This is a direct result of illegal immigration.


More than 17,000 eighth graders in California--3.5 percent of the entire group--dropped out of school last year.

The state's Department of Education says it will begin counting students who drop out in middle school or who never show up for 9th grade in the state's official dropout rate. According to Alan Bonsteel, the president of California Parents for Educational Choice, that will make California the first state in the country to publish its middle school dropout problem.

About 18 percent of the class of 2010 dropped out from high school altogether, the state says.

As the Associated Press reported last month, federal education officials are requiring states to move to a uniform way to measure graduation rates, which education experts have long suspected are greatly inflated. Under the new measurement system, some states could see their graduation rates--which hover at about 75 percent nationally by the DOE's calculation--drop by as many as 20 points.

"Dropout stats convert to prison stats," Supt. of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson told the Los Angeles Times. "Clearly, we need to invest more in programs designed to keep elementary and middle school students in school," he added in a statement.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/cal ... 47983.html