Texas Public School Attrition Study, 2016-17 – High School Attrition Returns to 24 Percent After One Year Bump

By: Roy L. Johnson, M.S. • IDRA Newsletter • October 2017

Over the past five years, the overall high school attrition rate in Texas has ranged from 24 percent to 25 percent. After inching up by 1 percentage point from 24 percent in 2014-15 to 25 percent in 2015-16, the attrition rate inched back down to 24 percent in 2016-17. Holding constant in this range, the overall attrition rate in Texas was 25 percent in 2012-13, 24 percent in 2013-14, 24 percent in 2014-15, 25 percent in 2015-16, and 24 percent in 2016-17.

This year’s study is the 32nd in a series of annual reports on trends in dropout and attrition rates in Texas public schools. Since leading the first comprehensive study of school dropouts in Texas in 1985-86, IDRA has conducted attrition analyses to assess schools’ abilities to hold on to their students until they graduate.

Attrition rates are an indicator of a school’s holding power or ability to keep students enrolled in school and learning until they graduate. Along with other dropout measures, attrition rates are useful in studying the magnitude of the dropout problem and the success of schools in keeping students in school. In simplest terms, attrition is defined as shrinkage in size or number; therefore, an attrition rate is the percent change in grade level between a base year and an end year.

IDRA’s latest study being released this month found that 24 percent of the freshman class of 2013-14 left school prior to graduating in the 2016-17 school year. The statewide attrition rate of 24 percent is 9 percentage points lower than the initial rate of 33 percent found in IDRA’s landmark 1985-86 study. The 2016-17 rate is 27 percent lower than the 1985-86 rate showing moderate improvement in school holding power.

Across racial and ethnic groups, the study found that attrition rates today are lower than in the first study three decades ago. Attrition rates of Hispanic students declined by 36 percent (from 45 percent to 29 percent). During this same period, the attrition rates of Black students declined by 24 percent (from 34 percent to 26 percent). Attrition rates of White students declined by 48 percent (from 27 percent to 14 percent). Attrition rates of male students declined by 26 percent (from 35 percent to 26 percent), while the attrition rates of female students declined by 34 percent (from 32 percent to 21 percent).

Not to be overlooked among the positive trends in attrition rates overall is the concern about the persistent gaps in the attrition rates of White and non-White students. The gaps between the attrition rates of White students and Hispanic students and of White students and Black students continue to be about the same or higher than they were 32 years ago. Between White students and Hispanic students, the attrition rate gap was 18 percentage points in 1985-86 and 15 percentage points in 2015-16. The attrition rate gap between White students and Black students almost doubled from 7 percentage points in 1985-86 to 12 percentage points in 2016-17.

The full study will be available on IDRA’s website soon and includes methodology, historical statewide attrition rates and numbers of students lost to attrition categorized by race-ethnicity and by gender, a county-level data map, a county-level attrition rate table, trend data by county, and historical county-level numbers of students lost to attrition.

Key findings of the latest study include the following.

• Texas public schools still are failing to graduate one out of every four students. One out of every four students (24 percent) from the freshman class of 2013-14 left school prior to graduating with a high school diploma.
• A total of 99,960 students from the 2013-14 freshman class were lost from public high school enrollment in 2016-17 compared to 86,276 in 1985-86.
• For the class of 2016-17, Hispanic students and Black students are about two times more likely to leave school without graduating than White students.
• In three decades, the overall attrition rate declined from 33 percent in 1985-86 to 24 percent in 2016-17.
• From 1985-86 to 2016-17, attrition rates of Hispanic students declined by 36 percent (from 45 percent to 29 percent). During this same period, the attrition rates of Black students declined by 24 percent (from 34 percent to 26 percent). Attrition rates of White students declined by 48 percent (from 27 percent to 14 percent).
• The attrition gap between White students and Hispanic students was 18 percentage points in 1985-86 compared to 15 percentage points in 2015-16.
• The attrition gap between White students and Black students was 7 percentage points in 1985-86 compared to 12 percentage points in 2016-17. The gap between White students and Black students increased by 71 percent from 1985-86 to 2016-17.
• Since 1986, Texas schools have lost a cumulative total of more than 3.7 million students from public high school enrollment prior to graduation.
• The attrition rates for males have been higher than those of females. In the class of 2016-17, males were 1.2 times more likely to leave school before graduation than females.
• From 1985-86 to 2016-17, attrition rates of male students declined by 26 percent (from 35 percent to 26 percent), while the attrition rates of female students declined by 34 percent (from 32 percent to 21 percent).

A supplemental analysis by IDRA education associate, Felix Montes, Ph.D., using linear regression models predicts that at the current pace Texas will continue to range from 22 percent to 26 percent and will not reach an attrition rate of zero until about the year 2035-36.

In addition to IDRA’s attrition analysis, the full report includes an analysis of the TEA’s latest dropout report and the latest federal data across states. These and other resources are available at https://budurl.me/IDRAatrn17.

Roy L. Johnson, M.S., is Director of Evaluation. Comments and questions may be directed to him via e-mail at roy.johnson@idra.org.