Dropout rate varies by calculations

Tuesday, May 1, 2001 | 9:53 a.m.

Maybe Nevada's dropout rate isn't so bad after all.

The newly released 2001 Nevada Kids Count survey, which covers 1996 through 1999, tells a conflicting story about the state's 16- to 19-year-olds.

The report shows only 82.2 percent of the state's 16- to 19-year-olds either are in school or graduated in 1998-99 -- a dropout rate of 17.8 percent.

One column over, however, it shows that Nevada schools had a 7.9 percent dropout rate for ninth through 12th graders that year, and a 9.9 percent dropout rate for 10 through 12th graders.

The difference lies in statistical methods that ranked Nevada with the highest dropout rate in last year's national Kids Count report and may do so again this year -- a method local school officials, state Kids Count researchers and even the federal General Accounting Office say is not fair.

The lower numbers reflect the "event method" -- an actual count of students enrolled in the system who drop out, said Marlys Morton, coordinator of Nevada Kid's Count, which on Friday released its Nevada Kids Count 2001 Data Book.

The second rate -- the one used by the national report, due out May 22 -- uses the "status method," counting 16- to 19-year-olds who should be in the school system but do not enroll, she said.

Nevada's economy may be inflating the higher rate, Morton said, as thousands of teenagers leave schools in other states and come here to work in high-paying entry-level jobs in industries such as gaming and construction instead of enrolling in Nevada schools.

"The irony is that the dropout statistics in the state from where they are coming may be decreasing while ours is increasing," Morton said.

Clark County School District Director of Secondary Success Programs Maria Chairez says the district had a 9 percent dropout rate for ninth through 12th graders during the 1998-99 school year and a 6.9 percent rate for 1999-2000. The district counts only its students and excludes students who transfer to other schools without requesting transcripts.

She called the Kids Count comparisons "apples to oranges."

The General Accounting Office, which has been studying the nation's dropout rates at the request of Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., also noted the lack of uniform ways to track dropouts.

Gibbons said Monday that, based on preliminary findings, the agency "cited the lack of a uniform measurement for determining the high school dropout rate, both nationally and locally, as an impediment to obtaining a true picture of the problem."

Nevada is one of several states to implement state-coordinated dropout prevention programs, Gibbons said. The GAO will study it and other programs, as well as conduct site visits to Nevada and five other states to observe their effectiveness, he said.

Chairez said Clark County's dropout prevention programs have made major strides in reducing Southern Nevada's dropout rate in recent years, and that should start showing up in future Kids Count studies.

"We have gone from a high of 11.8 percent drop-out rate in 1998 to 6.9 percent last year, and we will work for continued improvement," Chairez said. "You have to remember that while the dropout rate declined, enrollment during that time has climbed by 6 to 9 percent."

In addition to the dropout rate, the Kids Count survey looks at a range of subjects affecting the welfare of youth, from education to health to crime.

The Nevada report showed progress in juvenile violent crime.

The state report found that arrests for violent crime -- murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery and aggravated assault -- among those ages 10 to 17 have gone from 691 in 1997 to 597 in 1999, while the population in that age group increased from 192,511 to 205,699.

The survey said that such arrests over that three-year period have dipped to 312 per 100,000 population. That compares with 362 per 100,000 reported for Nevada in last year's national Kids Count, and 471 arrests per 100,000 reported nationally.

A troubling statistic in the state report, Morton said, is that only about 73 percent of Nevada's 2-year-olds have been fully immunized against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, measles, mumps and rubella. Morton said the state's goal is to reach 90 percent by 2010.

However, an encouraging statistic in the Nevada Kids Count report is the small percentage of Nevada children living in poverty, R. Keith Schwer, director of the UNLV Center for Business and Economic Research, said.

Nevada ranked 20th in the 1999 report, as the average rate of poverty nationwide was 12.6 percent compared with 11 percent in Nevada.