Officials say continued improvement and better methods of compiling data are needed.
The department computed dropout rates by county, district and school as well as statewide. Donna Rothenbaum, a consultant in the department's demographics office, said it is impossible to compute accurate graduation rates for individual schools, districts or counties. Consider Locke High School in Los Angeles, which enrolled 687 students in the ninth grade in 1996. You will not be charged to look for stories, only to retrieve one.