The State - News from May 5, 1988

California’s high school dropout rate fell from 25.9% to 22% in 1987, despite higher graduation standards and tougher courses, state schools Supt. Bill Honig said. He said the calculation was based on a new reporting system aimed at obtaining a more precise identification of students who leave school. Honig noted that dropout rates for 1986 and 1987 are much lower than the 1988 attrition rate estimate, which is holding at about 32%. The attrition rate includes students who transfer elsewhere or take longer to graduate. There was no standardized system for collecting information on dropouts before 1986. “The actual dropout figure probably falls somewhere in between the dropout and the attrition rate,” Honig said. “In both cases, we now are either holding steady or getting better.” Honig said both measurements indicate that tougher graduation and course standards imposed under 1983 school reform legislation have not “pushed more students out of school, as some people had feared.”