'`Dropout Factories’ Label Stings Area Schools'
If you’re an educator who runs a public school system or are involved in that noble process, the term “dropout factories” is bound to make you grimace, with the words injecting more than a bit of a sting.
So was the case last week when a study conducted by Johns Hopkins University labeled a number of Rio Grande Valley high schools as being “dropout factories,” with not so kind words as well for the entire state, what with a Texas graduation rate of only 61 percent.
The methodology used by the Hopkins people is a bit simplistic, but the study correctly makes the point that the high school dropout rate here and elsewhere in Texas, (and the nation for that matter), remains at levels that are disturbing, and the issue persists as one of our society’s more endurng problems.
The gist of the Hopkins formula compares the size of a school’s senior class to the size of the incoming freshman class four years earlier.
