Forget about college. Recent research shows that for New Hampshire high schoolers, just leaving high school with a diploma is proving difficult.
High school dropout rates -- a problem often perceived as being limited to depressed urban neighborhoods -- have reached 25 percent in this largely rural state, data collected by the New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies indicates.
That number is markedly higher than recent estimates from the N.H. Department of Education, which place the cumulative statewide dropout rate at 20 percent. The national dropout rate in 2000 was estimated at 30 percent, according to the New York Times.
In the industrial town of Franklin, 50 percent of high school students drop out, the Center's study said. In southern New Hampshire, Nashua High School suffers from a 37-percent attrition rate.
But beyond the initial and widespread shock generated by the report's findings, some education officials have questioned the study's statistical accuracy.
Rather than following the Center's method of estimating the percentage of eighth graders who fail to graduate four years later, Portsmouth school administrators Lyonel Tracy and Robert Lister performed their own calculations.
By dividing the exact number of Portsmouth High School's dropouts last year by the number of freshmen in 1998, the dropout rate came to 5.6 percent, as opposed to the Center's 14 percent estimate.
Such discrepancies in tallying dropouts have plagued the education community for years, according to a number of reports. Even classifying "dropout" has been a challenge for statisticians, as some school districts give a high school diploma and the General Equivalency Diploma equal weight while others do not. Students who lie about transferring schools add to the inconsistencies created by the multiple survey methods in use.
"[The Center's] study is like looking at a forest from 10,000 feet away," said Mark Joyce, executive director of the New Hampshire School Administrators Association. "The Portsmouth study is from a few feet away, looking at a section and counting individual trees."
However, each report is of great value, Joyce said, as they both achieve the goal of drawing attention to the dropout problem.
The issue has shown itself to be far-reaching. Even prosperous Hanover High School deals with its share of dropouts. The Center's survey places its cumulative attrition rate at 7 percent, or nearly one in every 14 students.
The implementation of a "leave-of-absence" program where students meet with guidance counselors to outline post-school plans has helped keep the dropout rate relatively low, but the issue remains relevant, according to principal Deb Gillespie.
"Any student not completing an academic or a vocational program is incredibly limiting his future," Gillespie said.
But since many Hanover High School students have family backgrounds that emphasize and value education, she said, attrition is not as prevalent as elsewhere in New Hampshire.
The situation is remarkably different only a few miles away at Mascoma Valley High School. Serving the working-class towns of Canaan, Enfield, Grafton, Orange and Dorchester, MVHS faces a cumulative dropout rate of 16 percent, according to the study.
A variety of reasons -- among them the wide availability of service jobs in the Upper Valley -- compel students to leave, MVHS Principal Patrick Andrew said, adding that certain factors may indicate from the onset of high school that attrition is likely.
Low socio-economic status, failure to pass ninth grade and substance-abuse problems put students at high risk, Andrew said.
To ease the transition into high school, Mascoma has hired a guidance counselor who focuses on ninth-grade students. Two staff members also work with students on social concerns.
"A student that's likely to drop out is so much more likely to have other issues," Andrew said. "We're trying to survey kids who leave as to why -- what's the reason?"
Counseling, community involvement, increased per-pupil spending and work-study programs are among the myriad "secret weapons" against attrition, according to Joyce.
And efforts are made to encourage dropouts to continue their education by alternative means, Andrew said. "If they haven't moved in the last year to get their GED or to go on to other educational opportunities, we try to recruit them back or to at least connect them to the Upper Valley Academy."
New Hampshire came in 19th in the recent "Smartest State" ranking of educational systems conducted by Morgan Quitno Press -- the only New England state absent from the top 10.
