Analysis finds 10 Indiana ‘dropout factories’

INDIANAPOLIS – Indiana has 10 high schools where so many students leave before their senior year that the schools are considered “dropout factories” in a national analysis.\nThe schools are among about 1,700 regular or vocational high schools nationwide where 60 percent or less of the students who enter high school make it to their senior year, according to the analysis conducted by Johns Hopkins University for The Associated Press.\nThe Indiana Department of Education, unlike agencies in many other states, tracks individual students using unique testing numbers. So its graduation rates – which account for students who transfer to other Indiana schools or are held back a year – might be a more accurate reflection of how many students stay in school, according to the agency.\nStill, many of the Indiana schools tagged by Johns Hopkins researcher Robert Balfanz as “dropout factories” in the review of three consecutive high school classes also have poor graduation rates.\nAt Arsenal Technical High School in Indianapolis, for example, researchers said an average of just 22 percent of the students who entered high school were still there during their senior year. The state, however, says the school has a 44 percent graduation rate. Neither measure paints a rosy picture of the school.\nArsenal Tech is representative of many schools on the researchers’ list, which is made up mostly of schools with many poor, minority students from urban areas in Indianapolis, East Chicago, Gary and Richmond.\nStudents likely to drop out tend to enter school lagging behind, said Jason Bearce, a spokesman for the Indiana Department of Education.\n“It’s a challenge to get them caught up with their peers and keep them there,” he said.\nStudents who make it through elementary and middle school may struggle with the changes that come with high school. If they fail a class, they have to make it up or they will be short credits to graduate. Enough missed classes and a student may feel like there’s no point in continuing high school.\nThe downward spiral is difficult to overcome in districts that have few resources for tutoring and remediation, said Lowell Rose, a consultant with the Indiana Urban Schools Association.\nAnd parents in poor, urban areas may be busy working to provide basic needs, such as food and housing, for their children. They may not have the time or educational background to help with homework or stress the importance of school. Rose says students from these homes often lack what he calls the “culture of learning.”\n“They didn’t have it in middle school,” Rose said. “They didn’t have it in elementary school. Once they get into high school, they can’t keep their heads above water.”\nIndiana legislators raised the dropout age to 18 and provided students more options for earning a diploma in an effort to improve graduation rates. Advocates say the recent expansion of full-day kindergarten will give students a solid educational foundation while helping struggling students catch up with their peers.