Dropout rate 20% in state
By Mercury News and Reporter staff
Posted: 05/13/2009
Nearly 1 in 5 of California's 6.3 million students drop out of high school, according to statistics released Tuesday by the California Department of Education.
The grim news, based on a relatively new, statewide data system that tracks individual students throughout their education careers, shows that in 2007-2008 only 68.1 percent of students graduated from high school, while 20.1 percent, or 1 in 5, dropped out.
The remaining 11.8 percent of students, such as those who failed to complete high school but earned a GED, fall into a third category known as "completers," or students who received some kind of certificate of attendance in lieu of a high school diploma.
"The dropout rate in California is unacceptably high," said state schools chief Jack O'Connell in a conference call. "And it's alarmingly high among African American and Hispanic students."
For black students, the dropout rate is 34.7 percent. Latinos, who make up nearly half of California's public school students, have a dropout rate of 25.5 percent. Statewide, white students have a 12.2 percent dropout rate, while Asians have an 8.4 percent rate.
In Solano County, the picture was no better: 21.7 percent of students overall dropped out, while some 74.5 percent graduated.
The dropout rate is an estimate of the percent of students who would drop out in a four-year period based on data collected for a single year.
At the district level, Vallejo showed the worst numbers with a 34.8 percent drop out rate for all students -- including 42.5 percent of black students and 40.7 percent of Hispanic students.
In Northern Solano County, Dixon Unified showed the highest percentage dropout rate for all students at 15.5 percent, though that translates into only slightly more than 50 dropouts.
Dixon's Senior Director of Education Services Jesus Contreras said every year he's curious how the state will come up with the new numbers for drop out rates.
"It's always interesting," he said. "We really have to look at how they compute it every year."
Contreras believes that one dropout student is too many, but added that the district's dropout rate can make the school look horribly bad since it is smaller.
He noted that Dixon High School is still accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, which takes the dropout rate into consideration when evaluating schools.
Contreras contributes the repeated accreditation to the district's sound instructional program, counselors that work with each student and extra academic programs before and after school.
"Our goal is to make sure the students are successful," he said.
In Fairfield-Suisun Unified, there were more than 240 dropouts, which resulted in a 14.9 percent overall dropout rate.
In Vacaville Unified, the overall dropout rate was 14.3 percent.
Travis Unified showed the smallest percentage of dropouts at 6.6 percent.
Travis also reported the highest percentage of graduates at 94.2 percent. Second was Benicia Unified with 87.8 percent followed by Vacaville with 83.4 percent; Fairfield-Suisun with 81.5 percent, Dixon with 73.8 percent and Vallejo with 61.5 percent.
The true extent of California's dropout crisis has long been a politically charged guessing game.
For years, schools complained that there was no way to accurately determine if a student dropped out of school or simply moved out of state, out of the country or transferred to another out-of-town school. Critics charged that schools routinely low-balled their dropout figures by claiming that students had transferred.
The new system assigns each California student a unique 10-digit "student identifier" number that makes tracking them much easier.
To download state, county, district, and school-level dropout data, visit the Department of Education's DataQuest Web site at: http://dq.cde.ca.gov/dataquest/.
Mercury News writer Dana Hull contributed to this report.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Monday, May 11, 2009
Benicia's ozone one of the worst
Benicia's ozone one of the worst
By Tony Burchyns/ Times-Herald, Vallejo
Posted: 05/08/2009
A study tied to the Valero refinery in Benicia revealed that Benicia had the fourth worst ozone in the Bay Area in '08. (Reporter file)
An air-quality study tied to the Valero refinery has revealed that Benicia was fourth worst in the Bay Area for ozone levels in 2008, according to results made public this week.
But even though the refinery daily emits ozone precursor gases, which combine with heat and sunlight to form ozone in the atmosphere, its exact contribution to ozone creation is unknown, officials said.
"It is nearly impossible to determine on any given day what amount of ozone was formed due to emissions from a particular industry," said Eric Stevenson, an air-monitoring manager for the Bay Area Air Quality Management District.
Stevenson said some ozone precursor gases are produced locally, mainly by auto traffic, Valero and the Benicia port. But some drift in from other areas and get trapped in Benicia's micro climate, he said.
According to the report from the air quality management district, Benicia -- at a high of 75 parts per billion -- was the fourth worst ozone offender in the Bay Area, right behind Bethel Island, Livermore and Concord.
The ranking was based on yearly averages from 23 Bay Area monitoring stations.
The health effects of ozone exposure include respiratory damage and heightened sensitivity to allergens.
Benicia's ozone levels still met national standards for both 2007 and 2008, Stevenson said.
The results were shared Wednesday night at the Valero Benicia Refinery Community Advisory Panel meeting at the Benicia Public Library.
Among those in attendance was refinery vice president and general manager Doug Comeau.
Although Comeau did not speak about the ozone data, he did apologize publicly for last month's release of hydrogen sulfide at the refinery. The release produced a pungent "rotten egg" smell that could be detected as far away as Marin County.
Valero could be forced to pay a public nuisance fine in excess of $10,000, depending on the conclusion of an ongoing investigation into the cause of the incident, air district officials said this week.
Officials at the meeting also discussed creating a community air-monitoring system similar to one established in Rodeo in the 1990s.
The system would differ from the air district's measurements by detecting and reporting short-term air-pollution events on a local level, in real time on the Internet, said Don Gamiles, a principal at Argos Scientific, who spoke at the meeting.
"The air district does measurements based on state and fed standards," Gamiles said. "By definition, a community monitoring system is a different beast."
The 18-month air district study, partly funded by Valero under an agreement with the community, concluded in December.
There is no ongoing, independent air-monitoring in Benicia, but Valero is working toward installing air-monitoring equipment, purchased from Argos in 2005, on Tennys Drive near East Second Street. The station is expected to be operating within two months.
Gamiles also discussed the possibility of installing what he called a "fence-line system," which, using light beams, would analyze air quality at the edge of the refinery. The system, which his company sells, would cost about $35,000 to install, he said after the meeting.
Rodeo, which borders the ConocoPhillips refinery, has used a fence-line air-monitoring system for more than a decade.
By Tony Burchyns/ Times-Herald, Vallejo
Posted: 05/08/2009
A study tied to the Valero refinery in Benicia revealed that Benicia had the fourth worst ozone in the Bay Area in '08. (Reporter file)
An air-quality study tied to the Valero refinery has revealed that Benicia was fourth worst in the Bay Area for ozone levels in 2008, according to results made public this week.
But even though the refinery daily emits ozone precursor gases, which combine with heat and sunlight to form ozone in the atmosphere, its exact contribution to ozone creation is unknown, officials said.
"It is nearly impossible to determine on any given day what amount of ozone was formed due to emissions from a particular industry," said Eric Stevenson, an air-monitoring manager for the Bay Area Air Quality Management District.
Stevenson said some ozone precursor gases are produced locally, mainly by auto traffic, Valero and the Benicia port. But some drift in from other areas and get trapped in Benicia's micro climate, he said.
According to the report from the air quality management district, Benicia -- at a high of 75 parts per billion -- was the fourth worst ozone offender in the Bay Area, right behind Bethel Island, Livermore and Concord.
The ranking was based on yearly averages from 23 Bay Area monitoring stations.
The health effects of ozone exposure include respiratory damage and heightened sensitivity to allergens.
Benicia's ozone levels still met national standards for both 2007 and 2008, Stevenson said.
The results were shared Wednesday night at the Valero Benicia Refinery Community Advisory Panel meeting at the Benicia Public Library.
Among those in attendance was refinery vice president and general manager Doug Comeau.
Although Comeau did not speak about the ozone data, he did apologize publicly for last month's release of hydrogen sulfide at the refinery. The release produced a pungent "rotten egg" smell that could be detected as far away as Marin County.
Valero could be forced to pay a public nuisance fine in excess of $10,000, depending on the conclusion of an ongoing investigation into the cause of the incident, air district officials said this week.
Officials at the meeting also discussed creating a community air-monitoring system similar to one established in Rodeo in the 1990s.
The system would differ from the air district's measurements by detecting and reporting short-term air-pollution events on a local level, in real time on the Internet, said Don Gamiles, a principal at Argos Scientific, who spoke at the meeting.
"The air district does measurements based on state and fed standards," Gamiles said. "By definition, a community monitoring system is a different beast."
The 18-month air district study, partly funded by Valero under an agreement with the community, concluded in December.
There is no ongoing, independent air-monitoring in Benicia, but Valero is working toward installing air-monitoring equipment, purchased from Argos in 2005, on Tennys Drive near East Second Street. The station is expected to be operating within two months.
Gamiles also discussed the possibility of installing what he called a "fence-line system," which, using light beams, would analyze air quality at the edge of the refinery. The system, which his company sells, would cost about $35,000 to install, he said after the meeting.
Rodeo, which borders the ConocoPhillips refinery, has used a fence-line air-monitoring system for more than a decade.
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