Tennessee Drop-Out Factories

Johns Hopkins University Center for Social Organization of Schools released a national study that attempted to identify high schools that fell below their definition of an accepted number of students that started 9th grade at a school but did not complete their 12th grade at that school. The study, in my opinion had a number of flaws - especially the data that was analyzed from Tennessee. I feel comfortable being able to make that statement, because I am by profession a statistician and have spent my entire career analyzing data. I can't do many things, but I feel I can do a fair job of analyzing data.

Below is a response I sent to the authors when I analyzed the data for Roane County that showed (in their analysis) that Midway and Rockwood qualified as "dropout-factories".

Mr. West and Mr. Balfanz,

Your tagging of two of our schools in Roane County, Tennessee, Midway and Rockwood high schools as dropout factories certainly had the intended effect. The Associated Press made sure that those schools names were plastered all over the news here in East Tennessee.

According to your study, 37 of 261 high schools in Tennessee fit the "dropout factory" category. The problem is that your data is not consistent with the state data I have. In fact, according to your 60% rule, Tennessee actually has just under 100 schools that should fit into your definition of a dropout factory. Being a statistician myself, I can certainly understand that you want to introduce new terms such as "promoting power", to add some dazzle to the analysis and a term like "dropout factory" for shock value, but the reality is in this type of analysis - the raw data from the state, some simple percentages, and good knowledge of the data is all you need.

There is no doubt that your analysis is good to show national trends and that is good. But to get down to name calling in this analysis violates basic concepts of statistics. This is not a designed experiment where you control the data, here you have so many unknown variables that all you can really do is show trends and develop some basic inferences about "dropout rates". The data is too broad to get down to specifics in naming schools.

I challenge you to show that Midway and Rockwood high school dropout rates are statistically different from the other 100 schools in Tennessee that fall under your 60% rule. You also don't know the real data behind the numbers at our two high schools -- you just put them into your own category.

I do have a good grasp of the numbers of Tennessee high schools, probably better than most because I use the state's data (mid-year enrollments) to set classification for the state high schools in athletics in my job as technology director for the state high school athletic association. If you think you are under scrutiny for accuracy, just try to move a school in a football classification.

I know each school and reasons why their enrollment fluctuates due to a myriad of reasons. Something, you don't have the luxury of knowing since you're doing the analysis for all states. For these reasons, I certainly feel confident in saying that our two high schools "graduation rates" may be in the bottom third of the state, but certainly not in the lower 14% that your study indicates.

As a member of the Roane County board of education, I am upset that you chose to single out two of our schools and not mention 99 other schools, or almost 1/3 of the states high schools that have similar "dropout" figures.

I am not trying to say we don't have dropout issues here in Roane County. That is not the intent of this email -- the intent is that our two schools are no different that 1/3 of that state schools that meet your 60% rule.