A troubling uptick.

Byline: The Register-Guard

It's a mistake to make too much of high school dropout rates. Some students counted as dropouts actually continue their educations in some fashion. Students who leave school often do so for reasons beyond the schools' control. And the statistics themselves are slippery - family mobility is only one of many factors that make the numbers less than totally reliable.

Yet it's also a mistake to ignore dropout rates. Regardless of the difficulties of counting the number of students who quit school, until last year the trend line in Oregon had been pointing in the right direction. The statewide dropout rate fell to 4.4 percent in 2002-03 from 6 percent in 1999-2000, a decline of 26 percent in three years. In 2003-04, the dropout rate rose slightly to 4.4 percent. The increase isn't much, but the turnaround after consecutive years of steep declines is worrisome.

A dropout rate in the low single digits is worse than it appears. A yearly dropout rate of 4.5 percent compounds over four years of high school. Of the freshmen who started their high school educations in 2000, only 81 percent received diplomas in 2004, according to the state Department of Education. This compounding effect makes the recent declines all the more impressive - and makes last year's higher dropout rate more troubling.

Susan Castillo, Oregon's superintendent of public instruction, blames the school finance system: Many school districts have lost the counselors, academic programs and extracurricular activities that keep students from dropping out. Cutting school budgets unavoidably has an effect on the dropout rate, and when per-pupil funding in Oregon schools slipped below the national average in 2002-03, consequences were sure to follow.

Yet money isn't the only explanation. Oregon succeeded in substantially improving student retention until recently, even while school funding was in relative decline. And the dropout rate varies widely among school districts, and even at different high schools within the same district. Springfield High School's 2003-04 dropout rate was 4.1 percent, slightly below the state average, while Thurston High School's rate was 1.3 percent - a quarter of the statewide rate.

Whatever the causes, high-school dropouts represent an enormous loss of human potential. Dropouts' economic prospects will be permanently hampered, and they will suffer a disproportionate share of social problems ranging from crime to addiction.

The ominous possibility is that last year's turnaround is the start of a new trend, and that after years of progress, Oregon is beginning to lose more students. If that's what the numbers mean, the turnaround will have come at a time when most schools are struggling to maintain current programs, and lack the resources to add new ones aimed at improving student retention. Maybe the 4.5 percent dropout rate in 2003-04 is a statistical blip. Oregonians should hope so - because if the dropout rate begins to climb, the schools will be poorly equipped to do much about it.