less. They are more likely to be jailed or suffer from health problems or to use expensive social services – to have problems that are bad for them and bad for society.

We should also consider the factors spooling backward from the decision to drop out of school. The seeds are planted early. Nothing’s set in stone, and teachers can make a huge difference along the way. But a new study confirms that the signs of success or failure are obvious long before high school or even middle school: Third-graders who aren’t proficient in reading are four times less likely to graduate on time than those who are good readers, according to a study of 4,000 American students over a 10-year period.

That’s because third grade is when students typically shift from learning to read to reading to learn, according to the study from the Annie E. Casey Foundation. A student falling behind at that point can fall further and further behind, year by year. The study also confirms for the 1 billionth time that poverty is perhaps the biggest single factor at work. That’s why the dropout rate is not simply a schools problem.

Poverty may be an even bigger predictor of eventual school failure than reading skill. The Casey study compared the third-grade reading levels and eventual educational outcomes of students who had not lived in poverty at all with students who had lived at least one year in poverty. The kids with “poverty experience” made up 70 percent of dropouts; those who were good readers in third grade still faced a 10 percent likelihood of dropping out – five times that of kids who never lived in poverty.

“Consequently, the children in poor families are in double jeopardy,” the report concludes. “They are more likely to have low reading test scores and, at any reading skill level, they are less likely to graduate from high school.”

Last year in Spokane’s public schools, 29 percent of third-graders didn’t meet the standard on the state standardized test. That’s 632 children. Ten percent of the third-grade class fell “well below standard.” That’s 213 students.

Meanwhile, efforts to prepare kids for third grade and beyond are stalled on the budgetary shoals. In 2009, the Legislature approved a plan to implement full-day kindergarten statewide. Excellent – except we’re stuck about one-fifth of the way there.

And that’s just one program. The Casey report calls for coordinated, high-quality educational efforts from preschool years to third grade. And the state of Washington has just such an effort in place: the public-private partnership Thrive by Five. There is no shortage of ideas and proposals; there are several grant-funded projects to coordinate efforts to make sure kids are ready to enter school when it’s time.

And there is currently a debate in Olympia about which early learning programs to cut and by how much.

This fall, when thousands of 5-year-olds enter kindergarten, most of them will be looking at a 2  1/2-hour school day. That 2  1/2-hour day will begin the process by which some of them – often the ones who come in with the most advantages, like mine, for whom the 2  1/2 hours is less education and attention than he’s received at his excellent preschool – begin to separate from others.

The graduation rate measures the community as surely as the schools. Let’s be glad it’s getting better, but let’s not mistake it for good.