You’ve heard me gripe about all of the dropout rate calculations and projections for Oakland’s public schools. Well, the state department of education has finally broken out its newfangled student tracking system and released some (supposedly) accurate, estimate-free dropout data for the 2006-07 school year!

Two years ago, California assigned every public school student a unique state ID number in order to track their progress, regardless of where in the state they moved. If a student vanishes from Oakland High School, for example, and turns up in Los Angeles Unified a month later, that student will no longer be counted as a dropout.

While admittedly exciting on a wonky, statistical level — oh, the information! — the state’s preliminary data present a very sobering picture. If it’s as accurate as they say, it means that 11 percent of Oakland’s high school kids quit school during the 2006-07 year alone. Read the rest of this entry »