Report: Schools below average

The Newport-Mesa Unified School District had a lower graduation rate than the state and national averages during the first year of the No Child Left Behind Act, according to a nationwide report released Tuesday.

In 2002-03, the first year that President Bush’s education bill was in effect, 66.3% of Newport-Mesa students graduated from high school, compared with 69.6% in the United States and 71% in California. The report, known as Diplomas Count and produced by the nonprofit group Editorial Projects in Education, is the first in what is expected to be an annual series.

To determine graduation figures for the first year of No Child Left Behind, the researchers took the percentages of students who passed the ninth, 10th, 11th and 12th grades and then multiplied the figures. The overall score showed ninth-graders’ likelihood to complete high school in four years. Of the 63 districts of 20,000 or more students for which the researchers could determine graduation rates, Newport-Mesa ranked 44th.

Editorial Projects in Education, based in Bethesda, Md., publishes the magazines Education Week and Teacher Magazine. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation sponsored the four-year project to study high school graduation rates.

Newport-Mesa assessment director Peggy Anatol and spokeswoman Jane Garland said they had doubts about the study’s validity. Garland said that during the 2002-03 school year, the district’s dropout rate was around 3%, and that many of the students not graduating may have moved to alternative education or changed districts.

“We’re finding better and better alternatives for education,” she said. “While they may reflect a loss in one school, they may not reflect a loss in our district or another district.”

Anatol noted that according to the federal Adequate Yearly Progress report, Newport-Mesa posted a high graduation rate in 2002-03. The district saw 94.1% of its seniors graduate that year although the Diplomas Count study covered all four high school grade levels.

“We go by the ? [Adequate Yearly Progress] calculation, and we think that’s pretty accurate,” Anatol said.

The report found disparities between white and minority students, and also between affluent students and poorer ones. In Newport-Mesa in 2002-03, 46.3% of minority students graduated, along with 38.3% of those who qualified for free or reduced-price lunches.

State Supt. Jack O’Connell, in a statement Tuesday, said eliminating those differences was one of his key goals in office. He cited the California High School Exit Exam as one factor that could help to bridge the gap.

“This report reflects what we in California already know ? that California’s dropout rate is too high, especially among Latino and African-American students,” O’Connell wrote. “This is why I have made reforming high schools one of my top priorities for more than three years now.”