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Abstract

Policy makers and educators alike have been concerned with completion and dropout rates associated with the education process in America for more than two decades. Levine and McLaughlin stated: “The need for valid dropout statistics is widely accepted. Local and State Agencies are continually asked for information on dropout rates; and they have frequently been embarrassed or harmed by the lack of uniformity of dropout definitions” [1, p. 8]. This deficiency is often due to an ineffective method of properly cataloging student exits and tracking student movements across time and distance. The purpose of this paper is to describe a method for tracking student data across years. Data are presented to show the impact of system changes on longitudinal reporting of dropout information.

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A Statewide Dropout Tracking System

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