Priority Indicator #7: High School Dropout Rate

Contents: Background Information | Data Tables | Data Charts | Commentary | Download Data

Other Risk Factors or Indicators to Consider
High school dropout rates are highly correlated with a number of other socioeconomic factors, which affect an entire community. Students who drop out of high school find it harder to succeed in the labor market than those who graduate. High school dropouts typically earn 20 to 30 percent lower wages than workers who have completed high school.  Additionally, high school dropouts find it much more difficult to find employment.

When analyzing the impact of the high school dropout rate on a community, one should examine other potential resultant indicators such as unemployment rate, drug use rates, crime rates (particularly among teens), teen pregnancy rates and poverty in the community.

Limitations of the Data
The synthetic four-year rate is limited by the fact that it uses current year's data on four classes of students rather than four years of data for one class of students.  Thus if one class of students had dropout rates that were dramatically different from other classes, that information may not necessarily be reflected in these data.  The four-year rate relies on the current year's data rather than four years of data for one class of students because it is very difficult to keep track of the movement of all individual students over time, which would be necessary in order to calculate the true four-year dropout rate.  The formula for the synthetic four-year rate was developed by the National Center for Education Statistics, and is considered to be reliable and accurate.  

This measure does not count as dropouts those students who have their transcripts forwarded to a new high school or who have completed a general educational development (GED) program.  It does count as dropouts those students who later return to school after not attending for a certain time and then drop out again.

School district boundaries do not necessarily correspond to zip code boundaries, and so this measure is only calculated at the school district and county levels.  Percentages presented for the purpose of evaluating this indicator are aggregated at the high school level annually.

Data Sources

• Oregon Department of Education
  (For ODE's complete dropout report, click here.)
  

The table below shows the synthetic four-year dropout rates for Oregon, Marion and Polk Counties, and high schools within the two counties.  The four-year rate represents the proportion of ninth-grade students who drop out before completing four years of high school. (Click here to see a map of school districts and high school attendance areas in Marion and Polk Counties.)

*School had too few students to calculate a four-year rate. 

The chart below shows total synthetic four-year dropout rates for Marion and Polk Counties and the state of Oregon.

The chart below shows synthetic four-year dropout rates for each high school in Marion and Polk Counties for two different school years.

Commentary

Between the 1996-97 and 2000-01 school years, dropout rates fluctuated randomly for many high schools.  Several of the high schools had some of their highest dropout rates in years adjoining their lowest rates.  The majority of high schools in the area had lower four-year dropout rates in 2000-01 than they did in 1999-2000. A similar trend occured recently as 2001-2002 dropout rates for most area high schools again fell below rates from the previous 2000-2001 school year.   

The four-year high school dropout rate in Marion County has decreased every year between 1996-1997 and 2001-02.  Although Polk County’s rate had remained fairly constant at its 1996 level, it experienced two consecutive declines in the 2000-2001 and 2001-2002 school years. In the 2001-02 school year, approximately 15.74% of ninth-grade students in Polk County were predicted to drop out prior to completing their fourth year of high school as compared to approximately 17.77% in 2000-01 and 21% in previous years.

In addition to county-level declines, the statewide four-year dropout rate has declined from 25.6% in 1997-1998 to 13.86% in 2001-2002.

Download the Data

Download Data in Microsoft Excel 

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