Most education experts agree that the wide variations in reported rates have to do with the way the calculations are made from raw data rather than with different ways of reporting of the data. Most agree that there is no foolproof method of calculating the dropout rate in urban systems, in which students move from school to school frequently.
The number of students in Baltimore has fallen as some leave for private, parochial and suburban school systems. Recordkeeping in those cases is not foolproof, so students might graduate from a county school but be listed as dropouts from city schools. In addition, many city students graduate in five years, not four, but could be counted as dropouts.
States around the nation have agreed to begin tracking students more closely by giving each student an identification number, which will allow them to track every student by 2011.
