Schools doing a much better job keeping kids in school!
The dropout rate[1] for New Orleans public school 9th-12th graders (RSD and OPSB, charters and direct-run) fell 31% from 2008-09 to 2009-10, dropping from 8.3% to 5.7%.
Since 2005, New Orleans dropout rate has been cut in half.
Pre-Katrina, New Orleans had one of the worst dropout rates in Louisiana, and Louisiana had one of the worst dropout rates in the nation. In 2004-05, 11.4% of the city’s public high school students dropped out.
Since 2005, both New Orleans and Louisiana have improved, but New Orleans is improving at a much faster rate than the state. The New Orleans dropout rate has fallen 50%, while the state’s rate has dropped 27%.
Translation: More teens in school
Put in real terms, this improvement means over 300 more students stayed in school in 2009-10, compared to 2008-09, and 677 more students were in school than would have been if we still had the 11.4% dropout rate of 2004-05.
Percent of Students Dropping Out of School
Grades 9-12
##
|
New Orleans Compared to the State
|
|
Aggregated Dropout Numbers and Percents
|
|
|
Year
|
Grades 7-8
|
Grades 9-12
|
|
|
#
|
%
|
#
|
%
|
|
Orleans
|
2004-05
|
534
|
4.6
|
2139
|
11.4
|
|
State
|
2004-05
|
2982
|
2.4
|
14210
|
7.0
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Orleans
|
2008-09
|
385
|
6.1
|
989
|
8.3
|
|
State
|
2008-09
|
2453
|
2.2
|
12163
|
6.3
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Orleans
|
2009-10
|
299
|
4.5
|
677
|
5.7
|
|
State
|
2009-10
|
1816
|
1.5
|
8704
|
4.6
|
|
[1] Schools and/or school districts give every student an exit code when they leave a school (graduated, transferred to another school, incarcerated, deceased, etc.). The Louisiana Department of Education (LDE) compares all students who were enrolled in school or a GED program as of October 1 in one year and are NOT enrolled as of October 1 the following year. Any student no longer enrolled who does not have a valid exit code is considered a dropout. Some of these students might re-enroll at a later date, so the annual dropout rate may overstate the dropout problem.
[2] While the data across grades is very reliable, there are inconsistencies in assigning a student who has dropped out to a particular grade. For example, if a student is enrolled on October 1 as an 8th grader but not enrolled the following year, depending upon the circumstances, the school or district might report them as an 8th grade dropout or as a 9th grade dropout.
