tune in, turn on, drop in

A little while ago I wrote, "Who cares what our WASL scores are, if we're losing students?"

Turns out we're losing them aplenty--but we're gaining ground.

During the 2002-03 school year, 21,390 high school students, or 6.7 percent of all students in grades 9-12, dropped out of high school – down a full-percentage point from the previous year, according to a report released Tuesday by the state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI).

Drop-out rates in the three largest districts in the South Sound were lower than the state’s average. They were: 6 percent in North Thurston Public Schools, 4.1 percent in the Olympia School District and 5.2 percent in Tumwater schools.

Across the state, the “on-time” graduation rate for a specific group of students – in this case, those who entered grade 9 in the fall of 1999 and were expected to graduate in the spring of 2003 – held steady, according to the report.

About 24.3 percent of the students in that class dropped out, and only 65.7 percent of the students graduated on-time. The other 10 percent took more than four years to complete their high school requirements.

Let's forget about the success stories and the belated-success stories in the latter two statistics, and look at that first number: 24.3 percent of our students are dropping out, statewide.

Ouch.

Once the WASL is required for graduation, I wonder what'll happen to that number.

One thing high schools (in particular) should do is find community members who can talk to students about the reality of dropping out. For some employers, a GED is a red flag. The maintenance manager at my apartment complex made that fact very clear to me about a year ago, when he and I struck up a conversation and I mentioned that I teach high school English.

"You better tell 'em to work at it and graduate," he said. "That GED is a sign. It means the kid was too lazy to stick it out. If we have two guys and one has a diploma and the other a GED, we'll always choose the guy with the diploma."

Perception, sometimes, matters more than reality. Kids with GEDs face harsh judgment from unforgiving prospective employers. Counselors, teachers, and administrators need to ensure that students know that harsh truth.