WBEZ | education

'Zero trust' after CPS admits it overstated savings from closing schools

Mon, 06 May 2013 21:12:00 -0500

One of the reasons Chicago says it needs to close 54 schools is to save money. If the school district doesn’t have to fix a leaky roof on one school, it can spend the savings on a library at another school. But the amount Chicago Public Schools says it’s going to save by closing down schools is being challenged by parents, school staff and aldermen across the city. And CPS itself recently admitted to overstating how much it would save from closing schools.

WBEZ’s Linda Lutton has been looking into claims that estimated savings from closing school buildings are inflated. She brings us this story, which was reported with Sarah Karp of Catalyst Chicago Magazine. Read the Catalyst story here.

* * *

In late March, 14,000 kids across Chicago brought home letters saying their schools were being closed, the reasons for shutting each school spelled out…

BURKE: Stuck in the backpack. ‘We’re closing Trumbull and this is why….’

That’s parent Ali Burke. She’s standing outside four-story Trumbull Elementary in Edgewater, a 100-year-old school building that dominates the corner of Foster and Ashland. Parent James Morgan is there too.

MORGAN: So this is what was sent home: Trumbull Elementary. Why CPS recommends to close this school: Enrollment has declined by 33 percent over the last 10 years, and building requires $16.3 million to maintain and update.

LUTTON: And that’s what you looked at and said…?

BURKE: There’s no way. There’s just no way. I mean, I was in shock. I mean, come on. Because $16 million—it’s not accurate! I’m telling you, I’ve been in this school—every day! It doesn’t need $16 million dollars worth of improvements.

Parents are incredulous for a reason: A 2010 assessment found Trumbull needed $4.9 million in repairs and upgrades. The assessment was itemized, three pages. The new $16 million figure is more than three times higher. There's no new assessment, nothing in writing.

And at many of the 54 schools slated for closure, there’s a similar pattern. Parents, teachers, principals—even aldermen—say CPS is inflating what it would cost to repair or update their closing schools. The higher those costs, the more CPS can say it saves by shutting them down and avoiding those repairs.

RILEY: We are looking at pretty much brand new banisters that were put in last year. The roof was put in last year. Freshly painted… all this is new… you can come in my room for a second, look at the smart boards.

At Paderewski Elementary on the West Side, teacher April Riley gives me a tour of the latest building improvements. Five years ago, this school needed $3 million worth of work. The school district did some of that. In March, the school closing letter CPS sent home said nearly $7 million more was needed.

RILEY: So how is the number twice what it was in 2008? I don’t know where they got the number from.

WBEZ and Catalyst have been asking a lot of questions about just that, about why schools were being assigned such high repair costs, about how the district arrived at the $560 million total it said it would save by closing schools. Then, last week, CPS lowered that estimate. Lowered it by $122 million, about 20 percent.

School officials explained: their numbers changed because they had new building assessments, long itemized lists of needed improvements. But it turns out that just six closing schools have received the new assessments. For the rest of the closing schools, CPS rejiggered old assessments, adding in costs for inflation, construction management, and a contingency.

Board president David Vitale said he is not really bothered by shifting estimates of how much the district will save by closing schools.

VITALE: Not so much. Because you know we’re not going to be making a decision until May (22). And I’m sure we will ask what these numbers look like in their final form. But from my standpoint, whether it’s $400 million or $600 million isn’t going to be the key decision variable for whether the school needs to close.

Vitale says he’ll be looking at each school individually. He says he'll consider potential savings from layoffs too. And he’s keeping his eye on the big picture—the district’s belief that consolidating schools will give kids a better education.

One top CPS official said it doesn’t make sense to quibble over what the total cost savings might be. He said it’s “intuitive” that the district will save money by closing schools.

Not everyone sees it that way.

LEAVY: The presumption has been, 'Of course we’ll save money!' They already have a couple dozen buildings that are vacant that they haven’t been able to sell.

Jackie Leavy works with a General Assembly task force that reviews CPS facility decisions. She thinks it’s possible not a penny could be saved from some school closures. There’s still a cost to owning a closed school, Leavy says. There’s a cost to mothball it, to put it on the market, keep it heated and graffiti-free. And if that neighborhood needs another school in the futre?

LEAVY: I mean, keep in mind to build a new elementary school today costs anywhere from $60 to $75 million.

There’s a more fundamental question about cost savings from closing schools. Namely: would CPS ever make all the repairs schools need anyway? And is it fair to say the public “saved” money on improvements the district was never going to get around to? Here’s an example: at one point CPS budgeted in the cost of central air conditioning for all the closing schools. No one thinks that improvement was ever going to happen. Still, it was counted in the savings we’d get from closing schools.

Alderman Ricardo Muñoz says the whole thing reminds him of his college statistics class.

MUNOZ: It’s obvious that the Board of Education here is playing with the numbers to their advantage, saying that they’ll be saving millions and millions and millions of dollars. There’s no real rhyme or reason as to how they’re gonna be saving this much money.

Back at Trumbull, the $16 million that CPS originally told parents it would cost to fix up their school got revised—down to $11 million. That’s according to an internal document CPS provided WBEZ and Catalyst last week. But parents at Trumbull still haven’t been told anything is different.

Ali Burke, the parent there, says she can’t believe CPS put out a school closing list and didn’t double check its numbers. She says Trumbull parents have been asking from the beginning for anything in writing that substantiates what CPS would save by closing their school.

BURKE: For us, it’s just incredibly frustrating. We should see the quote. We’re not talking about redecorating a bathroom, we’re talking about a school. They’re citing a quote, a bid that’s part of the reason they want to close our school—displace 406 students. We should know why we’re being closed.

Burke says she’s sure of one number at this point: her trust in the school district is at zero.

Linda Lutton reports on education for WBEZ. Follow her @WBEZeducation

District estimates of capital need at schools (or of potential capital savings if the school is closed) have shifted. Parents, teachers, principals and elected officials have complained that CPS is inflating repair costs in an effort to enlarge the apparent savings the district would achieve by closing schools.

Closed school	Year last assessed	Capital needs from last assessment	Updated capital needs (based on CPS estimates) Provided to parents at many closing schools on March 21	New capital "cost avoidance" (savings) estimates, May 2
Armstrong	2008	$1,754,000	$6,003,000	$4,265,963
Attucks	2008	$7,621,000	$20,995,000	$17,373,599
Bethune	2006	$3,044,000	$10,526,000	$6,943,674
Bontemps	2012/2013	$3,898,651	$6,639,000	$6,093,701
Buckingham	2008	$1,087,000	$4,308,000	$2,807,745
Burnham	2010	$2,705,000	$8,634,000	$5,626,138
Calhoun	2012/2013	$8,113,601	$13,438,000	$10,308,651
Canter	2010	$3,081,000	$10,812,000	$7,731,838
Courtenay	2008	$1,028,000	$6,380,000	$4,328,883
Dett	2010	$3,305,000	$9,869,000	$8,134,383
Dodge	2009	$931,000	$2,846,000	-$643,069
Drake	2010	$7,960,000	$21,015,000	$16,499,767
Earle	2009	$4,944,000	$16,318,000	$11,524,026
Emmet	2010	$3,977,000	$11,452,000	$7,336,482
Ericson	2009	$1,873,000	$9,579,000	$5,744,363
Fiske	2008	$4,271,000	$11,749,000	$8,227,960
Garvey	2012/2013	$3,327,796	$6,288,000	$3,718,877
Goldblatt	2008	$4,644,000	$15,536,000	$12,308,197
Henson	2012/2013	$4,475,496	$9,279,000	$6,670,546
Jackson, M.	2010	$2,655,000	$8,456,000	$5,319,582
Key	2010	$3,824,000	$13,593,000	$9,067,065
King	2010	$3,128,000	$11,231,000	$7,816,301
Kohn	2010	$8,053,000	$22,722,000	$16,666,895
Lafayette	2010	$7,713,000	$22,076,000	$14,075,796
Leland	2007	$1,494,000	$4,799,000	$3,016,785
Mannierre	2008	$3,936,000	$13,105,000	$10,038,918
Marconi	2010	$1,610,000	$4,143,000	$1,208,841
Mays	2008	$2,916,000	$11,097,000	$8,327,097
Melody	2007	$3,607,000	$10,580,000	$8,892,749
Morgan	2010	$4,711,000	$12,404,000	$10,547,756
Near North	2010	$3,038,000	$12,267,000	$8,154,564
Overton	2009	$5,846,000	$17,396,000	$13,656,255
Owens	2008	$2,814,000	$8,830,000	$7,829,797
Paderewski	2008	$3,078,000	$6,862,000	$3,855,599
Parkman	2008	$4,653,000	$14,686,000	$10,721,712
Peabody	2010	$3,319,000	$11,512,000	$8,159,542
Pershing East	2010	$1,382,000	$12,819,000	$2,549,545
Pope	2012/2013	$3,660,445	$9,220,000	$5,855,495
Ross	2008	$5,588,000	$17,156,000	$13,323,873
Songhai	2008	$5,512,000	$18,041,000	$13,125,745
Stewart	2010	$5,046,000	$16,425,000	$11,263,090
Trumbull	2010	$4,893,000	$16,258,000	$10,988,138
Ward, L.	2008	$3,318,000	$9,801,000	$8,800,621
Wentworth	2010	$5,053,000	$17,583,000	$11,275,670
West Pullman	2012/2013	$8,816,347	$14,919,000	$11,011,397
Woods	2010	$3,894,000	$13,234,000	$9,192,860
Yale	2008	$3,471,000	$8,943,000	$5,847,222
Von Humboldt	2010	$10,748,000	$24,687,000	$18,320,455

Global Activism: Tikondane helps communities in Zambia

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 09:19:00 -0500

Coming off a successful 2013 Global Activism Expo, we visit with one of this year’s attendees. Elke Kroeger-Radcliffe, founder and director of Tikondane, a “community uplift organization” based in Katete, Zambia, tells us about her latest projects and the people involved with her work.

Chicago students protest closings plan

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 02:48:00 -0500

About 30,000 students will be affected if Chicago Board of Education votes to go through with closing 53 elementary schools in May.

But a group of high school students, whose schools are safe from shut down, protested the plan Monday.

Marching from the lobby of Chicago Public Schools headquarters to City Hall, the students chanted against closings and called for Mayor Rahm Emanuel to stop closing schools

The group, Chicago Students Organizing to Save Our Schools, said they started working together in the wake of the seven-day teachers strike last fall. A handful of organizers from the Chicago Teachers Union and VOYCE (Voices of Youth in Chicago Education) were also part of the protest.

Brian Sturgis is a senior at Paul Robeson High School, but his former school – Banneker Elementary—is set to be shut down.

He said Banneker has a history in the Englewood community, where he’s grown up.

“They see [Banneker’s] logo and they know that you’re a Banneker staff member, you’re a Banneker student,” Sturgis said. “There’s some type of respect that comes with that. And knowing that that might potentially be gone, it hurts so much, to know that this is where I grew up, this is who taught me to be the man that I am today, and the school just vanishes like it was never even open.”

Sturgis said he worries closing schools will forces kids as young as six years old to walk even further to school, putting them at risk of violence.

Most of the students at Monday’s protest were not from the schools slated to be shut down. But Israel Munoz said that shouldn’t matter.

“Even if my school is not being closed, I think I have the responsibility to stick up for elementary students who may not understand the situation the way I do,” Munoz said. “I think I hold that responsibility.”

CPS is promising to invest more money, technology and extra staff into the schools that get more kids as a result of closures.

"By consolidating underutilized schools we will be able to redirect those resources and move children safely to a higher-performing welcoming school that has all the things parents, teachers and CPS agree students need to thrive and succeed, such as a library, air conditioning, upgraded computer and science technology, and counseling and social support," CPS spokeswoman Becky Carroll said in a written statement.

But some students at the protest Monday said those things don’t matter if kids can’t get to school safely

“I don’t want an iPad, I want to be safe,” said Isis Hernandez, an eighth grader at Harriet Beecher Stowe Elementary.

Stowe is not being shut down, but Hernandez said she worries her friends at Ryerson Elementary will see more violence next year when they merge with nearby Laura Ward Elementary.

“[CPS doesn’t] know if schools are rivals or not,” Hernandez said. “We, the people that live in our neighborhoods, we know what schools are rivals and what schools are not, they don’t know anything about that.”

District officials announced last week that they plan to ramp up security and the Safe Passage program to help kids get to school safely.

Becky Vevea is an education reporter for WBEZ. Follow her @WBEZeducation.

Why the business community wants to invest in preschoolers

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 08:31:00 -0500

A group of about 20 Christopher House preschoolers are sitting as quietly as they can in front of their teacher, Jill Peterson. She’s just asked them to put their fingers on their nose and is waiting for the group to settle down before dismissing them to play time.

She reminds them what their options are today: at the art table, there’s clay. Because the class has been spending quite a bit of time talking about food, and cooking, she encourages the children to shape the clay into pretend food.

But this isn’t just ordinary play. The kids in this class range from age three to five, but are already focusing on activities that develop both sides of the brain.

Allen Rosales is the school’s curriculum director. From his point of view, the school isn’t doing its job unless it prepares the children for work - and life.

“What’s math knowledge if you can’t speak up, if you can’t have a perspective, if you can’t work as a group collaboratively?” Rosales asked. “That’s what we’re trying to do here, incorporate both - the academic and the soft skills.”

Still, as Rosales points out, those “soft” skills aren’t so soft because they’re difficult to develop.

Hard skills are pretty self-explanatory: math, science and reading. Soft skills are more squishy concept, but it’s still a catch-all phrase you hear often from business leaders to describe what’s lacking among their workers.

Chicago businessman J.B. Pritzker attempts to explain.

“Collectively, these are things we sometimes refer to as character,” said Pritzker, co-leader of The Pritkzer Group. “The ability to listen, the ability to concentrate, to complete a task, to be persistent about things, attentiveness.”

These are are the kind of skills you learn best when you’re young - very young - which is why Pritzker said he’s become an advocate for early childhood education.

“The quality of our workforce is declining, and it’s because we are not as advanced as other countries are at early childhood development,” he said.

That’s backed up by people like Nobel Prize-winning economist James Heckman at the University of Chicago. His decades-long research shows that investing in low-income children before Kindergarten can have a big pay-off down the road.

Traditionally, businesses have tended to focus their philanthropic efforts on K-12 education. But PNC Bank is another group that’s also starting to back more early education efforts. The bank has given more than $350 million nationally to this - about $3 million in Chicago.

“We’re concerned about this obviously from a customer perspective, but from a community perspective,” said PNC Illinois Chairman Joe Gregoire. “The better we do as relates to early childhood development, the better our communities will be. Hopefully we’ll have more students going to college and from that perspective, a better workforce.”

Right now funding for pre-K comes from a couple of different places, like the federal Head Start. But even then, around 30 percent of low-income families who are eligible for the program don’t use it.

Another problem is the quality of early childhood education across Illinois.

“In Illinois, the only criteria for establishing a child care program is that you have a license, and the license is built mostly around safety and nutrition and things like that and not around education,” said Erikson Institute faculty co-founder Barbara Bowman, also the former head of Chicago’s early childhood education program.

Bowman said that makes programs like the one at Christopher House are more the ideal than the norm.

Lots of preschools incorporate structured playtime. But at Christopher House the teacher and two aides use playtime to help nurture soft skills one-on-one.

Back at play time, Peterson - who has two well-trained aides also working with other children - is sitting at the table with the children playing with clay. One little girl has molded her clay into what she says is a spicy jalapeno pizza cookies.

Peterson gently nudges the child to provide a recipe for how she made her pizza. Peterson writes it all down.

Rosales, standing nearby, explains how the recipes reinforces notions of first, second, last, as well as following directions. The exercises are designed to nurture the child’s creativity, and teachers like Peterson also encourage independent thinking - all key foundations for these soft skills.

Illinois just received a $35 million federal grant to unify what the state itself calls a “patchwork” of early learning programs. It’s also designed to help connect low-income families with programs like Christopher House, which already has a waiting list.

In the meantime, business leaders like Pritzker are nudging this along on their own. For him, it’s simple economics.

“I know there are people who are going to think to themselves, ‘Soft skills, you mean learning those basic things that every kid probably should learn, attentiveness, is going to affect whether the United States is going to be the leader of the world 20 years from now?’ My answer is ‘yes’.”

Because 20 years from now, he said, this class of preschoolers at Christopher House - and their classmates from all across the city - will be the one’s he’s hiring.

Beyond These Times: Reimagining School

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 15:59:00 -0500

Golden Apple, Chicago Shakespeare Theater and National-Louis University present futurist voices in the dialogue on improving the educational experience for school children. They address what school in the future must look like to prepare students for rapid advances in technology, globalization, and economy. The moderator for this series is WBEZ’s Alison Cuddy. The first symposium featured noted Arizona State Professor Dr. James Paul Gee, and Stephanie Pace Marshall, President Emerita of the Illinois Math and Science Academy.

Recorded live on March 18, 2013 at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater.

Drone fight over Illinois

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 05:00:00 -0600

HOME-DRONE FIGHT. An Illinois lawmaker wants some privacy guidelines to cover potential use of drone aircraft by state and local crimefighters.
* Pentagon introduces new type of medal for troops who remotely pilot unmanned vehicles.

'ONE OF THE GREAT BATTLES OF ALL TIME.' That's the way one airline industry consultant describes what's ahead for Chicago now that American Airlines and US Airways have announced their merger.

'WE WILL NOT SURRENDER. WE WILL NOT APPEASE. WE WILL BUY MORE GUNS THAN EVER.' -- Commentary for The Daily Caller from NRA chief Wayne LaPierre.
* Sen. Kirk says he has parents' OK to name anti-gun trafficking bill after Hadiya Pendleton.
* Family says Pendleton murder suspect is a "good kid."

'THE MOMENT MATTERED, BY THIS POINT, BECAUSE EVEN RUBIO SAID THAT IT DID.' The New Yorker's Ian Crouch takes an intimately detailed look at Marco Rubio's hydration break. (Rubio comes from a Gulp State, no?)
* NRA, other lobbyists, corporations paid big for Twitter placement during State of the Union address.

SCHOOLS OUT. The good news? The Chicago Public Schools system has shrunk the number of schools it'll consider closing. The bad news? The list is still 129 schools long.
* West Side mom: "They want to send our kids into unfamiliar streets they don’t even know."
* Map and sortable list of schools eligible for closure.

CTA'S BRIGHT FUTURE. Armed with a $30 million credit from the company that makes those new rail cars with center-facing seats, the CTA's buying eight more cars -- and replacing the lighting in all the new cars with LED fixtures that won't yellow the way traditional fluorescents do.

PEOPLE WHO NEED PEOPLE? Time-Warner's seeking buyers for most of its magazines, including People, InStyle and Real Simple. But it may keep Time for a time. And it may also not sell Fortune, because the selling price would be a ... big sum of Money. Which it's also reportedly not selling.
* Channel 5 boss leaving for Tribune Co., including WGN-TV and WGN Radio (which, full disclosure, formerly employed this here news blogger).

ANNOUNCEMENTS.
* Yesterday's post incorrectly characterized the state of the Blackhawks' streak of games without a regulation loss. That text has been corrected, with thanks to Friend of the Blog Stephen Anzaldi.
* Have more corrections for this blog? Email anytime.
* Follow us on Twitter: @WBEZ and @Meyerson.
* If it's Thursday, it must be time to make up this week's news quiz. Be here Friday morning, bright and early, for your chance to score.

CPS parent group wants investigation into school closure decision process

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 15:10:00 -0600

A Chicago parent group said Tuesday it has filed a complaint against the process Chicago Public Schools administrators use to determine a preliminary list of school closings.

The complaint was filed with the office of CPS Inspector General James M. Sullivan, according to a statement released by the group, called Parents 4 Teachers. It is asking for an independent investigation into the procedures used to decide which of the district’s schools will be shuttered.

“Someone from the outside needs to come in and shine a light on what’s going on at central office, they need to see what’s going on behind closed doors and make that information available to the public,” said CPS parent and group co-founder Erica Clark.

Sullivan’s office could not be reached for comment or to confirm if they had received the complaint.

At a news conference Tuesday, Clark alleged that the CPS-appointed commission tasked with reviewing utilization of district schools is “fraught” with conflicts of interest.

“The so-called ‘independent’ commission has numerous ties to charter [school] backers. They share the same offices, they’re being advised by organizations that are in business to promote charters,” Clark said.

In a statement, Parents 4 Teachers said the complaint “cites instances of employee misconduct, conflicts of interest and misleading the public about the facts on school closings.”

The group said it is considering filing a similar complaint with the office of Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan.

In response to these allegations, CPS officials said in a written statement Tuesday that it has 145,000 fewer students enrolled now than it did during the “last decade.”

“Now CPS has too many empty classrooms and too few students to fill them. This is stretching our limited resources too thin and depriving children at all schools of critical investments they need to be successful such as air-conditioning, playgrounds, technology and computers, librar[ies], art and music,” a statement from a CPS spokesperson read.

“Once CPS combines schools and resources, we will be better positioned to provide every child in our schools with a well-rounded high-quality education they deserve.”

The district has said it plans to release a preliminary list of school closings on Wednesday. School officials have said CPS is facing a $1 billion dollar budget deficit and needs to close some school buildings in order to “right-size” the district.

However, no one knows exactly how many schools will be closed.

Enrollment is expected to play a key role in that decision—currently, CPS figures indicate that 136 schools are currently half-empty. A CPS spokesperson has said each closed school could save the district $500,000 to $800,000.

In January, the CPS-appointed commission charged with recommending closures said high schools, schools with more than 600 students and schools labeled high-performing should be spared.

Deal in West Chicago ends teacher strike

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 08:46:00 -0600

WEST CHICAGO, Ill. — Classes are back on for about 4,000 students in West Chicago after a tentative agreement ended a teachers strike in the Chicago suburb.

Officials with West Chicago Elementary District 33 started calling parents overnight to let them know that classes would resume Thursday after a three-day strike.

About 280 teachers began the walkout Monday after more than 17 months of negotiations failed to reach an agreement. The district includes six elementary schools, a preschool and a middle school.

Negotiators aren't yet disclosing details of the tentative agreement. They reached the deal early Thursday after nearly 12 hours of talks with a federal mediator. Salaries and health insurance costs were among the main sticking points.

Jobs, Education and the Economy: The Elmhurst College Governmental Forum

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 15:42:00 -0600

On January 30, days after President Barack Obama begins his second term, four of the region’s foremost corporate leaders discussed the economic landscape and how our workforce can succeed in it, during the Sixth Annual Elmhurst College Governmental Forum.

The topic of this year’s Forum was "Jobs, Education and the Economy." Moderating the event was John Engler, a former three-term governor of Michigan and, as president of the Business Roundtable, leader of the foremost CEO association in the country. The key presenters at the Forum were Caterpillar Inc. chairman and CEO Douglas R. Oberhelman, Johnson Publishing CEO Desiree Rogers; and TMX Group CEO Thomas A. Kloet, who also serves on the Elmhurst College Board of Trustees.

Part One

Part Two

Recorded Thursday, January 30, 2013 at Elmhurst College.

Study: High school grad rate highest since '76

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 09:20:00 -0600

WASHINGTON — The nation's high school graduation rate is the highest since 1976, but more than a fifth of students are still failing to get their diploma in four years, the Education Department said in a study released Tuesday.

Officials said the steady rise of students completing their education is a reflection of the struggling economy and a greater competition for new jobs.

"If you drop out of high school, how many good jobs are there out there for you? None. That wasn't true 10 or 15 years ago," Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in an interview with The Associated Press.

The national dropout rate was about 3 percent overall, down from the year before. Many students who don't receive their diplomas in four years stay in school, taking five years or more to finish their coursework.

Some 3.1 million students nationwide earned their high school diplomas in the spring of 2010, with 78 percent of students finishing on time. That's the best since a 75 percent on-time graduation rate during the 1975-76 academic year.

The only better rate was 79 percent in 1969-70, a figure the department wouldn't vouch for.

There were tremendous differences among the states in 2010. Fifty-eight percent of students in Nevada and 60 percent in Washington, D.C., completed their high school education in four years. By comparison, 91 percent of students in Wisconsin and Vermont did, according to the report.

Graduation rates increased by more than a percentage point in 38 states between 2009 and 2010, the study found. Only the District of Columbia saw its graduation rates decline between by greater than a percentage point during those years.

Among the most significant factors of the increase was the dire U.S. economy after the 2008 Wall Street meltdown. During the 2009-10 academic year, unemployment ranged from 9.4 percent to 10 percent.

"When I grew up on the South Side of Chicago it wasn't great, but I had lots of friends who dropped out and they could go work in the stockyards or steel mills and they could buy a home, support a family, do OK," Duncan said.

But those jobs are gone and won't come back, he said.

California, the nation's largest public school system by enrollment, led the nation in new graduates in 2010, turning out almost 405,000. It also produced the most dropouts: almost 93,000. That translated to a rate of about 5 percent, above the national average.

During the 2009-10 academic year, some 514,000 students dropped out of high school nationwide. Still, the rate declined from 4 percent during the seven previous academic years, when data was sometimes incomplete or represented averages of states that reported figures.

Nationally, students were most likely to drop out of high school during their senior year, with roughly one in 20 quitting before graduation day. In every state, males were more likely to drop out.

Arizona had the highest dropout rate, at 8 percent, followed by Mississippi at 7 percent. Washington, D.C., schools also posted a 7 percent dropout rate, the Education Department projected based on previous years' reporting.

Mississippi, New Mexico and Wyoming had dropout rates rise more than one percentage point, while Delaware, Illinois and Louisiana saw noticeable decreases. Delaware dropped from about 5 percent to 4 percent. Illinois dropped from roughly 12 percent to 3 percent. And Louisiana dropped from 7 percent to 5 percent.

"The trends are hopeful but our high school dropout rate is still unsustainably high and it's untenable in many of our African-American and Latino communities. We have a long way to go here," Duncan said.

Nationally, white and Asian and Pacific Islander students were among the least likely to leave school without a degree, with only 2 percent dropout rates. Hispanic students posted a 5 percent dropout rate, followed by blacks at 6 percent and American Indians and Alaska Natives at 7 percent.

"There's no young person who aspires to be a high school dropout," Duncan said. "When someone drops out, it's a symptom of a problem. It's not the problem itself. Something has gone radically wrong."