State sees increase in at-risk students
By Jennifer Hiller
Advertiser Education Writer
A report released yesterday by the public schools describes a system with more disadvantaged students and a high dropout rate.
However, there are fewer disciplinary problems.
The Superintendent's Annual Report on School Performance and Improvement provides a snapshot of the 183,000-student system.
More than half of all Hawai'i students — 51.1 percent — either live in high poverty, have special education needs or do not speak English well; 12.4 percent have multiple disadvantages. But 48.9 percent of students have no educational disadvantage.
The dropout rate averages about 5.1 percent per year through high school, with a cumulative total of just under 18 percent of students in a class dropping out, according to the Department of Education report.
Educators cautioned, however, that those numbers represent the worst-case scenario because students whose transfers to out-of-state schools have not been confirmed are counted as dropouts, along with students who return to school later or complete their diploma in summer school.
Among the major trends educators have been tracking is the increasing number of public school children with at least one type of educational disadvantage — limited English skills, high poverty or special-education needs — and that the number is rising more rapidly than the general population.
"This has been a trend over the entire time we've been doing this report," said Thomas Gans, evaluation specialist and author of the 13th annual Superintendent's Report.
Given that those disadvantaged children require services that cost about twice as much as a regular student, the task facing the Department of Education steadily grows more expensive and difficult, officials say.
While it costs about $6,000 a year to educate a student, a disadvantaged student costs an average of $12,000.
Total student enrollment has increased 9.8 percent since 1989, while limited English speakers have increased 108.2 percent; students receiving lunch subsidies, a common measure of poverty, have increased 51.7 percent; and the special-education population has increased 120.5 percent. The growth in special education is mostly because of the improved identification of students under a federal consent decree.
The department also tracked the class of 2002, finding that 78.9 percent of them completed school on time in four years.
Gans noted that in the 1990s the department had set a goal that by the year 2000 the dropout rate would be lowered to 10 percent.
"Well, 2000 has come and gone and here we are," he said.
Board member Shannon Ajifu said the department may need to ask military families to be sure they have their new schools notify Hawai'i schools when they transfer out of state and enroll elsewhere. Ajifu speculated that the dropout rates may appear higher than they are because of people moving out of Hawai'i.
The state must track dropout rates as part of the federal education law known as No Child Left Behind.
The report also documented that:
• Disciplinary offenses have decreased since the 1995-1996 school year.
• Overall school enrollment, which had been dropping, appears to have stabilized.
• Hawai'i has a high pupil-to-teacher ratio in comparison to other states.
• Hawai'i's per-pupil financing is about 10 percent below the national average.
• While the classroom shortage appears to have eased, many schools do not have adequate library or administrative facilities.
• Despite the stereotype of Hawai'i having a highly mobile population, 93.3 percent of students attended the same school all year in 2002.
The report will be available at public libraries soon and will be posted at http://arch.k12.hi.us.
Reach Jennifer Hiller at jhiller@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8084.
