More than two months after publicly challenging statistics released by the California Department of Education, which showed the Morgan Hill Unified School District had the lowest graduation rate in the county, MHUSD released adjusted numbers that tell a different story.
The new data, which MHUSD’s Director of Technology Denis Guerrero and district staff spent many hours re-calculating – shows an 88 percent graduation rate (up from the previous county-low of 78.4 percent) and a 10 percent dropout rate (an improvement from the prior 17 percent).
The adjusted dropout rate shows Morgan Hill schools have the sixth lowest dropout rate in the county behind Los Gatos/Saratoga, Mountain View/Los Altos, Palo Alto, Milpitas and San Jose Unified School districts, according to MHUSD.
It also puts MHUSD’s adjusted 88 percent graduation rate at the sixth highest – above that of Gilroy Unified School District’s 85 percent – and better than state and county averages. The state’s average graduation and dropout rates are 77.1 and 14.7 percent; the county’s are 81.1 and 13.2 percent.
Since contesting the data released April 9, outgoing MHUSD Superintendent Wes Smith maintained the faulty numbers placing Morgan Hill dead last for graduation rates among 12 other districts and high schools in the county could be blamed on inaccurate information initially submitted by the district.
“We understand and accept the fact that published data can only be as accurate as what is submitted,” said Steve Betando, incoming interim superintendent who starts his new post July 1. “We have already taken steps to be more careful in the future to enter our data accurately and to confirm the numbers before they are published.”
During the re-calculation process, Guerrero and staff contacted parents of former MHUSD students who left the district for unspecified reasons and documented exactly where they had gone.
As it turns out, more than half (67 of 122) of the students originally deemed dropouts in the data submitted by MHUSD to the CDE for evaluation were mis-classified.
“Hopefully, this is a lesson learned moving forward, so (next time) the district will provide accurate data the first time around,” said Board trustee Rick Badillo. “We’re still not where we want to be. We want to continue to grow and have positive growth.”
Among the changes, the biggest bump came from 36 students formerly at Ann Sobrato High School who transferred to adult education. In all, the district corrected the statuses of 54 students who were originally marked as dropouts from Sobrato and Live Oak High schools as well as Central Continuation High School.
“I’m greatly pleased that this newly released data confirms what the district has contended all along, that our teachers and administrators are doing a good job and that our students are getting an excellent education,” said Board trustee Bob Benevento.
The dropout and graduation data is generated by a relatively new formula called the four-year adjusted cohort, which the CDE instituted three years ago. Each cohort begins with a group of incoming ninth-graders and is subsequently adjusted during the four-year high school career, taking into account students who transfer in or out, emigrate to another country or die during that four-year period. The cohort formula essentially holds school districts accountable for tracking every single student. Any pupil who is classified as a “dropout” will influence the overall cohort graduation/dropout rates.
Adjusting to this new data system also caused issues for the Gilroy Unified School District, which conducted its own investigation after the CDE reported that Gilroy’s dropout rate for the 2008-09 school year was 22 percent for grades 9-12. Administrators found skewed statistics from information incorrectly inputted pertaining to GUSD students who moved out of the state, students who moved out of the country and students who transferred to private schools. This adjusted GUSD’s actual 2008-09 dropout rate to 15.5 percent.
“We have made a concerted effort to increase our graduation rate and we have made strong progress toward our goal,” Betando said. “I am pleased that the true data for our graduation and dropout rates from last year reflects the hard work of our students, staff and parents.”
The new data sent to Board trustees June 20 marks a positive outgoing note for Smith, who after a 3.5-year tenure in Morgan Hill departs for a new job in Sacramento in just a few days. The superintendent maintained from the get-go that something was wrong with the CDE’s figures.
“I will be even more pleased when the [new] numbers are officially released by the California Department of Education so that the nay-sayers in our community can be silenced,” Benevento said.
According to CDE spokeswoman Tina Jung, the organization has a limited staff and only one employee is designated to work with school districts to correct data discrepancies. Jung said the CDE tracks 6.2 million students within the state, so “it would be helpful if the school districts submit accurate data the first time.”
“We can’t always make the changes right away,” said Jung, who noted that district staff also has the opportunity to double-check their data before it is made public – something MHUSD did not do back in February.
Jung added that on average, 10 districts out of the state’s 1,037 contact the CDE per year about the results. She said sometimes it’s about a technical issue, other times it’s related to a data submission error.
Smith will depart MHUSD June 30 for his new gig as Executive Director of the Association of California School Administrators.
