*With the development of a consistent and accurate student data base over the course of the past two school years, the district has achieved much greater reliability in its reports of data such as dropout rates. At the same time, because of the greater systemic reliability and the improved tracking of individual students, there is a noted leap in the high school dropout rate. The increase is instructive: the high school has begun to intensify efforts to improve the real dropout rate while simultaneously ensuring that students wishing to take their education seriously have every opportunity to do so. If last year's less accurate method of calculating the dropout rate was used to calculate this year's rate, the numbers would actually show a decline in the dropout rate from last year to this year.

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