As the nation’s children reach the halfway point of their first full year of post-pandemic school, concerns have been raised about the effects of remote teaching during the 2020-21 school year. Although the first release of dropout data during the pandemic won’t be released until March 2022, a Social Explorer analysis of 2015-19 American Community Survey data finds most of the nation’s 20 largest school districts outperformed the national 3.8 percent dropout average.

Among the five largest school districts, only the Dade County (Florida) school district had a higher-than-average dropout rate of 4 percent). New York (3.4 percent), Los Angeles (3.7 percent), Puerto Rico (3.5 percent), and Chicago (3.7 percent) all did better than the national figure. The San Diego City Unified School District was the best big-city performer; only 1.9% of its 16- to 19-year-old population wasn’t attending school. Among the 10,898 districts tallied by the Census Bureau, 3,030 reported no dropouts; the largest district with no dropouts was Conejo Valley Unified School District in California. None of its 7,091 children weren’t attending school.

Use Social Explorer’s dynamic and easy-to-use website for mapping and reporting tools that will show how your  school district fared in the runup to the COVID-19 pandemic that has cast so much uncertainty about the future of education in the United States.

School Dropout Rate, 2019. Click here to explore further.

Author: Frank Bass