Tracking students not simple task

Doing The Math

Texas uses a complex set of measures, all calculated differently, to track dropouts, creating an annual dropout rate, attrition rate, completion rate and a four-year-longitudinal dropout rate.

An annual dropout rate is calculated by dividing the number of students who drop out during a single school year by the total number of students enrolled the same year.

A completion rate is the percentage of students from a class of beginning ninth graders or seventh graders who complete their high school education by their anticipated graduation date.

A longitudinal dropout rate is the percentage of students from the same class who drop out before completing their high school education.

The retention rate is an annual rate that shows the percentage of students who, in the fall of a given school year, were enrolled in the same grade level as reported for the last six-week period of attendance in the previous year.

In 2003, the 78th Texas Legislature required dropout rates be computed according to the National Center for Education Statistics dropout definition beginning in the 2005-06 school year.

Under the NCES definition, a dropout is a student who is enrolled in public school in grades 7-12, does not return to public school the following fall, is not expelled, and does not graduate, receive a GED, continue school outside the public school system, begin college, or die.