• Graduation rates up, dropout rates down in Central Mass.

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Instructor Phyllis Goldstein on Thursday asks her students to interview each other during English 101, a Quinsigamond Community College course offered after school at North High School in Worcester. From left, students Thu Le, Veronica Miletti and Camilla Penaherrera work with their partners. T&G Staff/Christine Hochkeppel
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• • • Central Mass. graduation and dropout rates
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  By Scott O'Connell
  Telegram & Gazette Staff
  

  
  Posted Jan. 21, 2016 at 8:37 PM
  Updated Jan 21, 2016 at 8:50 PM
  
  
  

  WORCESTER - The Worcester schools’ four-year graduation rate eclipsed 80 percent for the first time this past school year, contributing to an overall upward trend in the region and state.

  Across Massachusetts, 87.3 percent of students graduated on time in 2014-15, an increase of 1.2 percent from the year before. Over the same period, the state’s dropout rate fell a tenth of a percentage point, from 2 to 1.9 percent.

  The last year’s progress continues a multi-year trend in the state since 2010, when it was awarded a $15 million federal grant to tackle high dropout rates. In Worcester, for instance, that initiative led to the formation of school building-based intervention teams and coalitions that focused on getting the most at-risk students back on track to graduate.

  On Thursday, hours after the state’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education released the 2014-15 graduation and dropout rates, Worcester Interim Superintendent Marco Rodrigues directly traced the district’s improved rates to the work of those teams.

  “We’re very excited,” he said at a press conference in his office at the Durkin Administration Building. “We expected some positive movements, but this is always a time to celebrate. A lot of people made a commitment, and now we’re seeing the results.”

  The district’s four-year graduation rate improved from 79.2 percent in 2013-14 to 80.8 percent last school year, while its dropout rate decreased from 2.4 to 1.7 percent. A few of Worcester’s high schools in particular have made significant gains over the last few years, led by North High, whose four-year graduation rate jumped from just 55.1 percent in 2011 to 77.6 percent this past year. The school’s dropout rate also shrunk during the last four years from 7.5 to 1.8 percent, according to the state’s data.

  Worcester was one of several urban school districts state Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester commended in a conference call Thursday. He reserved special praise for the Leominster schools, whose superintendent, James Jolicoeur, joined Mr. Chester on the call.

  “One of our major objectives district-wide has been to get to know every student and develop strategies to make them successful,” said Mr. Jolicoeur, whose district boasted a 90.7 percent graduation rate and 0.7 dropout rate last school year.

  Mr. Jolicoeur in particular credited Leominster’s innovation school programs with providing alternative pathways for students to reach graduation on time.

  In Southbridge, where the state is moving to put the school system under state control, the graduation rate last year was 67.9 percent compared to 69.6 percent in 2014. The school's drop out rate improved from 4.4 percent in 2014 to 2.6 percent in 2015.

  Overall, Mr. Chester said he was proud of the “tremendous” gains made statewide in the latest graduation data. But he also tempered that enthusiasm with a more realistic outlook on the issues schools still face trying to get students to not only graduate, but also leave prepared for whatever next step they make in their careers.

  “We know too many of our graduates are not ready to succeed,” he said, referring in particular to the “sobering” number of high school graduates in the state who have to take remedial coursework after enrolling at community college.

  Mr. Chester said the state’s new MCAS test, which is currently in development and set to debut in 2017, will help provide a better gauge of whether students are “ready to meet the expectations of colleges and employers" upon graduation.

  The commissioner also emphasized the importance of not giving up on the shrinking percentage of students who drop out before even graduating high school. Although the state’s federal grant targeting dropout rates expired this past year, Mr. Chester said Massachusetts has received another award, this one for $200,000, from the U.S. government that it plans to use as part of a new initiative aimed at improving the graduate and dropout rates for English language learners. The state plans to work with 10 urban districts on the project, including Worcester, where Mr. Rodrigues said schools are already “way ahead of the curve” on helping students who are still trying to master English.
  

  Despite having 35 percent of its students – the largest percentage in the state – qualify as ELL, Mr. Rodrigues said Worcester “has had greater success than anywhere else” making sure those students receive a diploma, pointing to the district’s 75.2 percent four-year graduation rate for that subgroup last year, which topped the state average of 64 percent.

  In general, the high needs student population presents one of the biggest challenges to schools as they try to continue chipping away at their dropout rates, said Chad d'Entremont, executive director of the Rennie Center, a Boston-based educational research and policy center.

  “We need to be more aggressive in how we reach” those students, he said, advocating especially for more focus on their social and emotional needs, which often are just as important as academic factors in leading some students to drop out.

  But Mr. d’Entremont also credited a “larger shift of thinking” in public education for already leading to the creation of effective ways of intervening with at-risk students, including online credit recovery, alternative school programs, and experiential learning opportunities.

  The Rennie Center, for example, recently partnered with the Boston University School of Education and MassInc to launch a new initiative aimed at improving graduation rates by helping students in Worcester develop “individualized learning plans” for their long-term educational goals.

  “It allows students to take agency over their own futures,” Mr. d'Entremont said of the program, which started in 2014.

  Mr. Rodrigues said Worcester school officials are also exploring the idea of creating a recovery center for dropouts who want to resume their education. The 1.7 percent of students who left school last year equates to only about 121 students, however, he pointed out - just a small fraction of the more than 25,000 children who attend Worcester's schools.

  “Our dropout level is even lower than the state’s,” he said. “For an urban district of this size, I think we’re doing a fantastic job.”

  Scott O’Connell can be reached at Scott.O’Connell@telegram.com. Follow him on Twitter @ScottOConnellTG

  
  

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