Don’t Call Them Dropouts:
The Role of Bilingual Education in the
State’s Dropout Prevention Framework
and Student Engagement
Cori Canty, Office of Dropout Preventi on and Engagement
September 25, 2014
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Today’s Presentation
 What?
 Why students leave school before graduation
 Colorado’s Dropout Prevention Framework, Tools and Resources
 Understanding Student Engagement, Tools and Resources
 So what?
 What information should you take back to your colleagues?
 Why does this information matter, especially in your school and/or
district context?
 Now what?
 What are the next 2-3 things you would propose that your school
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and/or district do to support struggling students based on today’s
presentation?
Bilingual Education
 Where the inability to speak and understand the English
language excludes national origin minority group children
from effective participation in the educational program
offered by a school district, the district must take affirmative
steps to rectify the language deficiency in order to open its
instructional program to these students. (35 Fed. Reg. 11595)
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Guiding Principles
1) School districts will implement LIEPs with a focus on access, equity and quality.
2) The effective acquisition of academic English to promote student achievement
will be a priority regardless of the LIEP selected.
3) Assessment will use valid and reliable measures systematically to determine
progress in attaining English proficiency (including the level of comprehension,
speaking, listening, reading and writing skills) and student academic achievement
standards.
4) Instruction and accountability will be based on meaningful data related to
student performance.
5) All instructional staff assigned to educate ELs will be professionally prepared,
qualified and authorized to teach this population.
6) Parents will be encouraged and provided opportunities to collaborate actively
with schools to support their children’s learning and to increase their own language
and literacy skills.
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Equity and Access
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Equity and Access:
Dropout Prevention and Student Engagement
What is a ‘dropout’?
What can we do to support students who
have left school?
How can we prevent dropouts and keep
students engaged in their learning?
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Dropout Definition
 “Person who leaves school for any reason, except death, before
completion of a high school diploma or its equivalent, and who does
not transfer to another public or private school or enroll in an
approved home study program.”
 Not a dropout: Students that transfer to an educational program
recognized by a district, complete a GED or register in a program
leading to a GED, or are committed to an institution that maintains
educational programs, or they are so ill that they are unable to
participate in a homebound or special therapy program.
 Students who reach the age of 21 before receiving a diploma or
designation of completion (“age-outs”) are also counted as dropouts.
For more information, visit www.cde.state.co.us
Understanding Why Students Leave
School
http://gradnation.org/report/dont-call-them-dropouts
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Understanding Why Students Leave
School
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Five Conclusions
 Students who leave school before graduating are stronger than popular




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opinion and current research literature describe. These strengths could, with
the right supports, allow them to stay in school; and these abilities do,
ultimately, help many to re-engage.
Students who leave school before graduating are often struggling with
overwhelming life circumstances that push school attendance far down their
priority lists.
Young people who leave high school need fewer easy exits from the
classroom and more easy on-ramps back into education.
Young people who leave high school emphasize how much peers, parents,
and other adults matter.
Everyone in a young person’s life and community can do something to help.
Five Recommendations
 Listen.
 Surround the highest-need young people with extra
supports.
 Create a cadre of community navigators to help
students stay in school.
 Follow the evidence.
 Place young people in central roles in designing and
implementing solutions that will work for their
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peers.
Colorado Dropout Prevention
Framework
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http://www.cde.state.co.us/dropoutprevention/cgp_framework
Identification
 Data Analysis
 Early Warning Systems
 Tracking Out-of-School Youth
 Assess School Climate
District and School Tools:
• DropOut Data Analysis Display
(DODAD)
• PWR Toolkit
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Statewide Projects:
• Early Warning Systems Research with
McREL
• Early Warning Systems Survey (Fall,
2013)
• Early Warning Systems
Implementation Support Project with
American Institutes of Research
• DropOut Data Analysis Display
(DODAD)
Digging Deeper into state and local data – An
example using dropout rates
The DropOut Data Analysis Display (or DODAD) is an
analytic tool designed to help administrators and staff
from Colorado high schools interpret, investigate and
understand the dropout rates for their school.

Graphic (chart-based) display of data makes it easier
to identify trends and potential issues and to
communicate findings to stakeholders

Puts the data in context by comparing a school’s data
to aggregated averages for a similar group of schools
(Alternative Education Campuses or Non-AEC schools)

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Requires no additional data reporting – uses existing
data already provided to CDE by schools or districts
The DODAD tool generates 12 charts based on
previously reported data for your school
1.
2.
3.
4.
 Is the school’s dropout rate declining or
Overall
Dropout
Rate
–
Five
6. Dropout Rates by Race/
 How do the dropout rates for
increasing?
students in specific sub-groups How does the
Year Trend
Ethnicity
school’s dropout rate
compare to the rates for their
compare to other high schools in the state?
Percent
of
School’s
Dropouts
6a. Gaps between Racial/Ethnic
peers? Are there large gaps
by Grade
between groups that should be
Groups
addressed?
 At what7.“stage
and age”
do by Instructional
Dropout Rate by Grade
Dropout
Rates
students typically drop out?
 How do the dropout rates for
Program Service Type
Percent
of
School’s
Dropouts
student sub-groups at this school
by Agecompare to the state as a whole?
7a. Gaps between IPST Groups
4a. Count of Dropouts by Age
8. Dropout Rates by Gender
 In addition to the dropout rate,
 Does the number of reported dropouts
5. Dropouts
Month
whatby
other
student outcome data
9. Exit Types likely to count
increase
at certain times during the
will shape the graduation rate for
against the graduation rate
school
year?
future cohorts?
 Is this pattern unique to this school?
Each school can be compared against Colorado’s Alternative Education Campus
schools (blue tabs) or against all non-AEC schools (yellow tabs) as appropriate.
Limitations of the DODAD

Information is exclusively quantitative vs. qualitative –
findings from the tool can help answer questions
regarding who dropped out and when, but not why.

The accuracy of the information in the DODAD tool is
limited by the accuracy of the student records
submitted by the district via the Student End of Year
data collection.

Data are aggregated from the prior three years
o
o
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Aggregation of multiple years of data helps address issues with
groups of students that have a small single-year sample size or
schools with a small student population overall.
Aggregation also compensates for single year “anomalies” in
the data.
Accessing the tool
To download a copy of the DODAD:
Access the CDE Office of Dropout
Prevention and Engagement web page:
www.cde.state.co.us/DropoutPrevention/
CoGraduationPathways_index
1.
or go to:
bit.ly/DODAD
2.
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Look under the “Tools and
Resources” section and click
on the link titled “DropOut
Data Analysis Display”
Regardless of the absolute rates for these sub-groups, are
there gaps between groups that should be addressed?
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Besides the dropout rate, what other student outcome
data will shape the graduation rate for future cohorts?
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Institutional Change
 Enhance School Climate
 Policies and Practices Review
Statewide Projects:
 Community Engagement
• Policy and Practices Assessment
 Family Involvement
• Best Practices Guide
• Family Engagement for Secondary
Schools online course
• Community Partnership online course
District and School Tools:
• Policy and Practices Assessment
• Best Practices Guide
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District and School Tools
Policies and Practices Assessment
http://www.cde.state.co.us/dropoutprevention/cgp_policiespract
icesreview
Best Practices Guide for School and District Leaders
http://www.cde.state.co.us/dropoutprevention/bestpractices/ind
ex
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Intervention and Support
 Community Engagement
 Family Involvement
 Transition Programs
 Multiple Pathways to Graduation
 Reengagement of Out-of-School Youth
 Enhanced Counseling and Mentoring
 Credit Recovery Options
Statewide Projects:
• Credit Recovery Project with
iNACOL
• Student Transitions Pilot
Project
• Regional Reengagement
Infrastructures
• Alternative Education
Supports
• Alternative Education
School Counseling Supports
District and School Tools and Resources:
• ICAP Implementation Support with Colorado Community College System
• Alternative Education Supports
•23 Alternative Education School Counseling Supports
Student Engagement
What is Student Engagement?
 Colorado statute defines student engagement as: “a student's
sense of belonging, safety, and involvement in school that
leads to academic achievement, regular school attendance,
and graduation,” (CRS 22-14-102(13)).
 Student engagement is visible in the quality of students’
interactions with peers and adults as they engage in learning
activities and academic tasks.
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Three Dimensions
of Student Engagement
 Behavioral – involvement in academic, social, and extracurricular
activities (positive conduct, absence of disruptive behavior,
participation in learning tasks)
 Emotional – positive and negative reactions to teachers, classmates
and school/school activities (sense of belonging, enjoyment or
attachment to school)
 Cognitive – mental efforts directed toward learning, use of self-
regulated strategies to learn and master complex concepts and
difficult skills (investment in learning, perseverance in the face of
challenge)
(Fredricks, Blumenfeld, and Paris, 2004, p. 60)
Note: Cognitive Engagement can be considered evidence of student
motivation for learning.
Related Concepts
Why does student engagement matter?
 Students must engage for learning to occur.
 Student engagement correlates with measures of student
learning/performance.
 Student disengagement has been directly linked to student
decisions to drop-out of school.
 Student engagement is something educators and schools can
influence.
Visual Representation
WHY: External Factors
Student
Response: Referral
& Partnerships
Response:
Referral (MTSS
tiered approach)
Emotional
Engagement
WHY:
Internal
Factors
Behavioral
Engagement
Cognitive
Engagement
UIP Root Cause(s)
Measure/
Indicators
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Student Engagement:
ICAP Implementation
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 http://www.coloradostateplan.com/ICAP.htm
Student Engagement: Alternative
Education
 http://www.cde.state.co.us/dropoutprevention/alternativeeduc
ation
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Student Engagement:
Migrant Education Program
 The MEP supports students to reach high standards of academic
achievement and is the level of interstate cooperation through the
transfer of migrant students' education and health records. This high
priority activity helps assure that migrant students are placed
appropriately when they enroll in a new school.
 The dropout rate among migrant students is high because of the
frustration and hopelessness these students encounter when
schools are not able to meet their academic needs.
 RESOURCES! http://www.cde.state.co.us/cde_english/elau_migrant
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What does this mean to you?
 What? Equity and Access
 Why students leave school before graduation
 Colorado’s Dropout Prevention Framework, Tools and Resources
 Understanding Student Engagement, Tools and Resources
 So what?
 What information should you take back to your colleagues?
 Why does this information matter, especially in your school and/or
district context?
 Now what?
 What are the next 2-3 things you would propose that your school
32
and/or district do to support struggling students based on today’s
presentation?
Thank you!
Cori Canty
Dropout Prevention
& Engagement
(303) 866-2266
canty_c@cde.state.co.us